Head Spinning

“Two days after the abduction, it’s clear that Trump wasn’t seeking regime change, at least not in any fundamental way. He’s more like a mob boss trying to expand his territory, believing that if he knocks off a rival boss he can bully the guy’s former capos into giving him a cut of their take.’’ Paul Krugman

I think Krugman’s description is right on target, aligning with John Stewart’s line from the other day;

“"America is no longer the shining city on the hill. It is merely just one of the five crime families, splitting up the territories". 

To add my own two cents to the crime boss analogy, I think Trump wanted to replace Maduro to BE Maduro, not only in Venezuela, but in the U.S.  and wherever else around the globe he can muscle in. (Greenland? Cuba?)

Just to clarify what I mean; he doesn’t give a shit about the Venezuelan people, and he doesn’t give a shit about the American people. He and his oligarch toadies care about looting wherever and whatever for as much they can take; in blood, soil and power. As Maduro treated his people in Venezuela, Trump treats his people in the US; feeding them scraps( “tips are tax deductible !“) while he makes health care unworkable and unaffordable; dismantles higher education, science research, cancer research, green energy initiatives, every civic institution that works for the benefit of society and replacing them( when he does bother to replace them) with nothing but a hollowed out shell run by sycophants(Congress).

He raids our cities ( only Democratic-run cities) with his own personal secret police force, terrorizes our population, walks all over civil liberties and shows contempt for the rule of law and the Constitution. Running down the list, you can see the pattern; straight from the  authoritarian playbook. But Maduro serves as a kind of template for what I believe he’s intent on achieving here in the U.S; a society wherein power and wealth are completely in the hands of himself and the oligarchs backing him, and the citizens are so oppressed, uneducated, unhealthy , entirely overwhelmed trying to survive they cannot conceive of mounting a challenge to the powerful.

I’m sure it pissed Trump off that Maduro actually succeeded in overturning an election, just as it pissed him off that María Corina Machado won the Noble prize.

I have no doubt, Trump, Maduro, Putin view us all as cattle. In the view of Trump and his circle, humanity’s only value is in how it can be used to serve them.

As has been pointed out elsewhere, in invading Venezuela, threatening Greenland , Cuba and the entire Western Hemisphere, Trump has handed Putin and Xi Jinping a “raid your neighbor” free card. He, under the tutelage of his mentor, has just made the world a thousand times more dangerous, and the future that much more precarious.( I’m sure if someone looked for it, they’d find Putin’s playbook -maybe in Trump’s nightstand. Most likely as an audio-book)

The incongruity between what is happening to this country and the world as a result of the actions of the current administration and our everyday lives is incredibly disorienting. In the wake of Trump’s invasion of Venezuela, simple things like going to the grocery store or doing the laundry suddenly seem absurd, leaving one spinning in place like a top, unable to focus or decide what to do.

But it’s worth noting that Trump’s invasion happened only two days after the swearing in of Zohran Mamdani as the first Muslim, Democratic Socialist Mayor of New York City. The contrast offers two competing views of the future; on the one hand, a dictatorship in which government is plundered to serve the few, and on the other, a government which works for the benefit of its ordinary citizens; As Mayor Mamdani so eloquently put it;

“To those who insist that the era of big government is over, hear me when I say this—no longer will City Hall hesitate to use its power to improve New Yorkers’ lives.

…We will govern without shame and insecurity, making no apology for what we believe. I was elected as a Democratic socialist and I will govern as a Democratic socialist. I will not abandon my principles for fear of being deemed radical. As the great Senator from Vermont once said: “What’s radical is a system which gives so much to so few and denies so many people the basic necessities of life.”

…So, standing together with the wind of purpose at our backs, we will do something that New Yorkers do better than anyone else: we will set an example for the world. If what Sinatra said is true, let us prove that anyone can make it in New York—and anywhere else too. Let us prove that when a city belongs to the people, there is no need too small to be met, no person too sick to be made healthy, no one too alone to feel like New York is their home.”

In the wake of Trump’s rampant destruction of the world we’ve known, Mamdani, AOC and Bernie offer a different path. We only need to find our footing, stop spinning and walk in their direction