American Exception: Empire and the Deep State, by Aaron Good
Review by Dave Gamrath
One-liner: In his book American Exception: Empire and the Deep State, author Aaron Good asserts America is an “exceptionist deep state,” dominated by a security apparatus that rarely behaves legally, and is run by an antidemocratic “overworld” that includes pretty much every American leader of the past century.
Book Review:
Throughout Aaron Good’s book American Exception: Empire and the Deep State, Good argues that America is a very undemocratic place, run by power-hungry unelected leaders. In doing so, Good uses expressions likely new to the reader, such as “exceptionist deep state,” the “overworld,” the “tripartite state,” and more. Trying to understand Good’s argument takes defining a few of these terms.
In the book, Good provides multiple definitions of “deep state.” The deep state derives its power outside of the Constitution. The deep state is “an obscured, dominant, supranational source of antidemocratic power.” It includes parts of government, as well as top-level finance and industry, and is more powerful than the elected, recognized public state. Good claims that deep state leaders are the true governors of America.
Good goes further, writing that America is actually an “exceptionist deep state.” Exceptionism, as used in the book, is defined as “the institutionalized suspension of legal restraints” and “abrogation of the rule of law.” Good writes that America exists in a “permanent state of exception,” where our “national security state” works outside the law towards subverting “US democracy and reproducing US predominance and imperial hegemony over the global capitalist system.”
Good explains that the most powerful members of the deep state make up the “overworld” of corporate wealth. The “overworld of corporate wealth has created and altered institutions to most effectively manage international and domestic politics to the effect that empire and hegemony – and thus exceptionism – are sacrosanct imperatives.” So, what has the overworld done? Per Good, they created the CIA, forced the US into World War II so that they could make money on weaponry, and were behind America’s use of atomic weapons on Japan. The overworld invented the Soviet Union as America’s enemy. They pushed America into war in Korea. They structured the Watergate break-in to purposely fail, to bring President Nixon down. They regularly deal in illegal drugs to raise funds for operations, work with the underworld, and use sexual blackmail for political purposes. And, of course, they are behind multiple murders and assassinations.
Good asserts that since the 1940s, deep state members included presidents Truman, Eisenhower, Johnson, Nixon, Carter, Ford, Reagan, Clinton, Bush, Obama and Trump. The only exception was John Kennedy, who, per Good, was killed by the deep state operatives for trying to limit the deep state and get the US out of Vietnam. Good dedicates many pages to JFK’s assassination, which is likely why movie Director Oliver Stone, who directed the 1991 movie about JFK’s assassination, gives Good a glowing front cover review. The deep state pushed Jimmy Carter to presidential victory in 1976, “only to destroy his administration” in favor of Reagan in 1980. Good writes that with Reagan’s election, the “public state” was completely vanquished, and has not returned. Good lists many other members of the deep state, some of which were a bit surprising, such as the liberal Ford Foundation and the Washington Post.
Good further defines America as an “exceptionist tripartite state” comprised of three elements – the public (democratic) state, the security state and the deep state. Good writes extensively about our “authoritarian security state.” Good explains that our security state was “created by elites with deep connections to the overworld of private wealth,” and includes the Pentagon, CIA, and FBI, all of which conduct illegal activities “several hundred times every day.” That’s where Good gets the title of his book, American Exception. It’s that our ruler state is exempted from the rule of law. Per Good, illegal actions of our security state include not only the assassination of JFK, but also of Martin Luther King and Bobby Kennedy. They faked the Gulf of Tonkin incident that formally launched the Vietnam war. They regularly interfere in political campaigns. They were behind the September 11th attacks, as well as the stolen presidential elections of 2000 and 2004. Per Good, it goes on. And on…
Good writes that this illegal governing structure’s main goal is American pursuit of hegemony/dominance over the world, and to achieve this, we must constantly break the rule of law, both domestic and international. As a result, we have seen “democratic decay,” including a rise in inequality, and the decline of American nationalism, which Good defines as “the pursuit of policies which strengthen and enrich the country’s collective economy and population.”
So, what advice does Good provide to fix this mess? Honestly, not much. He closes with some obvious stuff, such as invest in education! Pursue cleaner energy! Stop nuclear proliferation! Address income inequality! Reform the US electoral process! Reform drug laws! Reform state secrecy! And even, wait for it, follow China’s lead on economics! Hmmm… How does that work?
Good has a PhD in Political Science, and writes that his book “is an attempt to distill what my dissertation sought to address.” That’s what America Exception reads like: a way-too-long school report written by a student trying to impress his professors with seemingly endless, hard-to-read details. Simply put, American Exception is poorly written and edited.
I can sum up Good’s book in my own words as basically stating “America is run by a bunch of rich assholes seeking even greater wealth and power, and they’re willing to trample on the rest of us to get it.” Well, duh. One could more effectively make this argument by avoiding harping on dozens of poorly explained conspiracy theories. I see American Exception actually as a dangerous book, in that it’s so hard to read, that it’s likely to turn readers against the basic reasonable argument Good is trying to make, that American democracy is decaying. Finally, making the argument that Democrats are every bit as bad as Republicans got us George W Bush (and the Iraq and Afghanistan wars) and Donald Trump. Claiming our system, and pretty much every one of our leaders, are corrupt, and raging against them, without providing a workable alternative plan, just works to kill citizens’ willingness to fight for a better world. I suggest you skip this book in favor of other works exploring the decline of American democracy.
Reviewer Opinion: Worst book I’ve read in quite a while
Reviewer Rating of Book: Thumb down