Invading Venezuela is illegal — and that’s the point

Considering how institutions like the New York Times got snookered into backing the Iraq war during the Bush administration, it’s a relief to see the paper’s editorial board offer a full-throated condemnation of Donald Trump invading Venezuela. Still, it’s hard not to have a “no duh” response when they write that “his actions violate U.S. law” and note that “Trump has not even a fig leaf of legal authority for his attacks on Venezuela.”

Well, yeah. That’s exactly the point. Trump loves to break the law to demonstrate the by-now-obvious fact that no one can or will hold him accountable to it. That’s why he committed so much fraud and, as a civil jury found, committed sexual assault. He bragged on Fox News Saturday, “Nobody can stop us.” 

He’s a narcissist. Showing that he’s superior to everyone else is his prime directive. That’s what is driving this. 

Does Trump know he’s not the president of Venezuela? 

Does Donald Trump understand that the U.S. is not actually occupying Venezuela? It’s often hard to tell with Trump if he’s lying or deluded, so when he says the U.S. “will run” Venezuela, it’s unclear if he truly grasps that Vice President Delcy Rodríguez has assumed power now that President Nicolás Maduro is gone. 

Yes, it’s true that Rodríguez appears to have quietly orchestrated the ouster of her long-time boss through secret meetings with White House officials. She is likely the source of Trump’s claims that he’s basically in charge now and that the U.S. will get all this Venezuelan oil. But while Trump has surrounded himself with idiots, I find it hard to believe they are so stupid as to trust such an obviously duplicitous person as Rodríguez. Well, except for Trump, whose ignorance and narcissism made him an easy mark even before he started going downhill. 

There are increasing signs that the 79-year-old president is being manipulated by underlings exploiting his evident decline. He was clearly tricked — probably by Stephen Miller — by an obviously fake photo showing Kilmar Abrego Garcia’s hand emblazoned with gang tattoos. There’s been excellent reporting suggesting that Trump’s information sources are tightly controlled by people who would think nothing of lying to a dementia patient in order to get their way. It’s more than likely that people like Marco Rubio have simply made stuff up to get Trump to back this Venezuelan invasion. 

Which isn’t to say I feel sorry for him. On the contrary, Trump did all of this to himself by being such an ass to people that they can’t wait to screw him over. If Rubio is lying to him, the secretary of state may feel this is justified payback for years of being called “Little Marco.” But it is concerning that an already-idiotic president is getting even dimmer.  

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Why the White House has no “day after” plan for Venezuela

I often reference Umberto Eco’s 1995 essay “Ur-Fascism” to explain MAGA, so I hope I’m not boring readers by going there again, but it is just so useful when it comes to making sense of the dumb crap Trump and his allies do. It’s increasingly clear, for instance, that they have no real plan for how to deal with a post-Maduro Venezuela. To non-fascists, this is nuts. How do you not think about what comes after you pull a stunt that big? 

Reading Eco helps answer that. Fascists, he argues, believe in “action for action’s sake.” He continues: “Action being beautiful in itself, it must be taken before, or without, any previous reflection. Thinking is a form of emasculation.”

The attack on Venezuela embodies this. Why didn’t they think about what came after kidnapping Maduro? Why do they seem to have not thought past the moment of declaring victory? Well, in their view, thought is emasculating. The true man acts without thought, and lets the chips fall where they may. 

There’s more in this essay that explains this idiotic attack. Reports that the White House staff were offended that Maduro was filmed dancing, which they perceived as mockery? Eco writes about the fascist obsession with “political humiliation” and how its “followers must feel humiliated by the ostentatious wealth and force of their enemies.” Now Trump is escalating by threatening to do much the same to other countries? Eco notes that the fascist believes “life is permanent warfare.”

To be clear, this isn’t a clearly articulated philosophy held by Trump or his lackeys. Eco observed the psychology of fascists and extrapolated their beliefs, which they often can’t explain themselves. That’s why it’s so hard to explain what fascism is. It’s less a coherent ideology than a series of impulses driven by a narcissism rooted in insecurity. It’s a movement for losers who want to believe they’re winners, in other words. 

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What we're reading this week

• “Maduro’s Ouster Plays Right Into Putin’s Hands,” M. Gessen, New York Times

• “The Real Donroe Doctrine,” Paul Krugman, Substack

• “Tim Walz’s Exit Gives Minnesota Democrats a Much-Needed Reset,” Ed Kilgore, New York

• “Do women love ‘Heated Rivalry’ too much?” Coleman Spilde, Salon

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