“President Donald Trump on Wednesday assailed his White House predecessors for not pushing back against Venezuela earlier and stated that his intention is ‘getting land, oil rights, whatever we had’ returned by the government in Caracas.” — PBS
I’m absolutely disgusted by President Trump’s attempt to start a war with Venezuela without first putting in the years of tedious, brain-breaking propaganda work. Is it fun to poison the public consciousness with outrageous lies that border on blood libel and dehumanize innocent civilians in a country that most Americans couldn’t even find on a map? Of course not. But it’s what you do! Past presidents used to understand that. Past presidents used to care.
War is like a nice soufflé: It requires patience and preparation, white people are obsessed with it, and you can’t have it until you’ve had your veggies. The “veggies” stand for ominous cable-news chyrons that are just asking questions and voicing concerns from regular people, none of whom are actually Fox News/Newsmax staffers (wink). Social media posts in which government officials cosplay as concerned citizens from their future target are also veggies. Calling every single incident in the vicinity of the country you want to plunder an act of terrorism by said country? You better believe that, too, is veggies. You need an entire salad bar of insidious half-truths, targeted outrage, and racism before you can even think of going to war!
At least, that’s how it used to work, back in the good old days. I miss the craftsmanship of the Bush years, you know? George W. Bush and his team didn’t just point to Iraq and go “I wanna!” like a toddler about to throw a tantrum. They WORKED to get all those soldiers and civilians killed. They put in eighteen months of relentless messaging linking Saddam Hussein to 9/11, and they actually made us believe that THEY believed it. If acting awards had a category for international war crimes, the Bush administration would have collectively gotten an EGOT.
I think it’s just a generational difference. Trump and Bush may be the same age, but mentally, Trump is barely out of his teens. Maybe that’s why he prefers his sexual partners that way. It’s also why he just hasn’t internalized the quiet dignity of hard work. Back in the day, propaganda was a full-time job. You had to seed the story slowly and tend to it tenderly. An anonymous leak of doomsday “official” intel to a friendly outlet here, an article from a mouthpiece think tank there. Not too much, not too little, not too fast. Just right.
This administration, though, wants things NOW and FAST without putting in the work. I don’t mean to keep harping on about it like an old fogey, but things that are worth doing are worth doing correctly. And, I’m sorry, but a few hundred unhinged Truth Social posts an hour fired off in an Adderall-fueled haze over a few days is just not the same as someone sitting down, channeling the muses, and workshopping pure elegance like, “We can’t wait for the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud.” That still gives me goosebumps, not just because it’s spelled correctly and not written in all caps, but because it shows me that someone CARED to handcraft an excuse that ultimately got a million or so people killed.
Am I saying we shouldn’t invade Venezuela just for its oil in an act that will 100 percent make us an international pariah? GOOD HEAVENS NO. I’m not a godless communist. I’m just saying that you should not try to speedrun imperialism. Capitalistic conquest should never feel rushed. It should feel like ballet: subtlety and beauty born from blood and sweat. Also, there should be hints that Russia is somehow involved.
