This weekend, Professor Drulák was teaching at the Jungmann National Academy. The main topic was media manipulation, but he also made a lot of clever remarks on more or less related topics.
Particularly valuable for me was the reminder that the deep state is only defeated by the competing deep state. At least, that has been the case so far. An informal network of people who know each other, share certain views, and quietly push them together can be eliminated by the winner bringing in their own people to replace them, who form another informal network. Erdogan has succeeded in ‘cleansing’ the Turkish administration and security forces of the secular deep state and replacing them with an Islamist network. Orban has gradually replaced the liberal deep state with a nationalist deep state. And we can expect something similar in the US.
So, in terms of the further development of power, it is absolutely crucial whether there is a competing group of people with sufficient skills that you can bring in and fill key positions in the administration, security and media with them.
Of course, it would be sensational if the whole system were to collapse and be replaced by a world without mafias. But the best we can realistically hope for now is that the currently ruling bunch of unscrupulous people will be replaced by another bunch of unscrupulous people whose interests are aligned with those of normal people.