the.com/shadow government
The people who supposedly run things when you don't like who got elected.
means A hidden network of officials, insiders, or power brokers believed to wield real control behind the visible, elected government.
from The phrase fuses two old English words — 'shadow,' long used to mean an imitation or hidden double of something real, and 'government,' from Latin gubernare, to steer or govern. The compound surfaces in 20th-century political writing, first in a fairly technical sense (a 'shadow cabinet' — the opposition party's ready-made alternate government, still used that way in UK politics today), then drifting into darker conspiratorial use to mean secret, unelected puppeteers pulling strings behind the official one.
- origin
- Term predates conspiracy use, meant literal backup cabinet
- real version
- UK has one, it is just the opposition party
- popularity
- Spikes every time your side loses an election
- irony
- If it ran everything, it would be called the government