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It's not far-fetched to suggest there is a "deep state" in Washington. Former President Dwight D. Eisenhower looked at the nexus of the Pentagon and arms manufacturers and coined the phrase the "military-industrial complex." Today's observers also point to the collusion of corporate interests and D.C. power brokers as the true guiding hand in American politics.

The Trump White House already seems to be at war with what it would say is the "deep state:" thousands of federal government bureaucrats faced with the awkward reality of working for a president who campaigned loudly against Washington officialdom and promised to "drain the swamp" when in power. This week, almost 1,000 American diplomats signed a dissent memo against Trump's executive order on immigration, prompting White House press secretary Sean Spicer to icily declare that "career bureaucrats" can "either get with the program or they can go." And Trump's public spat with Acting Attorney General Sally Yates, an Obama appointee who sought to defy his immigration order, ended with him firing Yates in an angry, chilling memo that claimed she "betrayed the Department of Justice."

And here we begin to see how the age of social media resembles the pre-literate, oral world. Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat and other platforms are fostering an emerging linguistic economy that places a high premium on ideas that are pithy, clear, memorable and repeatable (that is to say, viral). Complicated, nuanced thoughts that require context don’t play very well on most social platforms, but a resonant hashtag can have extraordinary influence.