On Sept. 14, The Atlantic ran a profile on Alexander Vindman. Vindman was one of the National Security Council officials who listened to President Trump’s July 25 call with Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky. Vindman “blew the whistle” and became the star witness in impeachment proceedings against the president.
The Atlantic article cast Vindman as an idealistic patriot. Vindman, who lists “Defender of the Constitution” on his Twitter bio, referenced his reverence for democratic ideals and the U.S. Constitution multiple times throughout the interview.
Leftists and militant Never-Trumpers throw two terms around as if they are sacred, but in practice trample all over the principles the words represent. One word is Constitution, the other is democracy. The left claims to champion democratic values ad nauseam, yet they have betrayed the most basic of those values in America—the primacy of the will of the people in the peaceful transition of power.
Subverting Elections Is Anti-Constitution
The United States of America elected Donald Trump in 2016, but the left and entrenched bureaucrats in D.C. refused to accept the new president — they refused to accept the country’s choice. What ensued was both a covert attempt at a coup and a public, frontal assault on Trump and his administration through an attempted impeachment.
The Russian collusion story was and is a hoax, and everyone knows it. If you are naïve, you should at least know the basic fact that there was no collusion, since Robert Mueller’s investigation spent millions in taxpayer dollars and several years investigating the claim only to formally conclude there was no collusion between Trump and the Russians.
If you are paying attention, though, you also now know that “Russian collusion” was concocted as the basis and cover for an attempted coup — a plot to frame and force from office the newly elected President Trump.
Vindman knows “Russian collusion” was an attempted coup, and so does The Atlantic. Because Mueller’s investigation concluded there was no collusion, and the attempt at impeachment was defeated, Vindman is now peddling what amounts to a “constructive collusion” narrative — Trump has hijacked America’s foreign policy to favor Putin.
The idea that Trump’s forceful and effective foreign policy has been in service to Russia is ludicrous. His record speaks for itself. But the underlying premise of Vindman’s silly allegation is deeply flawed and both contrary to the Constitution and democratic values.
Government by Bureaucracy Subverts the Constitution
Vindman wants to argue that foreign policy should be charted by “experts” within the bureaucracy, like himself, who study and determine the best course for America and the world. That flawed philosophy was on full display in Vindman and other civil servants’ testimonies during the impeachment hearings. When Vindman wrote that Trump’s call had undermined U.S. foreign policy, he meant Trump had undermined the preferred policy of unelected bureaucrats.
In contrast to his role in domestic matters, the president has “plenary and exclusive power . . . as the sole organ of the federal government in the field of international relations.” The Supreme Court examined the president’s supremacy in foreign affairs in United States v. Curtiss-Wright Export Corporation.
In that opinion, the court drew on constitutional principles and historic documents to reaffirm and emphasize that “[i]n this vast external realm, with its important, complicated, delicate and manifold problems, the President alone has the power to speak or listen as a representative of the nation.” In short, the president’s foreign policy stance is the official foreign policy stance of the United States.
Vindman’s opinion, as expressed in The Atlantic, that there are “guardrails” that define what is “acceptable” U.S. policy, is in direct contradiction to the president’s constitutional authority. Trump is empowered by virtue of his election to lead this nation as its chief executive, to alter and set foreign policy at will.
Voters Don’t Pick Bureaucrats to Rule Them
Vindman implies he reveres democratic norms, but the American people chose Trump to lead. Foreign policy requires both judgment and discretion, and when we vote for a president, we the people choose the American we want to exercise that judgment on our behalf.
If enough of America decides that Trump’s approach to foreign policy is poor, we have the opportunity to vote him out. None of us chose Vindman or his colleagues.
At its most basic, Vindman thinks bureaucrats have the right to substitute their judgment for that of the American people. This elitist and distinctly un-American attitude is shared by all the career officials who have been insubordinate or engaged in subterfuge to “resist” Trump’s administration.
The revolt we have seen across the agencies against Trump’s election and his administration has revealed a breathtaking arrogance. Entrenched career bureaucrats have been running the country for decades, and think it is their right to do so. These people sanctimoniously declare their loyalty to the Constitution and democratic values, yet they have respect for neither.
Their ideology lost in 2016. America deliberately chose a fresh, new path and elected Trump to command the executive branch and lead the nation, yet “non-partisan” bureaucrats and the left have been directly assaulting the will of the people and our constitutional system of self-government ever since.
To take back our country, we not only have to re-elect Trump, we have to root out the scores of bureaucrats who pay lip service to the Constitution and America’s respect for self-government, but secretly think their philosophy can supersede the Constitution and override the will of the people. We have to change the culture of the bureaucracy so the people staffing our agencies don’t think that they know better than everyone else how America should operate, or that they have the right to rule the nation.
