Interesting article. Some of the actions he attributes to the bureaucratic 'deep state' were actually taken by elected officials, governors especially.

But much of what he describes is obviously happening. I think this is why education (or actually indoctrination) is so important to those with the levers of power. For each elected official, there are hundreds (thousands?) of nameless, faceless, puppets that implement daily decisions on what permits go ahead, which ones get put on the back burner, or get lost. When they have all been trained with the same mindset, they can go about their daily tasks, eliminating freedoms in a small, 'boil the frog' way. It becomes automatic, mindless. No individual is responsible for the destruction, but the combined efforts of all these 'Winston Smiths' is very dangerous indeed.