Tag Archives: Trump

A Lunatic Goes To Venezuela

Where to start?

Trump’s defenses of the assault on Venezuela have been as incoherent as most of his actions. Granted, Maduro was a very bad man–but if being a very bad man justified his kidnapping by a foreign power, leaders of other countries might justifiably kidnap Trump.

More to the point, if there were sound reasons to take these actions, those reasons should have been shared with Congress, and Congress–not our would-be king–should have authorized them. Instead, as several members of that body have attested, the administration did not consult them. Worse, it out-and-out lied, assuring the appropriate committees that the administration’s previous actions (including bombings of small boats) were not in pursuit of regime change.

Indeed, the administration defended those illegal bombings, which were clearly war crimes, as part of an effort to halt drug shipments and deter “narco-terrorists.” Trump’s pardon of a major narcotics kingpin–who had been tried and found guilty of transporting massive amounts of drugs into the U.S. and sentenced to 45 years for those crimes–illustrated the extent to which that excuse was a hypocritical lie.

Call me naive, but I see very little difference between Trump’s invasion of Venezuela and Putin’s invasion of Ukraine–especially in light of Trump’s announcement that America will now “run” Venezuela, a country that (I’m sure co-incidentally) has the world’s largest reserves of oil. (That “coincidentally” was snark…) Trump is on record saying America should have appropriated Iraq’s oil when we launched an unjustified war on that country (you will recall that it was Saudis who brought down the twin towers). On Saturday, NBC reported that the U.S. will tap Venezuela’s oil reserves, and The Hill reported Trump’s assertion that we will be “very strongly involved’ in Venezuelan oil. A video posted to Instagram showed Trump announcing that he is sending American oil companies to Venezuela to “help them” upgrade their facilities…

The announcement that America will be “managing” Venezuela smacks of colonialism, which fits MAGA’s clear preference for returning us to the 18th Century. Colonial powers claimed a right—and duty—to govern others because those others were less competent–or “civilized” (i.e. White).

The international implications of this Wag the Dog effort are likely to be profound. The administration has arguably violated the United Nations Charter, which prohibits the use of force against sovereign states without Security Council authorization or a clear self-defense rationale. The Secretary-General of the U.N., António Guterres, has warned that the action sets a “dangerous precedent” for future use of force, and further weakens important post-World War II norms. Rather obviously, if the U.S. can act with impunity and without any obvious justification, other major powers like China or Russia become more likely to cite those actions to justify their own uses of force (e.g., around Taiwan or Eastern Europe), further undermining the already tenuous  international legal order.

It is highly unlikely that the incompetents in Trump’s government understand–or are prepared for– potential negative consequences of this lawless act–including escalation of civil unrest by loyalists within Venezuela and/or regional destabilization due to spillover into neighboring countries. Renewed fighting could also spur another surge in migration from Venezuela, exacerbating humanitarian and border pressures on neighboring states like Colombia and Brazil.

Needless to say, this latest example of Trump’s erratic, impulsive and unilateral behavior–not to mention the corresponding lack of legislative restraints– has deepened the already well-founded concerns of our allies, whose confidence in America’s stability and reliability has taken a huge hit since Trump’s election. That loss of confidence and respect have demonstrably weaken­ed our ability to rely on diplomatic cooperation.

In an embarrassing speech on Saturday (I mention the day so that you will know which speech I’m citing, because all Trump’s speeches are embarrassing), Trump stuck for once to the teleprompter, engaging in a halting, low-energy reading of words he clearly had neither written nor reviewed, and several of which he obviously didn’t understand. Among those was his invocation of the Monroe Doctrine, which he’s evidently been told justifies American dominance of Latin America. Trump evidently believes the doctrine is sufficient to turn intervention into “stewardship” and colonialism into security policy.

It will be interesting to see how this latest dangerous buffoonery plays with the public. A quick-and-dirty poll found 17% approving of the invasion (but only 11% agreeing that Trump could take this action without Congressional approval). MAGA folks who had been attracted by his promises of isolationism and “taking America out of wars” are furious.

That said, the political strategy was transparent–for the past couple of days, no one’s been talking about the Epstein files…

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It’s Not Your Fault…

Heather Cox Richardson recently explored the success of Trump’s “sales pitch,” which she attributed to his ability to leverage a belief in the victimization of White folks that Republicans have increasingly embraced since the 1980s. As she put it, the message boiled down to “the reason certain white Americans were being left behind in the modern world was not that Republican policies had transferred more than $50 trillion from the bottom 90% of Americans to the top 1%, but that lazy and undeserving Black and Brown Americans and women were taking handouts from the government rather than working.”

I think this is exactly right.

After all, as a man and a candidate, Trump is repulsive. His “policies” are laughable when they aren’t appalling, raising the question why anyone would support him. Political scholarship has answered that question by linking his ability to generate votes to “racial resentment,” and that link becomes more obvious every time he talks about “shithole” countries, calls Black immigrants “garbage,” or attacks “woke-ism” or DEI. But it isn’t just race–Trump and MAGA have built their appeal on resentment of every American who isn’t a White Christian male: the “uppity” women who’ve forgotten their proper role, the LGBTQ+ folks who had the nerve to open the closet door, Jews and Muslims. Etc.

The base of the appeal, as the Richardson quote suggests, is the festering anger of victimhood. There are thousands of White “Christian” nationalists whose lives haven’t gone the way they wanted or intended. Perhaps it’s that they haven’t accumulated the wealth they once thought they’d enjoy, or generated the admiration or applause or familial love to which they felt entitled. Perhaps they’re among the self-described Incels. 

We have all encountered people nursing these grievances. Sometimes, their complaints are very understandable; other times,  disconnected from their public-facing financial or social positions. Whatever these White “Christian” men feel is missing, whatever the nature of the deeply-felt disappointment, their lives aren’t providing something to which they feel entitled. Not only do they resent the fact that their lives have failed to meet their expectations, they need to believe that–whatever it is–it simply cannot be their own fault. 

They need to see themselves as victims. 

Scholars who have explored the concept of “white victimhood” describe it as a belief that, in today’s America, white people–especially White Christian men– are being systematically disadvantaged, a belief that is then used to justify racial animus and extremist ideologies. It’s sometimes described as “competitive victimhood.” It isn’t related to actual discrimination or oppression; rather, it’s in reaction to a perceived threat: that women and minorities are eroding the historically dominant status accorded to White Christian men in American society. 
 
Weaponizing victimhood may be Trump’s one true talent. As an article from Medium put it,

In the history of American political speech, few phenomena have been as widespread (or as damaging) as Donald Trump’s systematic creation of victimhood stories. From his accusations of “witch hunts” to his depiction of America as a nation “raped” by foreign powers, Trump has turned the language of suffering into a powerful tool for political rallying and authoritarian control. Recent academic research shows that this is not just another example of political exaggeration, but a sophisticated tactic now known as “strategic victimhood”: a deliberate performance intended to justify retaliation, weaken democratic institutions, and strengthen his hold on power.

The bottom line: Trump’s victimhood rhetoric is more than just political theater. It is what researchers refer to as an “anti-democratic, coercive, and illiberal” strategy that both predicts and fosters authoritarian rule, with significant implications for American democracy and social cohesion.

An article in Salon traced the connection between “winning and whining.” 

The article began by questioning how a “once-proud party of masculine self-reliance and personal responsibility” had become “such a bunch of whiny snowflakes?” and reviewed the findings of an academic paper by Miles Armaly and Adam Enders, titled “‘Why Me?’ The Role of Perceived Victimhood in American Politics.”  The authors concluded that feelings of victimhood did explain various (otherwise unfounded) “views of government, society and the world. They found it was especially explanatory with regard to perceived corruption and conspiratorial thinking, and that it was linked to personality traits such as narcissism and a sense of entitlement.

As the article from Medium put it, Trump and MAGA weaponize the grievances by giving these “victims” people to blame– those “others” who are stealing the social status of White “Christian” men.

It explains a lot.

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The Pro-Death Administration

One of the outcomes of Trump’s “culture war” approach to the pandemic during his first administration was the documented excess death rate of the MAGA partisans who refused to wear masks or get vaccinated. Although I’m unaware of research into the survival rates of the even more hard-core cult members who imbibed bleach and/or Hydroxychloroquine per Trump’s suggestions, I assume those outcomes were similarly unfortunate.

This time around, Trump is doubling down on his “angel of death” approach. 

Thanks to his “Big Beautiful Bill,”  health care costs are poised to go through the roof. As a recent essay in the New York Times put it, health spending in the United States since 1975 “has pushed down wages, fueled inequality and left families drowning in unaffordable medical bills.” The essay’s author, who teaches public health and economics at Yale, says the administration is making it worse, and that  rising health care spending is killing the American dream.

The imminent sharp rise in health insurance premiums has been front page news for several months, but unaffordable costs are just one of the health threats faced by the vast majority of Americans who cannot pay exorbitant costs out of pocket. The installation of Mr. Brain Worm as Secretary of Health and Human Services has turned America’s public health agencies over to cranks who elevate conspiracy theories over vetted medical science.

Lincoln Square recently enumerated the threats. For example, as we’ve just seen, the CDC just voted to end universal Hepatitis B vaccine recommendations for newborns, despite the fact that the mandate has demonstrably saved lives.

Now, under Trump guidance, only infants of mothers who test positive (or whose status is unknown) receive the recommendation. Everyone else? Optional. Delayed. A ‘maybe’ if the parents decide to go that route in two months.

And here’s the thing RFK Jr. and the Trump regime aren’t talking about:

Medicare and Medicaid only cover vaccines that are recommended by federal bodies like the CDC. If you cut the recommendation, you cut the coverage. And when you cut the coverage, vaccinations become a commodity. The wealthy will pay out of pocket to protect their kids. The poor will hope and wait – and hope doesn’t prevent liver cancer.

As the article points out, this most recent assault is part of a pattern that has emerged during Trump’s second term. Health protections have been shifted from a public good to a private luxury, and preventative care is being turned into something you buy, not a human right. The wealthy get immunized; the poor get sick.

The Trump administration has raised healthcare costs, reduced Medicaid access, and increased premiums and deductibles. Working individuals can’t keep up with the costs–and fewer Americans are working. 

Americans have now watched 1.1 million jobs vanish in 2025 – the most since 2020 – with Amazon alone cutting as many as 30,000 corporate positions. Not part-time workers, but white-collar analysts, engineers, and project managers who were told they would be insulated from the automation. And rather than sounding the alarms, the Trump regime has been covering for their billionaire buddies. Jobs reports? Non-existent, because the truth is politically inconvenient when corporations are firing workers in droves during the holidays.

And in a country where healthcare is tied to employment – where those who lose work fall back on Medicaid, and Medicaid only covers vaccines recommended by the CDC – the consequences compound quickly. If parents can’t access affordable healthcare, can’t find work, can’t afford fresh food, and can’t protect their children from preventable disease, then the future looks less like a safety net and more like a prison shiv. A slow attrition of the working class. A world where the wealthy live longer, healthier lives while everyone else is riddled with disease, hungry, and desperate.

For much of my adult life, I have marveled at the idiocy of America’s approach to healthcare. We pay far more–and get far less–than other first world countries, countries that long ago recognized that healthcare is a human right, and incidentally, that national coverage offers efficiencies leading to very substantial cost savings.

Trump and his MAGA GOP are rolling back Medicare, Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act–America’s incremental “baby steps” toward more universal coverage–and substituting magical thinking for medical science. They are also ensuring that only the rich will be able to protect their health and that of their children.

As the linked article asks, “Is this the collateral damage of incompetence, or the blueprint of a ruling class preparing for a future where most of us just aren’t needed?”

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The Aftermath

Those of us outside the MAGA cult see Trump’s steady deterioration. Granted, he’s always been mentally ill, intellectually deficient,  massively ignorant, and a purveyor of ugly rhetoric, but his daily descent–both mental and physical– from even that very low bar is impossible to miss.

So what happens when he’s gone? What happens when the cult loses its Jim Jones?

In an essay in Lincoln Square, Rick Wilson revisits the aftermaths of other strongman regimes, and makes several predictions. (My favorite: an aside suggesting the inevitability of his grave becoming “the largest public all-gender restroom in history.”) Snark aside, Wilson notes that the public discussion has yet to address the chaos and bloodshed that so frequently comes after the collapse of systems built around a single man. As he warns, that’s when a supposedly unified movement turns into a feeding frenzy among the sycophants who have been rewarded not for competence but for “fealty, loyalty, public and private obeisance.”

Autocrats are very good at seizing power and holding it. They are very bad at leaving it behind without blowing something up on the way out. Political scientists have long argued that personality cult regimes are especially fragile at succession because the leader spends his life eliminating rivals rather than training successors.

Wilson points to a long succession of cult figures, beginning with Nero and extending through Mussolini, Stalin and Mao. The more a system is in thrall to one man,” the less prepared it is for the day that man disappears. “The court that spent years flattering him is suddenly full of men who see an empty chair they crave beyond words and reason.”

Franco’s Spain. Romania’s Ceausescus. Libya’s Ghaddafi. Dozens of cases exist in the modern era, including, of course, the Austrian Guy. Some age out. Some lose wars.

In each case, the same thing happened. The autocrat spent his life telling the country that he alone embodied the nation. He hollowed out institutions, punished independent power centers, and promoted flatterers over equals. When he left the stage, he did not leave behind a constitutional order; he left behind a mob of ambitious men in the same room.

If you zoom out, scholarship on personality cults and personalist regimes boils it down to a few core truths, and in the age where Trump is dying before our eyes, we’d better get ready to watch them play out…and exploit the chaos to slap autocracy back into its hole.

Wilson tells us that the more central the person has become, the more dangerous the aftermath. He describes three possibilities: the movement may fracture into rival factions (in which case, he predicts a Vance/Cruz/Rubio/DeSantis knife fight); the cult converts into a dynasty (Donald Jr. is already ramping up–as Wilson says, “you don’t think the Trumps are giving up all this money, do you?”); or the movement is forced into a larger “transition” because it’s too weak to carry on without its human idol.

Donald Trump has spent almost a decade turning the Republican Party from a political party into a cult. The party platform literally dissolved into “whatever Trump says.” Candidates run on loyalty to him more than any coherent ideology. The conservative media ecosystem revolves around his moods, his grudges, and his need for constant adoration. If that is not a proto-cult, it is a full-dress rehearsal.

Wilson says the sycophants who aspire to follow Trump come in three factions: the zealots who picture Trump as some kind of quasi-religious figure, and who won’t move past him will be the core of Don Jr’s 2028 campaign. Then there are the courtiers– the family, money men, and figures like JD Vance who’ve been cultivating their ties to billionaires and Silicon Valley reactionaries, who claim to be the only people who can keep the base and the money together. Finally, there are post-Trump aspirants like Marjorie Taylor Greene and Ted Cruz.

Wilson’s conclusion? “When Trump finally fails to answer the bell, either politically or biologically, do not expect a solemn passing of the torch. Expect the Roman script with better lighting and worse hair.” There will be competing Right wing factions fighting for the same base, scapegoating and accusing each other of treachery (a la Mao’s “Gang of Four”). And he predicts “historical rewrites that would make a Soviet propagandist blush.”

Bottom line: MAGA won’t disappear when Trump does.

The energy that once ran vertically, from base to Leader, will start to run horizontally, between camps and claimants. That is where movements get creative, and reckless, and violent.

You really need to click through and read the whole essay.

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An Immoral Slum Of An Administration

I’ve posted several times about the misuse of political labels and the unfortunate effects of that language misuse. It is especially misleading to call MAGA and Trump “conservative.” They are the antithesis of genuine conservatism, and the ranks of the Never Trumpers are filled with pundits and political figures who are conservative, just not neo-Nazis.

If you need any confirmation of that assertion, read this recent column by George Will.

I almost never find myself in agreement with Will. I not only disagree with a majority of his policy prescriptions, I’m put off by the arrogance and pomposity of much of his writing. That said, when a Republican administration has lost George Will, they’ve lost any connection to intellectually respectable conservatism.

Will doesn’t pull any punches. His first sentence is: ” Secretary Pete Hegseth seems to be a war criminal. Without a war. An interesting achievement.” And he proceeds from there. After repeating the facts that have emerged, he writes that “the killing of the survivors by this moral slum of an administration should nauseate Americans. A nation incapable of shame is dangerous, not least to itself. As the recent “peace plan” for Ukraine demonstrated.”

Will then turns to the “peace” proposal that Trump demanded Ukraine accept, noting Rubio’s initial confession that the proposal had been delivered to an American official by Russia–and that he told members of the Senate that the proposal didn’t represent America’s peace plan. Mere hours later, he reversed himself, taking to social media to assert that the United States had “authored” the plan.

Two weeks ago, the chief of staff of the French army said: “We have the know-how, and we have the economic and demographic strength to dissuade the regime in Moscow. What we are lacking … is the spirit which accepts that we will have to suffer if we are to protect what we are. If our country wavers because it is not ready to lose its children … or to suffer economically because the priority has to be military production, then we are indeed at risk.”

Putin has surely savored the French recoil from these words. And he has noticed that, concerning Ukraine and the attacks on boats near Venezuela, the Trump administration cannot keep its stories straight. This probably is for reasons Sir Walter Scott understood: “Oh, what a tangled web we weave,/ when first we practise to deceive!” Americans are the deceived.

If there was any doubt of the accuracy of Will’s analysis, publication of the 2025 National Security Strategy (NSS) should confirm it. As Heather Cox Richardson has written, it represents a dramatic retreat from the foreign policy goals the U.S. has embraced since World War II.

After a brief introduction touting what it claims are the administration’s great successes, the document begins by announcing the U.S. will back away from the global engagements that underpin the rules-based international order that the World War II Allies put in place after that war to prevent another world war. The authors of the document claim that the system of institutions like the United Nations, alliances like the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, and free trade between nations that established a series of rules for foreign engagement and a web of shared interests around the globe has been bad for the U.S. because it undermined “the character of our nation.”

And the document makes it very clear what this administration believes is the true “character of our nation.”

Their vision of “our country’s inherent greatness and decency,” requires “the restoration and reinvigoration of American spiritual and cultural health,” “an America that cherishes its past glories and its heroes, and that looks forward to a new golden age,” and “growing numbers of strong, traditional families that raise healthy children.”

Observers referred to the document as National Security Council Report (NSC) 88 and noted that it could have been written in just 14 words. White supremacists use 88 to refer to Adolf Hitler and “fourteen words” to refer to a popular white supremacist slogan…

The document is a White supremacist manifesto. It rejects immigration, denounces “the disastrous ‘climate change’ and ‘Net Zero’ ideologies” that it claims have harmed Europe, threatened the United States, and operated to subsidize our adversaries. It further distances the U.S. from NATO.

The upshot is that the document “reorients the U.S. away from traditional European allies toward Russia.” It characterizes Europe’s current course as one leading to “civilizational erasure” and calls for reassertion of “Western identity,” (by which it clearly means White.)

It may be the most shameful document produced by this “Immoral slum” of an administration.

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