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With the coal-in-the-stocking tax bill the Republican Congress and President Scrooge McTrump hung on Americans’ mantle the week before Christmas, governance-challenged Republicans finally got the legislative win they so desperately sought. Imagine that: A GOP Congress passing laws and making changes in policy. The inconvenient fact of the law’s unpopularity with the public did not faze the Trump-McConnell-Ryan triumvirate and the faithful in Congress. This was political buggery, and they blithely ignored the screams of the people who were bending over to grab their ankles.

One group who drew more than voyeuristic pleasure from this was the donor class, the ultra-wealthy who fund Republican campaigns. The amounts they pour into electoral politics and into lobbying is returned many times over when they get results like this. It is projected that, by 2027, 83 percent of the law’s 1.5 trillion dollar tax savings will go to the wealthiest one-percent. That is likely a better return than they would earn investing in a hedge fund.

None of this is news. The Kochs, the Mercers, and Sheldon Adelson have become familiar names. People who follow politics know what a “Super PAC” is. Some are familiar with not-for-profit groups (usually referred as “501-C-3’s” after the applicable IRS rule)that are supposedly limited to issue advocacy and prohibited from contributing directly to political campaigns. In reality they seem unconstrained by this restriction. More troubling, these groups take unlimited, anonymous contributions from individuals and corporations- so-called “dark money”- making it impossible to know who is pouring what amount of money into their activities. With this flood of cash sloshing around our politicians, it is no surprise that those who spend more than a term or two in the House, or serve in the Senate, leave much wealthier than when they entered. There is consequently little motivation for Congress to change the status quo. In effect, our elected officials are hirelings of the rich.

Electoral politics and traditional lobbying aside, the plutocratic class has other ways to ensure government does their bidding. They underwrite ad campaigns to advocate for particular positions*, use social media to implant their ideas into our consciousness, and, via outright ownership of media outlets (Murdoch’s News Corp., the Mercer’s support of Breitbart, Sinclair’s network of television and radio stations), promote their own “alternate facts”. For decades, they funded conservative-leaning think tanks- The Cato Institute, the Heritage Foundation, the American Enterprise Institute are examples- to provide an intellectual underpinning for conservative and libertarian policies. (The Left has its counterparts in thinks tanks such as The Brookings Institute and the Center for American Progress.) Conservatives have gone beyond investing in research and policy development by adding political advocacy groups such as Americans For Prosperity, Citizens United and FreedomWorks as conduits to funnel money into issue-oriented campaigns. Some of these groups involve themselves in the sausage-making of policy: The Federalist Society, for instance, provided the list of candidates for Federal judgeships from which Trump chooses his nominees. All these augment traditional lobbying groups to exert constant pressure on government.

Then there are layers of indoctrination funded by the rich operating mostly out of sight of the public. Take, for example, Turning Point USA, a conservative nonprofit. As Jane Mayer recently reported in The New Yorker, “based outside of Chicago, Turning Point’s aim is to foment a political revolution on America’s college campuses, in part by funnelling money into student government elections across the country to elect right-leaning candidates. But it is secretive about its funding and its donors, raising the prospect that “dark money” may now be shaping not just state and federal races but ones on campus.”

The Kochs, with decades of experience, have developed a formidable political influence operation. Through their network of rich donors, they have worked to convert state governments into instruments of their policy vision. One of facilitating groups is ALEC (the American Legislative Exchange Council), ostensibly a not-for-profit whose mission is to bring together private sector interests with state legislatures to develop business-friendly policies. In effect, however, it is a stealth lobbying shop. Among it activities is developing “model legislation” that member legislators can bring back to their respective states. Some of these proposals, like the “stand your ground” gun laws and voter ID requirements, have little relation to a business agenda.

These efforts- and we might guess this only scratches the surface of the conservative program- go beyond the traditional influence of lobbying and campaign contributions. By working within the framework of our democratic republic, they represent an ongoing effort to gain control of government at all levels: controlling state legislatures and Congress, electing conservative governors and, after eight years of Barack Obama, a Republican President. The naming of young, conservative judges to the Federal bench will have an influence for decades. In the states where conservatives have taken control, they have acted to suppress the vote to improve their chances for retaining power.

There s more. Next on their agenda is a call for a convention to amend the Constitution. In case you lost track, the last convention was the original, in 1787. Aside from the requirement that two-thirds of the states must petition Congress to convene such a gathering, the Constitution is vague on what the actual process would be. While the groups organizing this effort say the goal is to pass a Balanced Budget Amendment, conspiracy-minded progressives say the real target is the social welfare apparatus of the Federal government- Medicaid, Medicare and Social Security. Under the guise of libertarianism, the goal would seem to be the repeal of the New Deal and Great Society programs. The current dysfunction in Washington may not be as problematic for those seeking to reduce the size of government as might be assumed: if people become disenchanted and lose faith in government, they will not object when it is, in the words of Grover Norquist, shrunk “down to the size where we can drown it in the bathtub”.

Pundists such Trump cheerleader Sean Hannity like to stir up right-wing paranoia with dire warnings of a “deep state” conspiracy, a cabal of the intelligence community, the federal bureaucracy and other entrenched Establishment interests to subvert the Trump Administration. Ironic, because the real threat to our Republic is the effort of a wealthy elite to reshape its democratic framework into a plutocracy. It is not a Deep State conspiracy that should be concerning, but the actions of those forces streaming just below the surface, a Shallow State.

*The Kochs’ political network intends to spend millions promoting the unpopular new tax law. http://bzfd.it/2zDCdfh