International Blue Privilege
Meets the Trump Wrecking Ball
Another chapter in the saga of attempting the removal of President Trump is upon us: Ukraine. The crisis continues to clarify the dangerous but persistent problem of an elite intellectual power structure that refuses to yield or be removed from its established positions in the most powerful nation in the world. Blue privilege is the power over language that determines what is appropriate and inappropriate so that individuals can be found as transgressing a moral order held by that elite. Its origins can be traced as far back as Plato’s Republic. Ruthless manifestations of its contemporary roots were seen in the French Revolution. It is, of course, contradictory and only applies as the interest of those in blue to whom it is dedicated. This blue privilege power structure is bipartisan as well articulated by Republican politician Mitt Romney. It is perfectly okay for some individuals to influence foreign governments for the purpose of influencing elections in those countries or of course our elections here in the United States, so long as that influence serves the appropriate political interests. Public frustration with these enduring arrangements and contradictions led to the election of President Trump in 2016 and the blue elite have refused to accept this. It is worthwhile to observe the contradictions of this intellectually derived system in order to best resist it and advance the cause of human freedom.
Take note of Senator Mitt Romney, who agrees that impeachment of the President should be pursued. In the general election debates of 2012, Romney defeated President Obama more soundly than any incumbent has been beaten in televised debate history. One of Romney’s key argumentsin the 2012 debates was: Russia is perhaps the greatest threat to the United States in the world. Obama’s jocular comeback resounded: ‘The 1980s called and they want their foreign policy back.’ The punditry and intellectual classes chortled and laughed at the ‘stupid’ Republican Romney. These same scoffers have no restraint in bullying anyone on the internet that the Russians stole the U.S. election in 2016. The contradiction is real and an essential characteristic of blue privilege. If we say Russia is a threat -- you believe it is. If we say Russia is not a threat -- you believe it.
More recently, Vice President Biden braggedbefore TV cameras and at a meeting for the Council on Foreign Relations that he did in fact have a Ukrainian prosecutor fired by explaining that he would withhold U.S. aid. This was done while his son had received an excessive salary from a Ukrainian natural gas company. The bravado with which Biden bragged that he had got ‘that son of a bitch,’ is precisely the essence of blue privilege. Of course, Joe Biden can do that and of course President Trump may not inquire or interrogate that matter or he will be impeached and removed from the office of the Presidency. Biden was comfortably explaining to his blue privilege colleagues, who are super smart, what a tough guy he is in foreign policy and the vast echo chamber into which he shouted -- including the media and foreign policy elites -- was exhilarated by such behavior. This is in fact why he should be President of the United States -- even if we are not especially united with those pathetic red states.
Speaker Nancy Pelosi explains that the current Ukraine crisis is a threat to national security. In many ways this is correct. The blue-privilege world order that colludes with enemies of the United States -- such as Iran -- consorts with British government agents to block the election of a Republican President in 2016, that covers up the realistic basis of the killing of an American ambassador in Libya, are only a small number of normative abuses that are necessary to Pelosi’s ideal view of “national security.” It is therefore not surprising that the government rules for “whistleblowing” were changed almost immediatelyprior to the release of this report involving Ukraine. In the former rules, a truthful account required direct knowledge of the events being reported. This report to the House allows not only second-hand but any account of information the informant can gather. Simple water cooler gossip is sufficient ground for forthcoming scandals originating with “secret whistleblowers” whose identities must be protected. The Deep State that entrenches these pathological notions of “national security,” that values close relations with Iranian supremacism over Israeli democracy, is able to defend ‘our national security’ by protecting itself from the President of the United States.
The American public grew too weary of these plain contradictions abounding in the bipartisan world of blue privilege in 2016. So they elected a human wrecking ball known as Donald Trump. It was not that long ago that the blue elite counted him among them as a member of their coastal club. Now he is a traitor of the highest order. Bill Weld asserted in a jealous play for attention that President Trump ought to be executed. The awkward impending reality that haunts us now in 2019, is why would the public feel any differently in the election of 2020? Would not the obvious contradictions of the 27th crisis of the Trump Presidency point to an even greater need to further wreck the world of blue privilege? Honest prognosticators of all stripes know the answer to these questions. The outcome remains clear.
Ben Voth is an associate professor of communication and director of debate at Southern Methodist University. He has served as an adviser with George W. Bush Institute and is the President Calvin Coolidge Debate fellow. Among his three recent academic books are his co-authored book with professor Robert Denton: The Social Fragmentation and Decline of American Democracypublished by Palgrave Macmillan.