By Sergio Rodríguez Gelfenstein
The pace of events is so rapid that it is difficult to keep track of what is happening and to deliberate on its repercussions and consequences. Last week I wrote about the new U.S. National Security Strategy and said that I would continue trying to discern its implications, but recent events have forced me to shift my focus of analysis.
No one, not even Lenin, Stalin, Ho Chi Minh, Mao Zedong, Fidel Castro, Ayatollah Khomeini, Che Guevara, or Hugo Chávez, has done as much as Donald Trump to destroy the United States and, with it, Washington’s imperial hegemony over the planet. If the current situation weren’t so dramatic and Trump’s daily threatening rhetoric so overwhelming as he suffers defeat after defeat both internationally and domestically, we might have to think that at some point in the future we should be grateful to him.
Jeffrey Sachs, a university professor and director of the Center for Sustainable Development at Columbia University and advisor to three UN secretaries-general, explained in an article written for the independent website “Common Dreams,” titled “Trump’s Empire of Arrogance and Violence,” that: “American security will not be strengthened by acting like a bully. It will be weakened structurally, morally, and strategically. A great power that frightens its allies, coerces its neighbors, and disobeys international norms ends up isolating itself.”
It’s not that Trump has altered the traditional imperialist character of the United States. What is new is that if we accept that Nazi ideology is characterized by ultranationalism and supremacism, which establish the existence of a superior race that must expand through hatred against so-called “inferior beings”; the totalitarianism that imposes absolute state control, as Trump intends by minimizing and underestimating Congress, the courts, and other branches of power; and the militarism that implies the exacerbation of…From the use of military force and aggression as instruments of expansion and war, and finally, the anti-communist and anti-liberal ideology in opposition to socialism and democracy, in light of Trump’s rhetoric and recent speeches, we would necessarily have to reach the dangerous conclusion that a Nazi regime has been established in the United States, with all the implications that this entails.
In this case, some of the president’s personality traits should be added. In a series of interviews for the New York Times, Susie Wiles, the White House chief of staff who is considered the person closest to Trump and perhaps the one who knows him best, opined that the president is vindictive, a liar, and acts like an alcoholic.
Wiles, who attributes her ability to work with the president to having grown up with an alcoholic father, judged that although Trump doesn’t drink, he has “the personality of an alcoholic” and acts with “the idea that there is nothing he can’t do. Nothing, zero, nothing.”
She also stated that many of his actions are motivated by a desire for revenge. Wiles aptly revealed that, “The president’s fixation on getting revenge on his enemies offers a case study.” The chief of staff explained that Trump had told her that in three months he would stop “punishing his antagonists […] an effort that evidently failed,” because although Trump doesn’t constantly think about retaliation, “when there’s an opportunity, he’ll take it.” Furthermore, Wiles revealed that Trump lied when he accused former President Bill Clinton of visiting the private island of convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
Regarding Venezuela, it is worth quoting his views verbatim: “He raised no objections to the show of military power […] against Venezuela and the bombing of ships carrying suspected drug traffickers, suggesting that Trump’s true objective was regime change against President Nicolás Maduro.” According to Wiles, Trump “wants to keep bombing ships until Maduro starts crying,” adding that “…people much smarter than me say that will happen.”
She acknowledged that Trump, who has recently spoken of organizing “ground attacks” in Venezuela or elsewhere in the region, would need authorization from the U.S. Congress to do so. “If it were to authorize any ground activity, that would be war, so it would be up to Congress to declare it,” Wiles said.
Less than a year has passed since the start of the Trump administration. I confess I was wrong to assume that the MAGA movement would have more influence in the government. Recent statements indicate that they were defeated and now have an absolutely marginal presence in an administration that has been taken over by the far right, neoconservatives, the Cuban mafia, and drug trafficking (as evidenced by the recent pardon of former Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernández, tried and sentenced by US courts to 45 years in prison for that crime). The MAGA movement was used by Trump to win the election, and now, like a well-known gadget, once it has served its intended purpose, it is simply discarded.
Nevertheless, I believe the US armed forces haven’t had their final say. It’s difficult to understand why they will stand idly by in the face of China and Russia, limiting their actions to using aircraft carriers and nuclear submarines to destroy small fishing boats while the capabilities of their strategic enemies continue to grow rapidly and relentlessly. It’s also hard to accept that, even though American public opinion is manipulated at will by the media, there are no moral reservations about countering the rise of a Nazi-like regime within their own country.
Paradoxically, this entire situation is being exploited by the Democratic Party, which has risen from the ashes. Yes, that same party— the party of Obama who used to declare Venezuela a threat to the United States, and the party of Biden who used to offer a $25 million reward for President Maduro’s capture—is now using the Venezuela issue to revive itself and present itself as a viable option for the future of the United States, even though just a year ago they were virtually wiped off the political map. The Democrats have won 21 of the 22 elections held this year in the United States, and now they are displaying a different attitude for the midterm elections next November. Who would have thought it?!
Meanwhile, the new decision by the US government is a declaration that definitively confirms the death of international law and the complete suppression – if it does not react forcefully beforehand – of the United Nations.
The silence with which the world is observing this situation suggests that Venezuela will likely have to fight alone to defend its sovereignty and independence. It is clear that we have friends and that we will surely receive support, as has been the case thus far. But, to paraphrase the Liberator—who, referring to Spain in a letter of October 7, 1818, addressed to Juan Bautista Irvine, envoy of President Monroe—today we must say once again: “It is the same for Venezuela to fight against [the United States] as against the whole world, if the whole world offends her.”
Today, when it has become absolutely clear that it is not drug trafficking or migrants that drive Trump’s actions against Venezuela, but rather the desire to seize its wealth and destroy its example—under Marco Rubio’s premise that “once Venezuela is destroyed, Cuba and Nicaragua will fall next, and all of Latin America and the Caribbean will kneel before us”—all that remains is to resist. History remembers Sagunto and Numantia, not their conquerors; Leningrad, not the Nazis who unsuccessfully blockaded it for 1,000 days; and Cuba, which for 66 years has withstood the fury of 13 US presidents who have tried to subdue it.
Perhaps then what someone told me last night will come to pass. Troubled by Trump’s declaration, he asked me what would happen next. After I gave him my opinion, he stated emphatically: “The epitaph of Yankee imperialism will be written in Venezuela.” I don’t know if that will happen, but in any case, the world must prepare itself to face three years of attacks from this Nazi-like, lying, vindictive president who, moreover, acts like an alcoholic.