Recently I’ve had several close brushes with oppression in the form of the Deep State!
In March, a friend and I ventured to Russell Cave National Monument in rural northern Alabama. This incredible site has been an intermittent home to Indigenous peoples since 6500 BCE, with artifacts spanning the Archaic, Woodland, and Mississippian periods. It’s one of the most complete archaeological records of ancient peoples in the South.
The site is maintained by the National Park Service, and on a chilly but clear morning, we met the “Deep State” in the form of Park Ranger “Mr. E.”
Mr. E is a young man, a few years out of college, an engineer by training, and one of only two rangers who staff the site, which is open 8–5, seven days a week. I asked him why, as an engineer, he chose this career path. He informed me that back in college, while working at a summer nerd camp (alas, the details escape me), he discovered he loved teaching groups of people—especially about arcane skills. Not surprisingly, then, his favorite part of the job is educating visitors to Russell Cave in outdoor demonstrations of ancient (i.e. Indigenous) skills such as archery and atlatl throwing (okay, that doesn’t sound right, but again, the details escape me) and explaining other ancient artifacts. He also enjoys leading tours of the site, which features a couple of nice interpretive trails.
Regrettably, due to staffing shortages, Mr. E rarely gets to do the cool things that prompted him to choose this gig. Instead, he’s usually doing what we found him doing—standing behind a cashier’s table selling National Park merch. That’s because, for most of his work week, he’s the sole worker on site (as he was that day), managing the temporary visitor center (basically a shed, because the Deep State is clever and enjoys cloaking its power in cramped utility structures) while the permanent center, which houses a historical treasure trove of artifacts, remains under repair. The center was originally set to reopen in January 2024, but the reopening has been delayed by budget constraints—until later this year (hopefully).
To top things off, the beautiful short wooden walkway to the cave has also fallen into disrepair, so we could only view the entrance from a distance and through some tree branches. (My photos? Ruined.) . Mr. E hopes the walkway will be repaired by fiscal 2027.
I am a through-and-through National Parks guy—I’m sorry, Deep State guy—and by the end of this summer, I should visit my 100th official National Park System site. I have to admit that my sense of foreboding about my future lost liberties was only reinforced a couple of weeks ago with further encounters with the Deep State in New York City. Freedom-fighting hero that I am, I took it upon myself to investigate and monitor evildoing at several Deep State outposts: Theodore Roosevelt Birthplace and Lower East Side Tenement Museum National Historic Sites; Castle Clinton, Stonewall, and African Burial Ground National Monuments; and Federal Hall National Memorial.
It was hard work, but someone had to do it. You’re welcome.
Some of these sites brazenly featured outwardly adequate staff (Lower East Side Tenement Museum), while others attempted to cloak their machinations by hiding their staff entirely—take, for example, Federal Hall. Federal Hall is the site—though not the original building—of the federal government’s first seat. It’s the place where President Washington took the oath of office. That beautiful building was replaced in the 19th century with a grand Greek Revival-style monument, complete with a huge dome and giant columns. It looks exactly as one (incorrectly) imagines our first Capitol building ought to have looked.
And the place is cavernous, as you can see by the photo I took, displayed at the top of this essay.
In addition to the rotunda (ground floor and elevated walkway), there’s a ground-floor museum, second-floor displays, and an empty, featureless basement that I wandered into–all the while wondering whether I was about to be snatched and thrown into jail for my sleuthing.
I had the run of the place. I encountered, oh, maybe six other tourists (mostly at a distance) over the course of an hour. I was thrilled to avoid the usual throngs of school-group field trips, but as my visit continued the isolation became more puzzling. I began to wonder—and then to worry—whether I literally had the run of the place! For my first twenty minutes, I encountered exactly zero Deep State employees.
Nada.
I began to sincerely contemplate whether I and the few other visitors had slipped in when the place was closed. Did they forget to lock the doors?
Or wait—am I supposed to be giving tours now? I know nothing about the architecture of this place. Why are they doing this to me? It was as if all my school-age nightmares of showing up to a final exam for a class I forgot to attend had suddenly merged with an unexpected civic duty.
Eventually, I encountered a single park ranger (I shall call him Mr. M, for his suspicious-looking mustache) who was shuttling between manning the sizable gift shop and talking to the lone (awkwardly trapped?) visitor in the museum across the hall. I also learned that another employee was ensconced in the basement, taking care of Deep State administrative matters.
I eventually struck up a conversation with Mr. M and asked a question to which I thought I knew the answer: Has Federal Hall suffered serious staffing cutbacks because of DOGE?
His answer surprised me. Mr. M literally shrugged and said, “Nah. This is normal. We’re always shorthanded. We have been for years.” I asked whether he was worried about further cuts, and he claimed the situation was out of his hands. Whatever his private thoughts, he was professional and nonpartisan. Typical Deep State subterfuge.
Okay, time to get boring:
Let me pause the silliness. I recognize that most institutions have budgetary fat to cut. Surely, it’s in the nature of priorities that all commitments are not equally valuable. The same holds true for governments as it does for private organizations. And I, along with other public-minded citizens, welcome constitutional and legal executive attempts to make our federal government more efficient—while maintaining the services our agencies are authorized to perform by law under Congress’s direction.
So I conclude with just two thoughts.
First, efficiency doesn’t simply mean “less.” And it certainly doesn’t mean “ineffective.” From what I could tell at both Russell Cave National Monument and Federal Hall National Memorial, their budgets are already threadbare. An understaffed site (both places) or a site in disrepair (e.g., the Russell Cave walkway) isn’t an efficient system serving the American public—it’s just a slowly corroding one.
Second, the widely held public conception of a bloated federal government rife with fraud, waste, and overreach is simplistic (read: false). Undoubtedly, there is fraud, waste and overreach; I’m not claiming there is none. Still, I have no reason to think that such waste remotely approaches the ginormous amounts commonly bandied about by, well, people who should know better. Whether or not Federal Hall should be a publicly funded memorial is a fair question. But the idea that as a federal institution it is inherently bloated and ripe for massive taxpayer savings? Also false.
These points of public confusion matter. They give rise to perennial frustration among citizens and, as we see in the case of DOGE, they invite tolerance for constitutionally questionable workarounds to the constitutionally prescribed manner of determining appropriations.
I cannot pretend to know either Mr. E or Mr. M well, but I’m persuaded that they’re competent public servants dedicated to administering their respective National Park sites and educating their visitors. Neither of them is trying to rob us of our liberties.
Let’s hope for better—and saner—days ahead for Russell Cave, Federal Hall, and other National Park sites.
But if sanity does not arrive, I’ll be sure to turn off the lights.
