Steve Bannon on how war with Iran threatens the MAGA coalition

If you look at the three planks [of MAGA] - stop the forever wars, seal the border and deport the illegal alien invaders, and redo the commercial relationships in the world around trade deals and bring high value-added manufacturing jobs back here - they're [the Trump team] trying to shut all three down, but the one that they're obsessed with the most, which I find strange, is the forever wars.  They've got to be in the forever wars and in particular the Middle East.  And I'm a big supporter of Israel and I'm telling people, "hey, if we get sucked into this war which inexorably looks like it's going to happen on the combat side, it's not just going to blow up the coalition, it's also going to thwart what we're doing with the most important thing which is the deportation of the illegal alien invaders that are here.  If we don't do that, we don't have a country."  And just see right now that they're doubling and tripling down.

[...]

If we don't lance the bull over this, if you can't turn it around with Trump, the Trump team he has - people like you, myself; they're blessed to have these apparatuses.  If we can't do this now, it's not going to get done.  And so that's why, to me,... of everything we're doing: stopping the forever wars, redoing the commercial relationship with China to bring jobs back and sealing the border and sending home, deporting 10 million, which is going to be massive, almost like a civil war in these big cities, of all of those... to get our sovereignty back, the war we have to have now, the throwdown we have to have now is with the deep state.  We've looked away too often.  We're just kind of kicking the can down the road.  And if we can't do it now with Trump, it's not going to get done.

~ Steve Bannon, "Tucker and Steve Bannon Respond to Israel’s War on Iran and How It Could Destroy MAGA Forever," Tucker Carlson, 0:45 and 6:05 mark, June 16, 2025

Doug Casey on the Deep State (culture, not conspiracy)

The Deep State is destructive, but it’s great for the people in it. And, like any living organism, its prime directive is: Survive! It survives by indoctrinating the fiction that it’s both good and necessary. However, it’s a parasite that promotes the ridiculous notion that everyone can live at the expense of society.

Is it a conspiracy, headed by a man stroking a white cat? I think not. I find it’s hard enough to get a bunch of friends to agree on what movie to see, much less a bunch of power-hungry miscreants bent on running everyone’s lives. But, on the other hand, the top dogs all know each other, went to the same schools, belong to the same clubs, socialize, and, most important, have common interests, values, and philosophies.

~ Doug Casey, "The Deep State is Responsible for All Economic Turmoil," LewRockwell.com, June 23, 2020