Last week, the United States government forcibly removed a foreign head of state from power, ostensibly because of criminal indictments levied in the United States.
This week, agents of the same government killed an American citizen in cold blood, on American soil, simply for exercising the rights afforded to all Americans.
The linkage of these crimes, perhaps not clear on the surface, becomes apparent when we consider the motives of the perpetrator, the President of the United States.
To begin, Nicholas Maduro and his wife were abducted from Venezuela last week and are now being held in custody in New York City, and both are facing charges related to narco-terrorism, conspiracy to traffic cocaine, and possession of machine guns and destructive devices.
In recent statements, President Donald Trump has not hidden his desire to confiscate Venezuela’s oil, already explaining early plans for US oil companies to move into the country and build out the needed infrastructure. Additionally, Trump has openly discussed plans for US involvement in Cuba, Colombia, and Greenland.
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Only the most recent in a series of ill-considered actions taken under dubious circumstances and rationale, the Trump Administration’s efforts to alienate the rest of the world continue unabated. European allies, already alarmed at the actions taken in Venezuela, are apoplectic at the potential annexation of a Danish possession, which would almost certainly trigger a violation of the NATO charter.
So then what? All-out war with our European allies seems unlikely, but sanctions against the United States would be an unusual yet understandable response to the US government’s provocative actions.
Tension between the US and its European allies already exists due to Trump’s frenetic tariff policy and overt Russian sympathies, but territorial disputes could lead to a serious fracture, or even break, in diplomatic relations. A united Europe against the United States would be a formidable and unnecessary adversary with serious ripple effects across the globe.
Unsurprisingly, public opinion on these developments diverges along party lines: the majority of Republicans support these actions, while most Democrats do not. The “no more wars” crowd, who were so vocal in their support of Trump during the 2024 campaign, are now reaching the extent of their limited rhetoric to justify these imperial actions. The feeling of shame that one should experience for such hypocrisy had been replaced by a fervent American jingoism not seen since…well, yesterday, I guess. But it is certainly growing.
The analogue I can compare this to in my lifetime is the American invasion of Iraq in 2003. I was in college at the time, and I remember being one of only three students in a theology course of 35 that opposed the then-impending war. Some of the same arguments against Trump’s Monroe Doctrine approach (which you know he only learned about recently) are the same ones we can make today: these unilateral actions violate the UN charter, are clearly unconstitutional, and rest on the most precarious of foundations.
History repeating itself, while half the country is pretending no such similarity exists, is an amazing development for Trumpism. The president himself has said repeatedly he was against the Iraq War, while I suspect many of his followers have revised their opinion in the last two decades. Now we are likely headed in the same direction for similar reasons: regional hegemony to facilitate the “liberation” of vital resources (oil), the freedom of the people of these lands, and the spread of democracy to facilitate self-reliance. Well, Iraq didn’t work out the way the Bush Administration planned it, and it seems unlikely these Western Hemisphere excursions will fare any better.
And what of Congress? Well, good luck there. The Republicans aren’t tapping the brakes on any of this, and the Democrats are so inept that you’d be surprised if they could find Venezuela on a map, let alone a strategy to derail the President’s Genghis Khan-like instincts. Perhaps Senator Chuck Schumer and his band of lobbyist-funded compatriots can send another strongly-worded letter to the White House.
There is no real check on these outrageous actions, just like there hasn’t been for anything else Trump has done. There are only two real options here. Either let Trump do what he wants and hope there is enough of a country left to repair when (if) he leaves office, or take to the streets and push back. A punch to the face is the only thing Trump understands. Anything less than that he sees as assent. And the only thing that has worked against Trump is strong blowback from large segments of the public.
Blowback began late in the week after the extra-judicial murder (carried out by ICE, the administration’s official secret police) of Renee Good in Minnesota this week. The heinous remarks of the Vice President, who attempted to link Good to some sort of left-wing conspiracy, are the hallmarks of an administration that traffics in lies, which their base willingly and loyally accept as fact. The fact that ICE is operating with impunity in major American cities is an abomination in and of itself, but we must be clear on what is actually happening here; while ostensibly to conduct the “largest immigration operation ever” is really just a feint designed to put more of Trump’s own agents on American streets.
Taken in concert with the illegal actions in the rest of the hemisphere, what we are facing is the predictable, blatant disregard of legal norms under the guise of “America first.” The true question is which Americans come first in Trump’s America, and I don’t think we need to spend too much time here explaining which of us Trump, Stephen Miller, and the rest of the white sheet gang in the White House favour.
That leaves the rest of us, the unfavorables, to push and kick and scream against this multitude of injustices. It’s the only thing that works against authoritarians. And it’s the only thing they fear. Narcissistic people such as Trump can’t stand pushback, and the other part of his personality, cowardice, will make him back down in the face of pressure. We have to keep applying that pressure with vigour, and not let him, or anyone, get comfortable with the continued desecration of the Constitution and true American values.
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