This Isn’t Just About Venezuela. It’s About What Comes Next.

Unchecked power, fake pretexts, and the terrifying precedent being set in real time.

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I spent a considerable amount of time in high school and college protesting a Republican president who tanked the economy and launched dumb wars so Big Oil could line its pockets. And here we are again: stuck in the same loop, only now with an even dumber, more corrupt Republican president doing it all over again.

Say what you will about George W. Bush—at least he bothered to lie to us. They invented a story. Weapons of mass destruction. A whole fictional pretext to justify invading Iraq. They put American lives at risk for a reason that, to this day, still doesn’t make a shred of fucking sense—but at least on some level they understood the rules they were breaking. What’s changed isn’t just the president. It’s how little effort they now put into hiding it.

Trump doesn’t even pretend. He’s openly bragging that it’s about oil. They briefed oil executives before they told Congress what was happening. And let’s be clear: Bush, for all his failures, went to Congress and got authorization to invade Iraq. It was a disaster, but he followed the process. Trump fabricated a pretext and launched an illegal war—on the dime of the American taxpayer, in the middle of the night—without even the courtesy of pretending otherwise.

Risking the lives of American soldiers to make oil companies more profitable is wrong. It was wrong then, and it’s still wrong now. And the fact that they’ve stopped even pretending otherwise should scare the hell out of us.

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I have two big thoughts as I try to process what our government just did in Venezuela.

First: Nicolás Maduro is a piece of shit. Let’s not dance around that. He’s a brutal dictator who has robbed and killed his own people. No one should feel sympathy for him. But condemning Maduro doesn’t magically make this strike legal—or smart. And it doesn’t erase the much bigger, much older problem underneath all of this.

After 9/11, we handed the executive branch insane powers in the name of “keeping us safe.” That was a mistake then, and it’s even more dangerous now. What started as wars in the Middle East quietly expanded into drone strikes in countries like Yemen under Obama. And yeah—most Americans were mostly okay with it, because we trusted Obama.

That trust is gone and we shouldn’t ever give any president that kind of blind faith again, even if it’s someone you like and support (as I proudly did with Obama).

And now we’ve got Trump inventing fake terms like “narco-terrorist” to justify blowing up boats in the Caribbean—and overthrowing a government in South America. That destabilizes an entire region.

The truth is, this doesn’t make us safer. It trades long-term stability for short-term, reckless bravado, creating more instability, more resentment, and more reasons for retaliation down the line. And when leaders get used to acting without limits in the name of “security,” that danger doesn’t stay overseas.

That’s where this leads. If we don’t draw a line here, this kind of unchecked executive power will keep escalating. First it’s Venezuela. Next it’s Colombia, or Mexico, or Cuba. And eventually, this precedent will be used to justify violence against people inside our own borders.

Don’t kid yourself—they’re already laying the groundwork. Trump, J.D. Vance, Stephen Miller, the entire MAGA machine—they don’t just call terrorists “terrorists.” They call people like me terrorists. They call people like you terrorists. Why? Because we stand up to them.

They’re building the pretext now. Maybe it’s not Trump or Vance who pulls the trigger. But the machinery is being assembled in plain sight. The powers already exist. And Congress? Nowhere to be found. Or worse yet, GOP reps like Lindsey Graham openly justifying it—and threatening Cuba that they’re next.

Second: What pisses me off most about Trump’s D.C. is who wins—and who always loses.

We have unlimited resources when oil companies want military protection. But when you’re going bankrupt because you got sick? When a generation of Americans are drowning in student loan debt? Suddenly we’re broke. Suddenly, that’s fiscally irresponsible.

Trump was elected on a promise to lower grocery prices. To address housing. To make life more affordable. He hasn’t done shit on that. He can’t even acknowledge it’s a real issue for people, like he did in the campaign. His tariffs and energy policies have made it worse. So again: who’s actually winning here?

Same answer as always: Trump finds new ways to enrich and protect himself (Epstein), his donors (tax cuts for billionaires… and Epstein), and his cronies (pardons… and Epstein)—and he does it by bleeding regular people dry.

This operation they’re calling a “victory”? We won’t know the real cost for years—how badly it destabilized the region, who died, who actually benefited (although we’re pretty clear Big Oil execs will be the first to benefit). What we do know is that it won’t be quick, clean, or easy. It never is.

They’re pretending they’ll be welcomed as liberators—just like Bush, Cheney, and Rumsfeld did in Iraq. Same arrogance. Same bullshit. Same recklessness. Very likely the same results.

And while they’re off chasing oil profits and photo ops overseas, back home? People are still waiting for relief. So why can’t—or why won’t—this administration do anything to make your life better?

Eighty percent of Americans are barely holding it together. The American Dream is fading fast. Young people are more educated than ever—and still locked out of opportunity. Homeownership feels out of reach. Starting a family feels impossible. Retiring with dignity feels like a joke. Even taking a real vacation feels like a luxury.

And in that despair, people drift toward isolation—and toward more extreme answers. And abandon the belief that government can still do what it’s meant to do: improve the lives of everyday people and keep us safe. Meanwhile, Trump abandoned the core promises he ran on. The promises to help regular people, make life easier, and put money back in your pocket.

But Big Oil got exactly what it paid for.

And once again, the rest of us are left holding the bag.