This is insane, of course, and it also doesn’t really mean anything. If you were to burst into Gaetz’s office right now and ask him to stop sniffing glue long enough to explain to you exactly what the “deep state” is, you’d probably get the world’s most vacant stare in return. The same thing would probably happen if you ran up to Jordan and asked him to say what exactly is “fake news” about journalists doing standard reporting:

The derangement of thoughts such as these will not prevent them from achieving their goal of discrediting victims of abuse. There’s no need to ever actually engage with any issue in anything approaching a sane manner anymore. You can just say shit. The president of the United States is out there constantly babbling about “fake news” and the “deep state,” and so all you have to do ride on the back of his political success is scream “fake news” and “deep state” as often as possible. In a year, when Trump’s mind has degenerated to the point that he is blaming the “very unfair hog farmers” for all of his problems, there will be some congressman taking cues and dismissing someone who has credibly accused him of a crime as an “agent of the hog lobby.”

It’s been a little over a week since Jordan was first linked to the abuse scandal at Ohio State. Since then, the wrestlers who have come forward have been maligned by Jordan and his colleagues as liars, paid operatives in a left-wing conspiracy, and now agents of the deep state. By next week they’ll be crisis actors. Nobody will ever face any real consequences for this.