In the aftermath of the seizure of Venezuelan president Maduro and his wife, political strategist David Brock urges Democrats not to give in to a familiar (he alleges) impulse to "oppose first, think later."
Not exactly Trump derangement syndrome, but the effect is the same. I understand the revulsion most of us feel toward President Donald Trump, but Democrats’ first obligation is not catharsis. It is political competence and survival.
If Maduro exported cocaine and cartel violence to the U.S., he belongs behind bars, not in a palace. A large share of Americans will hear “the U.S. captured the head of a drug ring” and think: good. They will not parse legal niceties. They will want to know two things: Did it make Americans safer, and will it stop there?
Who exactly "will not parse legal niceties"? Are they by any chance related to those for whom the U.S. president can do no wrong? Do "legal niceties" include the U.S. Constitution? Is it true that a "large share of Americans" are incapable of disliking a corrupt tyrant (Maduro in this case) while at the same time holding their own government accountable for its actions?
The people who believe that an all-powerful MAGA administration is what's best for the USA remind me of the book of the biblical judge/prophet Samuel. Frustrated by the inadequacies of Samuel's sons, the elders of Israel beg for a king. (1 Samuel 8:6-20; context.)
But when they said, “Give us a king to lead us,” this displeased Samuel; so he prayed to the Lord. And the Lord told him: “Listen to all that the people are saying to you; it is not you they have rejected, but they have rejected me as their king. As they have done from the day I brought them up out of Egypt until this day, forsaking me and serving other gods, so they are doing to you. Now listen to them; but warn them solemnly and let them know what the king who will reign over them will claim as his rights.”
Samuel told all the words of the Lord to the people who were asking him for a king. He said, “This is what the king who will reign over you will claim as his rights: He will take your sons and make them serve with his chariots and horses, and they will run in front of his chariots. Some he will assign to be commanders of thousands and commanders of fifties, and others to plow his ground and reap his harvest, and still others to make weapons of war and equipment for his chariots. He will take your daughters to be perfumers and cooks and bakers. He will take the best of your fields and vineyards and olive groves and give them to his attendants. He will take a tenth of your grain and of your vintage and give it to his officials and attendants. Your male and female servants and the best of your cattle and donkeys he will take for his own use. He will take a tenth of your flocks, and you yourselves will become his slaves. When that day comes, you will cry out for relief from the king you have chosen, but the Lord will not answer you in that day.”
But the people refused to listen to Samuel. “No!” they said. “We want a king over us. Then we will be like all the other nations, with a king to lead us and to go out before us and fight our battles.”
Back to the year 2026. I agree with the importance of Brock's two questions that he believes a large share of Americans will prioritize: Did the president's decisions make Americans safer, and will he stop there? But I do not believe that Trump's happy supporters will really ask those questions seriously. Will Americans be safer in an international context of imperial spheres of influence instead of the post-WWII rules of collective security? And is there anything in the MAGA movement's record that serves to assure us that it "will stop there"...?
In the future:
- Will the Venezuela raid be a model for other left-leaning governments in Latin America (good or bad), or will those leaders whom Trump likes have nothing to fear? (Ex-president Juan Orlando Hernández of Honduras, for example.) What about other countries facilitating drug shipments to the USA? Wouldn't more resources for helping addicts reduce the scandalous demand for those drugs?
- If the Venezuela raid was strictly a law-enforcement operation, how do we account for the 70-100 deaths of non-criminals killed in the raid? How heartless is it to boast of its success at that cost?
- Another will-it-stop-there question: does it help international maritime behavior for the USA to confiscate ships and their cargo? Where's the line between unilateral embargoes and piracy?
Iran, Syria, Somalia, and Nigeria have all been attacked by U.S. forces under the president who wants a Nobel peace prize. Meanwhile, on a quieter note, the best deal proposed by USA's leadership for Greenland right now is for us to purchase the island rather than seizing it, despite repeated denials from Denmark and Greenland that the island is for sale. Where will it stop?
"He will take the best of your fields and vineyards and olive groves and give them to his attendants." I have not even touched the subject of self-dealing and corruption in the current administration, or its vindictive campaigns against critics.
David Brock urges us to display "political competence," by which he seems to mean concealing our ideals to earn the attention of those unwilling to follow his two questions all the way to their evident conclusions.
Related: Iran, biblical realism, and perpetual war.
A different take: Perry Bacon's reflections on the politics of the Venezuela raid.
Timothy Snyder on the raid, its precedents and implications. (Link in original.)
In invading Ukraine, Putin deliberately exploited the language of law, claiming that his aggression was justified by the UN Charter. The point was not to affirm but to ridicule the principles of international law. Russia has worked hard to create a world in which everyone treats international law as a joke. The American government made no effort to justify its extraction of Maduro in terms of international law, which is an obvious Russian intellectual victory—even if the Kremlin itself might be displeased by the consequences in this particular case.
Also, Nataliya Gumenyuk on the war in Ukraine, via Timothy Snyder: What if Trump wants Goliath to win?
On Renee Nicole Good and the smear campaign: First the shooting. Then the lies.
Administration officials’ indifference to facts, to due process, to the dignity of the deceased, and to basic human decency is remarkable. They could have pleaded for patience and said the incident would be investigated—the standard response in such circumstances. They could have even done so while defending the federal agents they have deployed to terrorize areas they perceive as Democratic Party enclaves. Instead, they proceeded to make ostentatiously dishonest statements that they knew would be contradicted by the video evidence available to anyone with eyes to see it.
Quakers Rock the Midwest: Western and Wilmington Yearly Meetings and the New Association of Friends present a retreat for 8th-12th graders, January 16-19, at Evanston (Illinois) Friends Meeting.
Greg Morgan (Elder Chaplain), Gabby, and hope.
Nancy Thomas's unexpected adventure. (Best wishes, Nancy!) And her Advent poems part 4, "The Star" and "Refugees."
Corey Harris, "Didn't My Lord Deliver Daniel?"
1 comment:
How can we answer the question as to whether we are safer? We're less than a week into the beginning of ???? What happens now? Is there peace in Venezuela and a large number of people there happy because the US is spending many tens of billions of dollars to restore their oil fields? Is there conflict over who rules, and attacks on Americans and US property because fair is fair?
We don't know whether we are safer a week or a month or a year or a decade from now, we only know what we see.
Trump wants to conquer. Trump wants a ballroom of gold larger than the White House. Trump wants nice marble for the ballroom. Trump wants control of the income from Guatemalan oil to do with as he wishes, perhaps bribe Greenlanders with $6 billion once the income is that high, or who knows, but grift will absolutely be involved? Trump doesn't appear to see the need to share with or consult with Congress. Rubio wants to conquer Cuba because his parents who came to the US before Castro took over filled his head with the evils they experienced under communism there. Miller wants to establish that Venezuelans are monsters and we need to deport them all, or?
What has Trump ever done that came out well, with the people around him safer?
Karen Street
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