Venezuela and Chickens Coming Home to Roost
I woke up at some ridiculously early morning hour on Saturday, on the third day of the new year, only to read that the United States had kidnapped Nicolas Maduro and his wife. I whispered the word, “shit,” as I read about the military operation, confronted the brazenness of Trump’s post on social media (he really thinks we are all stupid), and thought about what this might mean for Latin America.
Trump had enacted his version of Teddy Roosevelt. The administration was making good on the approach it announced in its National Security Strategy report. I shuddered. Venezuela and its oil ostensibly belong to the United States now—the country’s latest colony (or so they would have us believe).
This harkens back to the old forms of 19th century and 20th century imperialism: an unfettered exercise of U.S. power in its own “backyard” by a group of people motivated by greed and white nationalism (just think about Cuba, Haiti, Guam, Puerto Rico, etc.).
But it also speaks to the collapse of the post-World War II consensus. The political instability of the US has left the world scrambling. Powers seek to dominate in their spheres of influence. And the corporate capture of the U.S. federal government has resulted in the deployment of the world’s most powerful military in pursuit of the interests of oil companies without having to hide behind claims about democracy and justice.
Now, I don’t want to make Trump and his administration an exception. I am old enough to remember Panama, Grenada, Iraq, and Libya. We have seen the United States act without regard for international law before and on behalf of big corporations. But, in my lifetime, those actions had to be couched in some way or another in the rhetoric of liberalism (even when we knew folk were lying) and adhere, if only symbolically, to the U.S. constitution.
But Trump and Hegseth don’t give a damn about liberal or constitutional constraints. Theirs is simply the raw exercise of U.S. power, the assertion of the will of the United States (their will) on the world.
The White House posted this video on X with Maduro daring the U.S. to come get him (an echo/repetition of the saber rattling of Manuel Noriega in 1988) and Secretary Rubio quoting the Notorious B.I.G., “If you don’t know, now you know.”
I watched this with horror. We are governed by unserious, insecure, little people desperate to prove to themselves and others that they are all powerful. Men and women all-too willing to destroy others to hide how broken they really are.
They are indeed broken, and they want to break everything and everyone (even the souls of their friends) around them.
Here we are in the twenty-sixth year of the 21st century faced with the calamitous results of a national choice. Little men and women with callous hearts run this country. Running behind the weighted gait of our version of Voldemort.
Funny how these people can’t find the resources to fund healthcare, how they are destroying American higher education, shredding the last threads of the social safety net, snatching people from their homes, jobs, schools, on the streets, how they are allowing billionaires to rob the public coffers, watching as everyday Americans struggle to make ends meet as the very character of labor/work changes with AI, and how they are undermining democratic norms at every turn.
They don’t give a damn about anything but power.
With so much coming at us, it is difficult to keep one’s footing. But we must. We have to cultivate what Antonio Gramsci called “a pessimism of the intellect.” We must see the intricate relationship between what is happening in Venezuela, with oil, with the U.S. dollar, with China and Russia, with the history that gives these events texture and context. We must ask rude and hard questions.
We must also cling to what Gramsci called “an optimism of the will.” Maybe not so much optimism, but a hope that we can be otherwise. That hopefulness begins with a different choice that each of us must make today. These little people assume that we are too busy with the struggles of our daily lives to pay attention to what they are doing. It’s part of the strategy to overwhelm us in such a way that we tune out. But we cannot do this, especially now.
Everything now depends on the moral choice that each of us must make. We cannot allow these broken people to choose the path of this nation. We must reject what has been done in our name. We must refuse the nostalgic return to an imperial, racist America. No matter what you think of Maduro, there is no justification for what the Trump administration has done. It is illegal and immoral.
And let’s be clear, the way they exercised unfettered power in Venezuela mirrors the way they want to exercise that power here at home.
Hear me. If we do not reject these imperial actions, these chickens will come home to roost.
Every. Single. Word. This is spot on. Thank you. 👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻
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