The Semi-Sentient Rotting Carrot went and ruined it for anyone who wished for a better 2026 at midnight on New Year’s, kicking off the first weekend of the year by attacking Venezuela and capturing Nicolás Maduro and his wife.
I don’t know how many people are noticing this, but what happened in Caracas was yet another example of a playbook that the MAGAs are running on repeat. It goes like this:
The crazed fascists who have taken over America target, at first, a vulnerable or not very well-liked group. This way, they go after whom they think the public might be the least upset about, so they can establish the principle that they can do it. This is done because it, in their mind, gives them momentum to go after more targets.
See also:
- Trans people playing sports or “kids getting trans healthcare” is how they are starting what will likely be a full-on assault on LGBTQ rights. They say it’s about “protecting kids,” until it isn’t, and then it’s suddenly about taking away other LGBTQ rights.
- “Trump is only going after the bad immigrants” was taken as an article of faith among way too many people in 2024, including many immigrants themselves. So they supported Trump. Now, there seems to be buyer’s remorse. They are no longer hiding that they are going after anyone they deem “not American,” including U.S. citizens.
- Their retribution tour using the courts against people Trump wants revenge for began with John Bolton, who is one of the more unlikeable humans on the planet.
So, the argument that we should be okay in any way with this because they took down a bad guy heavily involved in the drug trade is moot, as moot as the claim that Saddam was a bad guy who also had a hand in 9/11. And I think anyone who believes that it’s a given that this is it and anyone taking Trump seriously about attacking other nations is foolish. They must have been in a coma over the last 10 years.
There is no reason to believe that there is a chance that they go after, for example, Cuba now. Jamelle Bouie is correct here:
rubio pretty much believes in a reverse domino theory for latin america and since he is effectively running foreign policy in the region i would expect him to see cuba as his next target
Nor do I believe that we should assume that Creepy Wife of Creepy Guy Katie Miller is just blowing smoke here. Oh, and I agree with Sam.
I am so fucking tired of being governed by these sadistic freaks
There is a stunning amount of debate about the legality of this action, which takes me back to 2002 and 2003’s painfully bad arguments about George Dumya Bush’s invasion of Iraq. Think those debates are reasoned? Don’t yell at me, yell at Trump’s chief of staff.
"But Wiles conceded that attacking targets on Venezuela’s mainland would force Trump to get congressional approval. 'If he were to authorize some activity on land, then it’s war, then [we’d need] Congress.'"- WH Chief of Staff Susie Wiles, Nov 2, 2025 interviewwww.vanityfair.com/news/story/t…
— Ryan Goodman (@rgoodlaw.bsky.social) 2026-01-03T13:35:17.933Z
The other thing I am seeing a lot of is the never-ending debate on “is this just a distraction,” which is much, much more of a legitimate argument. I think there is a lot to be said about this opinion by a Canadian journalist.
Re Venezuela: it's what mathematicians call overdetermined — there are lots of "reasons" why this happened, all of them true, even though many contradict each other. It's playing a game of palace intrigue to unwind it all, and even then you just end up back where you started.1/2
— Tim Bousquet (@timbousquet.bsky.social) 2026-01-04T17:54:23.071Z
The thing that makes the most sense to me is that autocracy is necessarily arbitrary. As Orwell pointed out, the point of the Party is Power, there is no purpose other than power, and power is most perfectly expressed through nonsensical violent cruelty.
— Tim Bousquet (@timbousquet.bsky.social) 2026-01-04T17:54:23.072Z
So, really isn’t the most important thing to determine whether these are “mere distractions.” Sure, Venezuela works as a distraction from Epstein and healthcare premiums, but those are also shitty things. They work on multiple fronts simultaneously. The people pulling the strings in the background have been planning this shit for years, decades even. Perhaps they moved up the invasion and capture of Maduro to an earlier timeframe because of Epstein, but it’s all bad. This is not something they cooked up on a whim to do a Wag the Dog thing.
Where we go from here is rather chilling. There are a few indications that this will go well for Trump, and plenty of indications this will go badly, but no one has a crystal ball. All I know is that both doomerism and dismissal of the threats are unacceptable at the moment. Here’s to a massive defeat in the midterms and the beginning of real, actual consequences for illegal political actions.
The last word goes to Pink Floyd.