Browsing: Opinions

      Late Friday night into early Saturday, I watched the news and scrolled through social media as reports of explosions in Caracas began to spread. I went to sleep unaware of what the morning would bring. Hours later, bleary-eyed and half-blind without my glasses, I woke to headlines announcing that the Trump administration had captured and arrested Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro in what it called “Operation Absolute Resolve,” transporting him to New York to face narco-trafficking charges. Maduro’s sudden removal is being celebrated by Venezuelans abroad and met with a mix of relief and unease inside the country. But beyond those reactions lies a far more troubling implication: Venezuela will not be the end.

    Indeed, we can’t avoid seeing ourselves. As psychologist John Gartner has pointed out, Trump is not only a malignant narcissist, but — as has been clear in his second term — he’s slithering ever more deeply into dementia. Yet people still support him — enough people to let him win elections. Why?

     “Little Black boy,” Williams said, “you were worth it, and you always were. Without any titles, you were enough. You were always enough. You deserve to accept love, and you deserve to be protected.”

    On a cold January afternoon outside City Hall, Zohran Mamdani stepped into that unfinished struggle. As he raised his right hand and took the oath of office as mayor of New York City—the first Muslim ever to do so—he embodied a quieter American tradition: the insistence that conscience belongs in public life.

    Julius Caesar crossing the Rubicon and marching his legion on Rome did not destroy the Roman Republic all by himself. The erosion of the republic and rise of the Empire occurred over decades, if not centuries, and built upon many little cuts and changes, often touted as necessary and proper, needed and good, that all added up to ending “government by the people” and replacing it with one Ruler above the law. These folks were later known as Caesars, who pretended (fake news) to rule with a Senate of the people’s choice but really ruled as dictators. But the infrastructure of the “highway to hell” or Empire erected on the death of the Republic was built inch by inch.

Being An Elected Leader Means Being Accountable And Having A Conscious

    The US has overthrown the Maduro regime in Venezuela, captured its leader, Nicolas Maduro, and occupied the country. Continuing a long history of US interventions in Latin America, Trump has vowed to “run the country until such time that we can do a safe, proper and judicious transition.” The US policy of regime change had been telegraphed for months, as Trump ramped up attacks on supposed Venezuelan drug boats, imposed an oil blockade, and ordered a CIA drone strike on a Venezuelan dock alleged to be used for loading drugs. Now those clear violations of international and US law and false allegations about Venezuela’s role in the fentanyl trade are ending with an occupation and US control of Venezuela’s oil-based economy.

    We did not imagine that Trump would seek to overturn the constitutional order following his failed coup of January 6, 2021; that he would seek to upset the global economic order by weaponizing tariffs; that he would appoint such a large cast of unqualified, incompetent loyalists to key government posts; that he would use the department of justice to go after real and imagined personal enemies; and that he would seek to bring to heel every institution of civil society—the press, judges, universities, law firms, entertainers—just as any dictator would. Finally, we could not imagine that the leader of our country would be so lacking in common human decencies—that he would be so devoid of empathy and compassion, so focused on retribution, so single-minded in acquiring wealth for himself and his billionaire supporters, so openly racist and homophobic.

   The United States Supreme Court (SCOTUS) — once the constitutional guardrail of the Republic — now behaves like a mafia consigliere, advising and shielding a political mob boss who treats the presidency as criminal territory to be conquered. Instead of restraining power, the Court greases the rails for it.

      For anyone paying even modest attention to the current administration’s foreign policy posture, a Christmas Day bombing justified as “protecting Christians from ISIS” in Nigeria was neither shocking nor clarifying. It fits a familiar rhetorical script. What it did not fit was reality.