A culture of whistleblowing: Implications for the US 2020 Election
As White House aide and top Ukraine expert Lt Col. Alexander Vindman sat in court Tuesday afternoon for his public impeachment testimony, the room was silent with anticipation. Against a backdrop of right-wing assault, from President Trump’s media hounds to GOP members, he assured his father, “Do not worry. I will be fine for telling the truth...Here, right matters.” In just a few words, Vindman cut through the layers of media theatrics, partisan hostility, and manipulation. It was a reminder to those listening of the values he had sworn to protect as an American soldier, a first-generation immigrant, and a citizen of the United States. However, as the past few months have shown, truth is not a given in Trumpian politics.
Often hailed as acts of courage by the public, the information spread by the whistleblower vigilante is seen as critical in exposing wrongdoing and preserving democracy.
The art of whistleblowing is not a new culture to American politics, and its origins can be traced all the way back to 1778 with the signing of the world’s first whistleblower protection law. Since then, stories of individuals standing up for the people and exposing Big Brother’s secrets have attracted attention like wildfire. The anti-government sentiment that rocked the 1960s and 1970s became host to several high-profile whistleblower scandals, from Daniel Ellsberg’s uncovering of Vietnam War conditions with the Pentagon Papers to Watergate’s very own informant, Mark Felt – aka “Deep Throat”. However, each case was a testament to government efforts in stigmatising whistleblowers. Even now, individuals like Edward Snowden, who leaked documents in 2013 concerning the US’s mass surveillance projects, still remain stranded in the cold streets of Moscow: the government wanted him gone, and so Snowden disappeared.
The incident that now holds President Donald Trump center stage in an impeachment inquiry began, as countless watershed moments in American history have, with the whisper of a whistleblower. Towards the end of this summer an anonymous individual filed a complaint concerning Trump’s correspondence on July 25th with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. According to the informant, Trump allegedly pressed Zelensky into helping design a smear campaign on his 2020 election contender Joe Biden, using US tax dollars and a four hundred million military aid package as a bargaining chip. Since the release of the complaint, a mammoth network of politicians and government officials involved in the fiasco, like attorney Rudy Giuliani or Attorney General William Barr, has begun to emerge. Moreso, attorneys representing the first whistleblower have since announced the arrival of other whistleblowers breaking their silence on the US’s conduct with Ukraine. Of course, in the eyes of American law, the act of the President using the power of his office to solicit foreign interference in elections is illegal. But Trump and his groupies naturally denied such accusations, the president even referring to the phone call as “perfect” and “beautiful”.
Of course, the Ukraine fiasco echoes a similar series of events that unfurled under the Trump administration. From 2017 onwards, Trump has also been tangled in an inquiry by special counsel Robert Mueller, a criminal investigation which centred on issues of obstruction of justice and alleged ties between Russia and Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign. However, to the disappointment of many of Trump’s critics, the investigation did not immediately open the way for an impeachment inquiry. Although the investigation did not completely exonerate the president on the obstruction of justice, Trump and his fans wasted no time in trumpeting the news as a political victory.
Even with a majority of House Democrats now backing the impeachment process, the likelihood for a successful impeachment remains undermined by Republican loyalty: more than twenty Republicans would have to vote to unseat their own president, a scenario that seems unlikely. However, the possibility for Trump’s reelection in 2020 remains a different story altogether. An opinion poll conducted by ABC News revealed an overwhelming majority saw Trump’s involvement with Ukraine as wrong, and even 51% supported impeachment and ultimately removal. Whether the impeachment moves forward or not, the damage inflicted upon Trump’s image will be set in stone. Thus, this is a testament to the power of the whistleblower and his or her capacity to shift the direction of the political climate.
As the impeachment process moves forward, Trump’s language has progressively taken a darker tone. The flood of presidential Tweets has added articulations of treason to its usual stream of garish nicknames and all things China. Mr. Trump’s language about ‘spies and treason’ and ‘what we used to in the old days’, a clear reference to mob mentality and execution, holds dangerous implications for the culture of whistleblowing. Beyond this hyperbolic speech, a process of normalising phrases of treason has a chilling effect on the virtue of whistleblowing. It not only intimidates future individuals from speaking out, but it also has the capacity to inflict lasting damage on a democratic system of checks and balances.
The president’s aggressive response risks damaging this informal whistleblowing system created to curb and check the political elite from wrongdoing. Whistleblowers are just a small cog in a network set up to expose the corruption, deceit and illegal activity of the rich and powerful, all without the fear of retaliation. The dangers of demagogues like Trump severing this security layer are not that far-fetched. In his testimony, Vindman expressed his faith in a nation where the truth would win out. But, if he is proved wrong, an Orwellian nightmare looms much closer than we think.
