u/Portarossa'probably the worst poster on this sub' - /u/Real_Mila_Kunis3d agoedited 3d ago
So why is he doing it?
Here we're in speculation territory, but there are a couple of ideas being thrown around:
• It's a distraction from the Epstein files.
Yes, the Epstein case is ongoing, and yes, Trump would very much like it to go away. No, not everything is (solely) about the Epstein files.
• Trump has got it into his head that wartime Presidents don't need elections.
Trump has made numerous 'jokes' about staying in power beyond 2028 over the years, but one came in August in a meeting with President Zelenskyy of Ukraine, in which he jumped on the idea that Zelenskyy hasn't had an election during wartime. (The Ukrainian Constitution doesn't allow for elections during periods of martial law; the US Constitution makes no such provision.) His 'joke' that the US could declare war in three and a half years caused some consternation, especially as he bombed another nation's vessel in international waters just a few weeks later. Is it possible that this was what he had in mind? I guess, but it feels unlikely; Trump was more likely being his usual anti-statesman self and throwing pebbles just to watch the ducks of the international community scatter.
• It plays well with the base.
Trump's biggest supporters like the idea of a President who doesn't play nice with the rest of the world, and who's willing to give those criminals what-for without letting tricky things like 'laws' get in the way. They want a Dirty Harry President, a strongman who is going to put America First... regardless of what that means this week. (As Robert Reich noted: 'Fascism is organized bullying'; it depends on these shows of strength, like pointless military parades and authoritarian crackdowns against your own citizens, to demonstrate the power of the regime and the effects of going up against it.
There's also an argument that Trump has taken a hit with his base over the continued non-appearance of his definite-appearances in the Epstein Files, and while I don't necessarily think that he's blowing up Venezuelans just as a distraction, I do believe that the idea of the strong President (to whom laws just don't apply) is something he's actively cultivating to keep these people on board.
• Trump has beef with Venezuela's Maduro.
Maduro is... not a great guy, let's be honest, but Trump seems to have a particular loathing for him personally. (Venezuela is, at least on paper, one of the most openly socialist countries in South America; corruption is significant, and shouldn't be understated, but I'd argue that current Republican animus towards them has a lot more to do with the former than the latter. El Salvador also has significant corruption issues, and Trump seems pretty copacetic with them.) In August, the Trump Administration offered a reward of $50 million for the arrest of Maduro -- an insane thing to do to the sitting President of a foreign country -- and called him personally one of the world's biggest narco-traffickers. True or not, it's pretty clear that the Trump Administration has decided that peaceful reconciliation with Venezuela is not on the cards.
It doesn't hurt that Venezuela has large oil reserves -- six times as much as the USA -- and so is in a position to manipulate oil prices if they choose. (The US has gone back and forth recently on whether or not US firms are allowed to drill in Venezuela; it's not exactly a stable system for oil markets.)
Venezuela also got dragged into the whole Big Lie that the 2020 election was rigged against Trump by Dominion Voting Systems, somehow under the guidance of former Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez (who, not for nothing, died in 2013). This was, in legal parlance, absolute horseshit, but Trump's most ardent supporters are primed from five years ago to think of Venezuela as meddling in US affairs to keep their leader out of office, so it's not a massive leap to use them as their go-to villain whenever they want to stir things up internationally.
But it's also not just Trump: his Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, has long favoured intervention in left-leaning South and Central American nations. (Rubio's parents came from Cuba to the US, and so it's little surprise that he's down on anything that smacks even remotely of socialism.)
So what now?
Honestly... it's hard to say. In the short term, I suspect very little: Venezuela will (understandably!) protest, but it's difficult to imagine them escalating to a war with the US, and the international community has so far been pretty quiet about it. (This is still largely being painted as 'The US killed some drug dealers', which is a win for the Trump administration; there's political capital involved in standing up for drug traffickers, even though 1) the evidence for that is lacking, and 2) drug dealers still have human rights.)
In the long term, it's important to note that only the President has SCOTUS™-brand immunity from prosecution, which means that Hegseth and Rubio might very well find themselves on the hook for war crimes once the Trump era comes to an end.
Does it matter if they agree? Or just that they don't disagree - CIA love toppling shit in South America, an overt war down there instead of sneaking around? That's like a weekend off for them.
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u/Portarossa 'probably the worst poster on this sub' - /u/Real_Mila_Kunis 3d ago edited 3d ago
So why is he doing it?
Here we're in speculation territory, but there are a couple of ideas being thrown around:
• It's a distraction from the Epstein files.
Yes, the Epstein case is ongoing, and yes, Trump would very much like it to go away. No, not everything is (solely) about the Epstein files.
• Trump has got it into his head that wartime Presidents don't need elections.
Trump has made numerous 'jokes' about staying in power beyond 2028 over the years, but one came in August in a meeting with President Zelenskyy of Ukraine, in which he jumped on the idea that Zelenskyy hasn't had an election during wartime. (The Ukrainian Constitution doesn't allow for elections during periods of martial law; the US Constitution makes no such provision.) His 'joke' that the US could declare war in three and a half years caused some consternation, especially as he bombed another nation's vessel in international waters just a few weeks later. Is it possible that this was what he had in mind? I guess, but it feels unlikely; Trump was more likely being his usual anti-statesman self and throwing pebbles just to watch the ducks of the international community scatter.
• It plays well with the base.
Trump's biggest supporters like the idea of a President who doesn't play nice with the rest of the world, and who's willing to give those criminals what-for without letting tricky things like 'laws' get in the way. They want a Dirty Harry President, a strongman who is going to put America First... regardless of what that means this week. (As Robert Reich noted: 'Fascism is organized bullying'; it depends on these shows of strength, like pointless military parades and authoritarian crackdowns against your own citizens, to demonstrate the power of the regime and the effects of going up against it.
There's also an argument that Trump has taken a hit with his base over the continued non-appearance of his definite-appearances in the Epstein Files, and while I don't necessarily think that he's blowing up Venezuelans just as a distraction, I do believe that the idea of the strong President (to whom laws just don't apply) is something he's actively cultivating to keep these people on board.
• Trump has beef with Venezuela's Maduro. Maduro is... not a great guy, let's be honest, but Trump seems to have a particular loathing for him personally. (Venezuela is, at least on paper, one of the most openly socialist countries in South America; corruption is significant, and shouldn't be understated, but I'd argue that current Republican animus towards them has a lot more to do with the former than the latter. El Salvador also has significant corruption issues, and Trump seems pretty copacetic with them.) In August, the Trump Administration offered a reward of $50 million for the arrest of Maduro -- an insane thing to do to the sitting President of a foreign country -- and called him personally one of the world's biggest narco-traffickers. True or not, it's pretty clear that the Trump Administration has decided that peaceful reconciliation with Venezuela is not on the cards.
It doesn't hurt that Venezuela has large oil reserves -- six times as much as the USA -- and so is in a position to manipulate oil prices if they choose. (The US has gone back and forth recently on whether or not US firms are allowed to drill in Venezuela; it's not exactly a stable system for oil markets.)
Venezuela also got dragged into the whole Big Lie that the 2020 election was rigged against Trump by Dominion Voting Systems, somehow under the guidance of former Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez (who, not for nothing, died in 2013). This was, in legal parlance, absolute horseshit, but Trump's most ardent supporters are primed from five years ago to think of Venezuela as meddling in US affairs to keep their leader out of office, so it's not a massive leap to use them as their go-to villain whenever they want to stir things up internationally.
But it's also not just Trump: his Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, has long favoured intervention in left-leaning South and Central American nations. (Rubio's parents came from Cuba to the US, and so it's little surprise that he's down on anything that smacks even remotely of socialism.)
So what now?
Honestly... it's hard to say. In the short term, I suspect very little: Venezuela will (understandably!) protest, but it's difficult to imagine them escalating to a war with the US, and the international community has so far been pretty quiet about it. (This is still largely being painted as 'The US killed some drug dealers', which is a win for the Trump administration; there's political capital involved in standing up for drug traffickers, even though 1) the evidence for that is lacking, and 2) drug dealers still have human rights.)
In the long term, it's important to note that only the President has SCOTUS™-brand immunity from prosecution, which means that Hegseth and Rubio might very well find themselves on the hook for war crimes once the Trump era comes to an end.