Note: This was written and scheduled before Trump kidnapped Maduro, and I will be writing about this event and my reaction later this week.
A while ago, when Julian Assange was still being held in the UK’s Belmarsh Prison, awaiting extradition for bogus charges under the Espionage Act, I wrote that America’s years long mission to extradite and imprison Assange, and the West’s complicity, would blunt its criticism of other countries for lack of press freedoms and detainment of journalists. Lo and behold, the political activist Jimmy Lai was just found guilty of colluding with foreign agents and sedition under Hong Kong’s the national security law imposed by China right after the handover in 2020. Western media is awash with demands that Lai be freed, and Donald Trump called Xi Jinping to try and persuade him to free Lai.[i]
Since Lai was first detained in 2020, there have been some organizations that consistently advocated for both Lai and Assange, like Amnesty International, Reporters Without Borders, and the Committee to Protect Journalists, but mostly all mainstream Western media outlets did not advocate for Assange, in fact, most did the opposite, and questioned his status as a journalist, as well as his alleged ties to the Kremlin.[ii] Like those before him, especially Barrack Obama, Trump indicted whistleblowers and his indictment of Assange, at the behest of the permanent regime and its loyal servants, chiefly Mike Pompeo, proved that he was not anti-establishment. His continuation of business as usual in foreign policy did as well, but his ruthless persecution of Assange was the primary signifier of his true allegiance. However, Trump is more a useful idiot than witting goon. He is a tool, a blunt instrument, handy as a bludgeon but embarrassing when off script and not strictly controlled.
Now, with only the most loyal minions in his orbit, there is no controlling Trump, but this is only a problem for the aesthetic of foreign policy, how its execution is described, not its actual execution. The Biden regime ended the persecution of Assange not with a pardon, he saved those for con artists, his political associates, and his family, but with a guilty plea to bogus charges of conspiracy. With that Assange finally returned home to his family. Trump, upon returning to office, is yet to right this wrong and pardon Assange, as he opts to pardon slimy con artists and his political associates.[iii] The case of Assange, as countless others do, show who Trump really is. He is not a revolutionary or populist figure, as he promised to be, nor is he an opponent of the deep state. He is an unpolished part of it.
Further proof of Trump’s loyalty to the deep state is the attempt at regime change we are seeing in Venezuela. The Trump regime’s hostility towards Venezuela, based on bogus claims about drug trafficking and ‘narcoterrorism’, also proves America’s hypocrisy on international law and the mythical rules-based order. Maria Machado said on CBS News’s Face the Nation that she feels US intervention, or, as she calls it, “pressure on Maduro”, is necessary and that is not an act of war, but an act of peace, or one that eventually leads to peace.[iv] In her words, “What we’re fighting for is precisely freedom in order to have democracy and democracy, in order to have peace. And in order to maintain freedom, you do need strength…I have to say that peace is ultimately an act of love.”[v] So, to have freedom we need strength, or sanctions and military force, and these are acts of love because they are done in the name of democracy. In other words, the ends justify the means.
Just as Trump did in his first term, when he had the ghoulish Elliott Abrams and John Bolton as devils on his shoulder, beckoning him to depose Maduro by wrecking the Venezuelan economy and starving people, Trump, with the equally ghoulish Marco Rubio in his ear, is revamping this campaign and is now pilfering oil tankers, claiming that they are ‘ghost fleets’ that violate sanctions.[vi] The Maduro regime is being squeezed, and ultimately, this is impacting the Venezuelan people. Trump and his cronies, and Machado, have no love for the Venezuelan people, nor do they any moral high ground from which they can lecture China about Taiwan, or Russia about Ukraine. Trump’s absurd claim on Truth Social that Venezuelan oil belongs to the US, repeated by Stephen Miller and others in his regime, shows how shamelessly hypocritical the US empire is.[vii] As they screech about China’s ‘provocations’ towards Taiwan, which China at least has a legitimate claim to, the logic used to condemn China, as well as Russia, is memory holed in the case of US aggression against Venezuela. The US can do what it wants. It is entitled to any resources it decides to claim, and the rules only apply to their adversaries. Thus, international law is, and has always been, a tool to justify imperialism. In his rant on Truth Social, Trump simply blurted out the hard truth about US policy with Venezuela. It is not just about his claim that their oil belongs to America. Beyond this claim to resources, there is the idea that the US empire must live on, and with the increasing power of China, as well as India and other states, which will bring about a multipolar world order, the US has been forced to pull back slightly and in a desperate move to flex its imperial muscles. It sees an opportunity to depose a leader it sees as a pest buzzing around, causing trouble in its ‘backyard’, South America. This focus on South America was announced in Trump’s new National Security Strategy, where they propose a “Trump corollary to the Monroe Doctrine”[viii] Venezuela is likely not the only state under threat from Trump, as we also see in their meddling in the Honduran elections, which included Trump pardoning the former president and drug trafficker Hernandez.[ix] Trump and his minions are pushing to ensure that only compliant leaders are elected in South America. As Roger Harris argues, Trump’s claim that Venezuela stole US oil and land is a confession, not a mistake.[x] He writes that “It articulates a worldview in which US power defines legitimacy and resources located elsewhere are treated as imperial property by default. The blockade is not an aberration; it is the logical extension of a twisted belief that sovereignty belongs to whoever is strong enough to seize it. Trump is, in effect, demanding reparations for imperialists for the hardship of living in a world where other countries insist their resources belong to them.”[xi] This worldview, the true mindset of the illiberal liberal and illiberal classes, directly contradicts the tired rhetoric about international rules and norms that they mindlessly sputter.
If Trump does overthrow Maduro, it will prove that he is a puppet of the permanent regime, not an opponent of it. It will also prove that he is everything he claimed to hate when he first ran for president in 2015/16. The narrative being used to justify war with Venezuela is eerily similar to the narrative that led to the invasion of Iraq in 2003, especially now that Trump has declared, via executive order, that fentanyl is a WMD.[xii] Despite reports from his own government concluding that Venezuela is not a major source of drugs smuggled into the US, this declaration is important for the narrative the Trump regime is trying to push, as if Venezuela can be both designated a foreign terrorist organization and a supplier of WMDs into the US, then of course Maduro must be removed from power. Although this twisted logic is like the Bush regime’s lies about WMDs and Saddam Huessein’s alleged ties to al Qaeda, there is a radical difference, and it is what makes Trump different from his predecessors, despite his continuation of their foreign policy. The difference is the basis of Trump’s logic, the lust for revenge. Whether it is the perceived theft of oil or the claim that Maduro colluded with Dominion to steal the 2020 election from Trump, there is a dark and insidious tone in Trump’s foreign policy, from his obsession with tariffs to his open servility to Israel. Where his predecessors put on a face of civility and warmth, Trump only has one face, an ugly face that signifies retribution and wrath. Thus, the difference between Bush and Trump is not, as many thought after watching him lambast Jeb Bush for his brother’s “big fat mistake” in Iraq, a difference in practice or policy, it is a difference in tone and style. As Richard Coughlin notes, “Bush promised redemption through war. MAGA promises punishment.”, and though both insidious and twisted in their logic, the Bush regime, as did its predecessors and followers, disguised its viciousness.[xiii] Trump is nakedly vicious and imperialistic. Coughlin goes on to write that “MAGA’s worldview requires a constant stream of enemies to discipline and degrade. Venezuela fits the script perfectly: a villainous socialist regime poisoning white Americans with drugs, aligning itself with China, and defying the Monroe Doctrine.”, and he points out that in this view, there is no contradiction between opposition to the Iraq war and support for a war with Venezuela.[xiv] Further, for most of Trump’s supporters, there can never be a contradiction between his rhetoric and his policies as he has no fixed ideology or set of principles. His policy position is whatever he says it is on any given day. This extends to the view of the MAGA movement, and it is why it was so telling that Marjorie Taylor Greene, in her 60 Minutes interview, said that there is a difference between MAGA, Trump’s political movement, and the America First ideology.[xv] She knows, as others have started to realize, there is Trump, lacking ideology and adherence to ideas, and there is a set of ideas that he claimed adherence to in his first presidential campaign, which brought him the White House not once, but twice. Just like he did before, he is betraying America First. Most are simply too frightened to call Trump out. Greene dared, and it led to her exile from MAGA. War with Venezuela is not consistent with America First, it is antithetical to it. Rather than be beholden to the idea of America First, too many have become beholden to Trump personally. It is truly as he said in his first presidential campaign, that he “could shoot someone on Fifth Avenue” and he would not lose support.[xvi] There was evidently never a movement unified around the America First vision, there is the America First camp, and then there is the Trump First camp. Dissociating from the latter is career suicide in the GOP, even if it is done because of allegiance to the former. The switch of many prominent conservatives from Never Trump to vocally and devotedly supporting him proves the betrayal of America First, as the reason these conservatives, like Ben Shapiro, Mark Levin, and Glenn Beck, reviled Trump when he first ran for president was not just his amoral character, but his opposition to establishment dogma.[xvii] Shapiro et. al. did not become populist, the opposite occurred, Trump became the establishment.[xviii] On his mission to drain the swamp, he morphed into a swamp creature.
The illiberal liberal class’s cries about Trump’s destruction are not totally wrong, but they are not outraged that the US empire is self-destructing, they are enraged that it will no longer serve them. In its dying days it will serve a roving band of gluttonous lunatics. War with Venezuela, like all the others, is not America First, nor is Trump. He never was, and sadly, his most ardent supporters will never accept this. His movement should be rebranded Trump First. Just like the difference between Trump in 2016 and in 2017 when he first took office, the Trump who ran for office in 2024 differs radically from the current occupant of the White House. In his first term, he at least had a feasible excuse, that he was new to governing and he had no idea how truly immense the task of draining the swamp really was, however, there are no such excuses for his second term. As Peter Rodgers notes in his observation on the Trump vs. Trump conflict, where Trump the political candidate differs wildly from Trump the president, he is “A president who once cast himself as the enemy of the military–industrial complex is now moving in a direction that satisfies it more than almost any alternative.”, and he writes that the difference between the imperial narrative before Trump and now is that “this script is being justified in the language of “America First,” rather than the traditional vocabulary of “global security” or “moral responsibility.”[xix] In essence, the language has changed, but the policy is the same. The illusion that Trump was ever a true break from or challenge to the established foreign policy swamp is shattered. As Rodgers points out, what occurs with issues like the looming war with Venezuela, or with earlier policies like the bombing of Iran, is not just a debate over policy preference, but “a blow to political identity.”, and his supporters are left “defending a policy that mirrors precisely what it was meant to reject.”[xx] This begs the question about whether Trump or his closest advisers were ever serious about America First, or if their professed beliefs and desire to upend the Washington establishment were ever sincere. This question can only ever be rhetorical, as it should be obvious to any observer tethered to reality that Trump the president and Trump the candidate is not the same person. This has important implications for populism and anti-establishment politics globally, as if Trump cannot, despite his promise to override the permanent regime and is instead subdued by it, then what hope do other populist candidates have? How can we be sure of their sincerity? As Rodgers writes, the issue of Trump vs. Trump is not just a contradiction for him personally or for his political movement, “It is a case study in how a populist foreign policy collapses when confronted with a system that still treats war as its most convenient choice.”[xxi] Rather than remake the system, Trump is transforming how the system is marketed. The niceties of liberalism and humanitarianism are gone, and the brutality and ruthlessness of the policy has an equally brutal and sadistic salesman in Trump. The hope that he promised to the deplorables is, as it was from the outset, a false hope. A light that once barely flickered has vanished. It has been replaced by the same abyss that existed before.
[i] Agence France-Presse, “Trump Urges Xi Jinping to Free HK Pro-Democracy Media Tycoon Jimmy Lai,” World News, The Guardian, December 16, 2025, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/dec/16/trump-urges-xi-jinping-to-free-hk-pro-democracy-media-tycoon-jimmy-lai.
[ii] RSF, “1,800 Days behind Bars: Democracies Cannot Let Jimmy Lai Die in Prison | RSF,” December 4, 2025, https://rsf.org/en/1800-days-behind-bars-democracies-cannot-let-jimmy-lai-die-prison; CPJ, “CPJ Condemns Hong Kong’s Conviction of Jimmy Lai in National Security Case,” Committee to Protect Journalists, December 15, 2025, https://cpj.org/2025/12/cpj-condemns-hong-kongs-conviction-of-jimmy-lai-in-national-security-case/; RSF, “Assange Extradition: ‘Day X’ Ruling Represents Final Hope for Justice in the UK Courts | RSF,” March 26, 2024, https://rsf.org/en/assange-extradition-day-x-ruling-represents-final-hope-justice-uk-courts; CPJ, “Why Extradition of WikiLeaks’ Julian Assange to US Would Be Cataclysmic for Press Freedom,” Committee to Protect Journalists, February 29, 2024, https://cpj.org/2024/02/why-extradition-of-wikileaks-julian-assange-to-us-would-be-cataclysmic-for-press-freedom/.
[iii] Benjamin Wallace-Wells, “The Meaning of Trump’s Presidential Pardons,” Comment, The New Yorker, November 16, 2025, https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2025/11/24/the-meaning-of-trumps-presidential-pardons; US Department of Justice, “Office of the Pardon Attorney | Clemency Grants by President Donald J. Trump (2025-Present),” Government, US Department of Justice, April 24, 2025, https://www.justice.gov/pardon/clemency-grants-president-donald-j-trump-2025-present.
[iv] Maria Corina Machado and Margaret Brennan, “Transcript: María Corina Machado on ‘Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan,’ Dec. 14, 2025 – CBS News,” CBS News, December 14, 2025, https://www.cbsnews.com/news/maria-corina-machado-nobel-peace-prize-winner-face-the-nation-transcript-12-14-2025/.
[v] Machado and Brennan, “Transcript.”
[vi] Spencer Kimball, “Trump Says U.S. Will Keep the Crude Oil and Tankers Seized near Venezuela,” CNBC, December 22, 2025, https://www.cnbc.com/2025/12/22/trump-says-us-will-keep-the-crude-oil-and-tankers-seized-near-venezuela.html.
[vii] The White House [@WhiteHouse], “Donald Trump Tweet on Venezuela,” Tweet, Twitter, December 17, 2025, https://x.com/WhiteHouse/status/2001126583118213372.
[viii] Emily Harding, The National Security Strategy: The Good, the Not So Great, and the Alarm Bells, December 5, 2025, https://www.csis.org/analysis/national-security-strategy-good-not-so-great-and-alarm-bells.
[ix] Peter J. Meyer, “Presidential Pardon of Former Honduran President Convicted of Drug Trafficking,” legislation, accessed January 5, 2026, https://www.congress.gov/crs-product/IN12621.
[x] Roger Harris, “US Blockades Venezuela in a War Still Searching for an Official Rationale,” CounterPunch.Org, December 22, 2025, https://www.counterpunch.org/2025/12/22/us-blockades-venezuela-in-a-war-still-searching-for-an-official-rationale/.
[xi] Harris, “US Blockades Venezuela in a War Still Searching for an Official Rationale.”
[xii] The White House, “DESIGNATING FENTANYL AS A WEAPON OF MASS DESTRUCTION,” The White House, December 15, 2025, https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/12/designating-fentanyl-as-a-weapon-of-mass-destruction/.
[xiii] Richard W. Coughlin, “Is Venezuela the New Iraq? – FPIF,” Foreign Policy In Focus, November 18, 2025, https://fpif.org/is-venezuela-the-new-iraq/.
[xiv] Coughlin, “Is Venezuela the New Iraq?”
[xv] Marjorie Taylor Greene and Leslie Stahl, “Marjorie Taylor Greene Interview on 60 Minutes Transcript | Rev,” Rev, accessed January 5, 2026, https://www.rev.com/transcripts/marjorie-taylor-greene-the-60-minutes-interview-transcript.
[xvi] Jeremy Diamond, “Trump: I Could ‘Shoot Somebody and I Wouldn’t Lose Voters’ | CNN Politics,” CNN, January 23, 2016, https://www.cnn.com/2016/01/23/politics/donald-trump-shoot-somebody-support.
[xvii] The Hill Staff, “Republicans Vowing to Never Back Trump,” Text, The Hill, April 29, 2016, https://thehill.com/blogs/ballot-box/presidential-races/278141-republicans-who-vow-to-never-back-trump/; Matt K. Lewis, “Silver Linings for Anti-Trump Conservatives,” Text, The Hill, November 13, 2024, https://thehill.com/opinion/campaign/4986881-silver-linings-for-anti-trump-conservatives/.
[xviii] John W. Whitehead, “Trump Is a Tool of the Deep State Not a Victim,” CounterPunch.Org, July 27, 2018, https://www.counterpunch.org/2018/07/27/trump-is-a-tool-of-the-deep-state-not-a-victim/.
[xix] Peter Rodgers, “Trump vs. Trump: When ‘America First’ Turns into a War That Was Never Promised,” CounterPunch.Org, December 19, 2025, https://www.counterpunch.org/2025/12/19/trump-vs-trump-when-america-first-turns-into-a-war-that-was-never-promised/.
[xx] Rodgers, “Trump vs. Trump.”
[xxi] Rodgers, “Trump vs. Trump.”
References
Coughlin, Richard W. “Is Venezuela the New Iraq? – FPIF.” Foreign Policy In Focus, November 18, 2025. https://fpif.org/is-venezuela-the-new-iraq/.
CPJ. “CPJ Condemns Hong Kong’s Conviction of Jimmy Lai in National Security Case.” Committee to Protect Journalists, December 15, 2025. https://cpj.org/2025/12/cpj-condemns-hong-kongs-conviction-of-jimmy-lai-in-national-security-case/.
CPJ. “Why Extradition of WikiLeaks’ Julian Assange to US Would Be Cataclysmic for Press Freedom.” Committee to Protect Journalists, February 29, 2024. https://cpj.org/2024/02/why-extradition-of-wikileaks-julian-assange-to-us-would-be-cataclysmic-for-press-freedom/.
Diamond, Jeremy. “Trump: I Could ‘Shoot Somebody and I Wouldn’t Lose Voters’ | CNN Politics.” CNN, January 23, 2016. https://www.cnn.com/2016/01/23/politics/donald-trump-shoot-somebody-support.
France-Presse, Agence. “Trump Urges Xi Jinping to Free HK Pro-Democracy Media Tycoon Jimmy Lai.” World News. The Guardian, December 16, 2025. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/dec/16/trump-urges-xi-jinping-to-free-hk-pro-democracy-media-tycoon-jimmy-lai.
Greene, Marjorie Taylor, and Leslie Stahl. “Marjorie Taylor Greene Interview on 60 Minutes Transcript | Rev.” Rev. Accessed January 5, 2026. https://www.rev.com/transcripts/marjorie-taylor-greene-the-60-minutes-interview-transcript.
Harding, Emily. The National Security Strategy: The Good, the Not So Great, and the Alarm Bells. December 5, 2025. https://www.csis.org/analysis/national-security-strategy-good-not-so-great-and-alarm-bells.
Harris, Roger. “US Blockades Venezuela in a War Still Searching for an Official Rationale.” CounterPunch.Org, December 22, 2025. https://www.counterpunch.org/2025/12/22/us-blockades-venezuela-in-a-war-still-searching-for-an-official-rationale/.
Kimball, Spencer. “Trump Says U.S. Will Keep the Crude Oil and Tankers Seized near Venezuela.” CNBC, December 22, 2025. https://www.cnbc.com/2025/12/22/trump-says-us-will-keep-the-crude-oil-and-tankers-seized-near-venezuela.html.
Lewis, Matt K. “Silver Linings for Anti-Trump Conservatives.” Text. The Hill, November 13, 2024. https://thehill.com/opinion/campaign/4986881-silver-linings-for-anti-trump-conservatives/.
Machado, Maria Corina, and Margaret Brennan. “Transcript: María Corina Machado on ‘Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan,’ Dec. 14, 2025 – CBS News.” CBS News, December 14, 2025. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/maria-corina-machado-nobel-peace-prize-winner-face-the-nation-transcript-12-14-2025/.
Meyer, Peter J. “Presidential Pardon of Former Honduran President Convicted of Drug Trafficking.” Legislation. Accessed January 5, 2026. https://www.congress.gov/crs-product/IN12621.
Rodgers, Peter. “Trump vs. Trump: When ‘America First’ Turns into a War That Was Never Promised.” CounterPunch.Org, December 19, 2025. https://www.counterpunch.org/2025/12/19/trump-vs-trump-when-america-first-turns-into-a-war-that-was-never-promised/.
RSF. “1,800 Days behind Bars: Democracies Cannot Let Jimmy Lai Die in Prison | RSF.” December 4, 2025. https://rsf.org/en/1800-days-behind-bars-democracies-cannot-let-jimmy-lai-die-prison.
RSF. “Assange Extradition: ‘Day X’ Ruling Represents Final Hope for Justice in the UK Courts | RSF.” March 26, 2024. https://rsf.org/en/assange-extradition-day-x-ruling-represents-final-hope-justice-uk-courts.
Staff, The Hill. “Republicans Vowing to Never Back Trump.” Text. The Hill, April 29, 2016. https://thehill.com/blogs/ballot-box/presidential-races/278141-republicans-who-vow-to-never-back-trump/.
The White House. “DESIGNATING FENTANYL AS A WEAPON OF MASS DESTRUCTION.” The White House, December 15, 2025. https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/12/designating-fentanyl-as-a-weapon-of-mass-destruction/.
US Department of Justice. “Office of the Pardon Attorney | Clemency Grants by President Donald J. Trump (2025-Present).” Government. US Department of Justice, April 24, 2025. https://www.justice.gov/pardon/clemency-grants-president-donald-j-trump-2025-present.
Wallace-Wells, Benjamin. “The Meaning of Trump’s Presidential Pardons.” Comment. The New Yorker, November 16, 2025. https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2025/11/24/the-meaning-of-trumps-presidential-pardons.
Whitehead, John W. “Trump Is a Tool of the Deep State Not a Victim.” CounterPunch.Org, July 27, 2018. https://www.counterpunch.org/2018/07/27/trump-is-a-tool-of-the-deep-state-not-a-victim/.
Not Without Incident: Questioning Big Brother's Platitudes 
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