The New York Times unleashed a firestorm by publishing an anonymously written op-ed from someone purporting to be a "senior US Administration official" and who writes of a secret cabal within the US government that conspires to thwart President Trump's agenda.

Presented as a heroic "resistance" from within, many see it as the work of a dangerous and undemocratic "deep state."

As Ron Paul and Daniel Mcadams discuss below, is the "steady state," as the NYT anonymous writer terms it, really another word for the "deep state"?

Peter van Buren sums the situation up perfectly: The op-ed does indeed signal a crisis, but not a Constitutional one. It is a crisis of collusion, among journalists turned to the task of removing a president via what some would call a soft coup.

Because it’s either that, or we’re meant as a nation to believe an election should be overturned two years after the fact based on a vaguely-sourced tell-all book and an anonymous op-ed...