By Sarah Murnane
The U.S. carried out a military strike in Venezuela last week, where President Nicolás Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, were captured. President Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio argued that the mission was a law enforcement operation, and Maduro was being held on trial for drug trafficking crimes. Maduro pleaded not guilty to a federal drugs and weapons charge on Monday.
The saddest part about this news is that it didn’t shock me, and it should not shock you either. The oldest trick in the American political handbook is when the going gets tough, start a war. Truman, Johnson, H.W. Bush, W. Bush and Clinton all polled with higher approval ratings after engaging in in their respective conflicts. Wars breed a patriotism in a nation. Voters don’t want to feel like they are letting ‘their guy’ down.
They voted for him after all.
Those in government do not have the same loyalties. Republicans, as always, seem to be split but are desperately clawing to seem united. Trump ran a large part of his election campaign on the promise that he would cease and deescalate American foreign involvement. In 2020 he started withdrawing the final U.S. troops from Iraq and Afghanistan and was widely praised for these initiatives.
Now his opinions appear to have changed. Why? Well, Trump was in hot political water this year with his own party. Marjorie Taylor Greene, the former Georgia Senate representative, was an outright bloodthirsty Trump supporter, until last year where she publicly criticised his handwaving around releasing the Epstein files. Others in Congress appeared to be getting edgy about the 2028 election, if Trump’s claims of running again were serious. Trump appears to be employing a distraction technique. Turn the fighting inwards, and away from his person, more towards his decisions. It’s a good plan — if it works.
His aides have not totally abandoned him though, Marco Rubio is doing an excellent job embarrassing himself in the Press. The overwhelming question facing the Republicans right now is whether this was a hit-and-run opportunity or a full scale invasion. Will the U.S. take control of Venezuela? Nobody knows!
Rubio is taking every opportunity to calm people saying the U.S. will only be influencing Venezuelan politics. The President then immediately circumvents him insisting they will be taking full control of the country, and taking control of Venezuela oil. The new President of Venezuela can’t even get her story straight. Sworn in last week, Ms. Rodríguez, initially spoke vehemently against the U.S. and now is taking a more ‘diplomatic’ approach to the invasion. If such a thing is possible.
The perfect way to sum up the Republican reaction is from Rubio himself, Martha Kelner, the U.S. correspondent for Sky News, asked him if the government knew what they were doing. Rubio replied in all certainty that the U.S. not “winging it”.
It does not inspire confidence. I fear that Trumps clear ego and desire to prove himself is going to lead to a lot of hardship. Plus puppet-governments never work, that’s for sure. So no matter how this ends, Venezuela will not be benefiting. The only way we’ll know for sure is in the next election, and who continues to back Trump in government. Basically the question now is how far the Republicans can be stretched into towing the party line.
The Republican voter is an entirely different question. Voters, as morally loose as ever, appear to generally be backing Trump’s decision.
A retired Navy officer and Republican voter was quoted in the New York Times stating “This was such an impressive operation… Now when people think ‘Do we want to go up against the U.S.?’, the answer will be, ‘Hell, no.’”.
I hate to be the one to start bringing those pesky facts into the conversation, but when has anyone ever gone up against the U.S.? The fantasy that anyone is a military match for America I thought had died with Iraq. I guess not.
In the case of Venezuela, I can understand the U.S. finding ways to mitigate illegal drugs and migrants entering the county, but not because this country is a ‘threat’. One must look no further than their initial method of preventing the “narco-trafficking vessels”; bomb them. 110 people were killed, in thirty-five separate strikes of the coast of the Caribbean and East Pacific, with not a single American casualty. There is no military threat. Hence I cannot entertain the viewpoint that Venezuela is a ‘dangerous’ nation for America. The Republican voter certainly feels like it is, but they also felt that Iraq was a danger to them too, and Iraq was 11,000km away.
The Republican supporter base in the U.S. does not have politics anymore. They merely have loyalty to Trump. It is difficult to fully understand the spectrum at the moment because as aforementioned, Presidents tend to have high support ratings at the beginning of a war. The test will be seeing who sticks and who folds as the direction of the invasion fully comes into the light.
A final note is this going into the next election. Trump cannot run again, hopefully. With this style of voter base taking shape, that follow the President based on his whims not his policy, I wonder who will begin to take up the Gauntlet. I can see Democrats and swing-voters turning out in droves for the next election to try and vote the Republicans out, of course. The test will be if the Republicans can replace Trump with a candidate of the same capabilities, or without their hero, will the voter base rejects whoever comes next? Time will only tell.