White House senior policy adviser Stephen Miller speaks during the daily briefing at the White House in Washington, Wednesday, Aug. 2, 2017. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh)

Two thousand years ago, Cicero said that a nation can survives its fools, and even the ambitious, but it cannot survive treason from within.

In a recent interview with the Washington Examiner’s Paul Bedard, Stephen Miller, President Trump’s Senior Policy Adviser, recently uttered similar words. Miller said that “anonymous efforts by anti-Trump federal bureaucrats to thwart the White House agenda through leaks and complaints to friendly reporters and congressional allies are a mortal threat to the American system of government.”

Miller explained:

It is best understood as career federal employees that believe they are under no obligation to honor, respect, or abide by the results of a democratic election. Their view is, ‘If I agree with what voters choose, then I’ll do what they choose. If I disagree with what voters choose, then I won’t, and I’ll continue doing my own thing. So basically it’s heads I win, tails you lose.

If you elect Hillary Clinton, then I’ll implement all of her policies very faithfully, and if I see massive evidence of corruption on Hillary Clinton’s part, then I’ll keep it all a secret. If you elect a candidate I disagree with, then I’ll lie, I’ll leak, I’ll cheat, I’ll smear, I’ll attack, I’ll persecute, and I will refuse to implement, and I will obstruct at every single step of the way.

We’ve made clear that your leaks will backfire and your sabotage will fail, and we’ll simply implement the policy doubly. Not only will you not change the outcome, but the more that you try to leak and disrupt, the more determined the president will be in his course to accomplish that which he was sent here to do.

The same people who made wrong judgment calls in Iraq, with respect to strategy in Afghanistan, Libya, Egypt, too … the people who made all these decisions now are so utterly convinced that they alone know what the right policy is.

Never has someone occupied the Oval Office who is more undeterred and undaunted in executing the task that he was brought here and has pledged to execute.

A lot of us thought, if you go back many years before Donald Trump ever declared for president, we might never live to see the day when somebody would have the audacity to promise to fundamentally change a broken status quo then get to Washington and proceed to execute on every single thing that he promised to do no matter what was thrown his way. It is truly a miracle to behold.

The most obvious recent example of this has been played out on center stage by the permanent bureaucrats of the State Department, most of whom despise Trump. The majority of them supported Hillary Clinton. Many (if not most) disapprove of Trump’s policies and some have actively worked against his agenda.

They forgot what they were hired for. I imagine that happens after spending decades in government service. Needless to say, it shouldn’t matter if they agree or disagree with any particular administration’s policy. They are there to implement the policies.

The first act of vengeance by the diplomatic community against the President occurred shortly after he had been inaugurated. Trump signed an executive order called “Protecting the Nation from Foreign Terrorist Entry into the United States,” better known as the muslim travel ban which most liberals objected to. 1,000 U.S. diplomats signed a dissent cable opposing the order. Acting Attorney General Sally Yates took it a step further, and refused to defend it. Trump immediately fired her, as he should have. And, unsurprisingly, DOJ official Andrew Weissmann of Special Counsel fame, sent Yates an email congratulating her for resisting the order.

Last weekend, Politico published an article entitled “The Revenge of the State Department,” which was, as you would expect, sympathetic to the diplomatic corps. It begins, “They’ve been derided as a “deep state,” slurred as “Obama holdovers,” threatened with draconian budget cuts and told President Donald Trump doesn’t even need them. Now, America’s diplomats are taking their revenge.”

The author believes they are perfectly justified in their behavior. In fact, these people are being praised by their State Department colleagues and “their allies in the broader foreign policy community are quietly hailing them as heroes.”

A Former U.S. ambassador spoke to Politico and said, “People are fed up. There’s a deep well of resentment that’s just bubbled toward the top.”

These diplomats clearly disagree with everything this President stands for and they disapprove of the changes his administration has made at the State Department. Former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, Marie Yovanovitch, is resentful that she was recalled two months early from her post in Kiev. And these are now the “witnesses” testifying in the Democrats’ circus which they call the impeachment inquiry.

How long can any government, or company or even any family, survive this kind of defiance? It’s remarkable that the President has been able to withstand the constant onslaught of attacks. That he’s been able to accomplish anything is miraculous.

The State Department is just one agency in a large, swollen government that Trump will likely trim if he wins a second term. He should try to push through term limits for both lawmakers and non-elected officials as well. He needs to bust up the deep state.

Stephen Miller is spot on when he says that permanent bureaucracy is a mortal threat to America.

Cicero knew what he was talking about 2,000 years ago.