The kidnapping of Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro and his wife [Cilia Flores] solidifies America’s role as a gangster state. Violence does not generate peace. It generates violence. The immolation of international and humanitarian law, as the U.S. and Israel have done in Gaza, and as took place in Caracas, generates a world without laws, a world of failed states, warlords, rougue imperial powers and perpeptual violence and chaos.
If there is one lesson we should have learned in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria and Libya, it is that regime change spawns Frankensteinian monsters of our own creation. The Venezuelan military and security forces will no more accept the kidnapping of their president and U.S. domination – done as in Iraq to seize vast oil reserves – than the Iraqi security forces and military or the Taliban. This will not go well for anyone, including the U.S.
After illegally invading Venezuela, bombing its Capitol, and kidnapping its President and First Lady, Trump now says he will assume control of Venezuela and manage its oil. That’s what this has always been about. Modern day colonization and oil. Congress did not authorize this war. Impeach and remove NOW.
Whether Americans realize it or not, the United States has just declared war on Venezuela. And, in part because the declaration was less than clear, that could be even more dangerous than it sounds.
Today it’s Venezuela, tomorrow it’s Mexico, or any country that refuses to kneel, because Trump doesn’t see nations, he sees properties, and he thinks the world is zoned for his ego.
This is how democracies rot, not all at once, but in the public shrug, in the normalization, in the exhausted acceptance that “this is just how it is now.”
And don’t miss the accomplices, the congressional sycophants, the career cowards, the TV patriots, the propagandists, all of them clapping like trained seals, while the Constitution is used as a napkin.
The real danger is not only the war he starts, it’s the precedent he normalizes, if you can kidnap a president, you can invade a neighbor, if you can bomb Caracas, you can bomb anywhere.
Trump calls himself a “peace” president, yet every move he makes, every breath he takes, every headline he generates, is the exact opposite, coercion, violence, spectacle, and appetite. They will tell you this is about “security,” about “cartels,” about “stability,” about “freedom,” and they will expect you to forget the oldest motive on Earth, money, resources, oil.
Trump remains the most dangerous threat to the future of our planet, not because he is powerful, but because he is reckless, unbound, and surrounded by people who will not say no.
– Michael Jochum
via social media
January 3, 2026
Whether you like Maduro or not is not the point. The point is whether you are willing to support illegal acts of war, bombings of civilians, and the kidnapping of heads of state – or not. Are you willing to be part of normalizing and legitimizing political terrorism that will not stop with Venezuela and will undoubtedly turn inward?
Because they will use the same lawlessness and impunity with which Trump's administration and the billionaire class is moving abroad to crush any little semblance of rights that we have here – if they are applauded and enabled to continue. Only the organized masses of people have the power to stop the madness.
Elsewhere online, someone declared that what the U.S. is doing in Venezuela wouldn’t be happening if
Kamala Harris was president. Why? Because “Democrats don’t do illegal things.” I appreciate how another person responded:
Kamala sat in the VP chair and watched Biden violate multiple federal laws to facilitate a genocide without so much as speaking out against it, much less resigning. She ALSO watched Biden attempt to coup Venezuela by recognizing a CIA asset who declared himself president in the middle of the street as the rightful ruler. I don’t want to hear a peep about “Democrats don’t do illegal things.”
As with many things in American politics, what goes on in front of the curtain bears little resemblance to what goes on behind it.
Trump says, “We're going to run [Venezuela] until such time as we can do a safe, proper and judicious transition . . . because that’s what we’re all about.”
Translation: It’s ours now, and we’ll decide what to do when we figure out who will play ball. Anyone willing to be our puppet, who will play along with the oil companies, who will help us extend our hegemony over the Western hemisphere, we’ll keep. Anyone else, we’ll figure out how to sideline or get rid of.
. . . In his press conference, Trump repeatedly referred to Venezuela’s “money in the ground” and said “We’re going to have our very large United States oil companies, the biggest anywhere in the world, go in, spend billions of dollars to fix the badly broken infrastructure, the oil infrastructure, and start making money for the country.” He also said the oil companies will be "reimbursed” for all the money they lost when they were kicked out of Venezuela in 2007.
Translation: We did it all for the oil. (It’s always worked out so well before)
Ah yes, we’ve seen this playbook before. It’s much like the coup orchestrated by the U.S. and U.K. in the 1950s’, putting the democratically elected Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh under house arrest and installing the Shah of Iran as the West’s puppet. Mosaddegh’s sin had been the nationalization of Iran’s oil industry, purporting the extraordinary, audacious and totally unacceptable proposition that Iranian oil should belong to the Iranian people. That coup, like most all of America’s imperialistic misadventures, had unintended consequences from which the world still suffers. It’s widely considered the main contributing factor to the 1979 Islamic Revolution and the coming to power of the Ayatollah’s religious fascism in Iran.
. . . Regardless of the insanity displayed at times by American foreign policy, We the People should refuse to be insane. American imperialism isn’t just morally wrong or even illegal; it’s stupid. It’s one of America’s most dangerous missteps. At its worst, it’s a threat to the world.
That the Venezuelan people have suffered greatly under Maduro is indisputable, and I understand the joy so many of them feel at his overthrow. Clearly he was an evil dictator and an illegitimate leader. But so was Saddam Hussein. America’s invasion of Iraq, however, led to the deaths of a million of its citizens.
At the time of the Iraq War, I was hosting a Sirius XM radio show. Speaking by phone to a woman in Iraq, she said something I will never forget. “We knew we had a devil on our hands. We were waiting for the day when we could get rid of him and his sons. And we were plotting. But what you Americans have done is delivered so many devils, we’ll never be able to be rid of them.” We can feel horrible for the plight of the Venezuelan people and still not assume that America invading their country is the ultimate solution to their problem or even an end to their misery.
Let’s start with a question many prefer not to answer: Did Barack Obama authorize bombing campaigns in Libya, Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia, Iraq, and Syria – yes or no? The record is public. Most won’t look it up, not because it’s unclear, but because it’s inconvenient.
That avoidance exposes the fraud. Like the Republicans, the Democratic Party has no moral authority to lecture the world on democracy or legitimacy. It has consistently supported war, regime change, and imperial violence – often with enthusiastic backing from members of the Congressional Black Caucus, who align themselves with U.S. empire while speaking progressive language.
The hypocrisy is glaring. Figures like Hakeem Jeffries and Joyce Beatty denounce Nicolás Maduro as “illegitimate,” while ignoring America’s own compromised elections – defined by voter suppression, gerrymandering, and corporate control. Legitimacy is questioned only when Washington dislikes the result.
Now imagine the reverse. If a foreign country declared a U.S. president illegitimate, invaded the U.S., kidnapped the president and their spouse, and put them on trial abroad – Congress would call it insanity and an act of war. Yet this behavior is normalized when the U.S. does it to Haiti or Venezuela.
So the final question is unavoidable: Would today’s Black Caucus defend the sovereignty of Burkina Faso, Mali, or Niger? Or would they follow the usual script – branding leaders like Ibrahim Traoré as illegitimate, dangerous, or dictatorial?
Overall, the point is simple: Democrats and Republicans are on the same team. Both are pro-war, imperialist, and committed to maintaining a white supremacist global order. And both operate from the same assumption – that other nations do not have the right to control their own resources or determine their own futures.
But Obama bombed foreign nations!
This isn’t a gotcha. Those of us committed to justice condemned Bush’s Iraq and Afghan wars, we condemned Obama’s drone strikes, we condemned Biden’s funding of Netanyahu to commit genocide, AND we condemn Trump’s bombing of seven different nations and regime change in Venezuela.
That’s what JUSTICE requires. Stop excusing atrocity because of the color hat they wear [blue or red], and start demanding justice on the tenets of actual justice.
The Green Party condemns the kidnapping of the Venezuelan President and his wife and demands their immediate release. We strongly oppose this illegal act of war which violates both the U.S. Constitution and international law. Congress needs to immediately commence impeachment proceedings against Trump.
The Party also harshly reacted to the assertion by Trump that the United States will now be running Venezuela for the near term and if he faces any local opposition, he will send in a second wave of American military forces to subdue the population.
The Party urges the Senate to vote on the resolution scheduled for next week to halt military intervention. The bipartisan resolution only needs a majority to pass.
According to the Charter of the United Nations, force is only permissible in response to an armed attack, or possibly to rescue a population facing an imminent threat of extermination.
“Trump is primarily interested in seizing control of Venezuela's oil and other natural resources. His pretext of seeking to protect Americans from drugs is ludicrous, especially in light of his pardon just a month ago of ex-Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernández, who was serving a 45-year sentence for drug trafficking. Congress must immediately convene to finally reign in this President who is ripping to shreds the Constitution and American democracy,” said Craig Cayetano, Co-Chair for the Green Party of the U.S.
“The White House National Security Strategy document released in November 2025, outlined what Trump considers a priority – focus on the Western Hemisphere – which clearly looks like taking control of Venezuelan oil while at the same time attempting to thwart a socialist government,” said Cassandra Lems, Co-chair for the Green Party of the U.S.
The Green Party is committed to join with other groups committed to peace, justice and the rule of law to organize nationwide protests to free Maduro and his family and to stop this illegal war.
Opposing war and a coup in Venezuela, workers and union members need to organize mass strike action. We need broad unity among labor, socialist, and antiwar organizations to build mass protests and civil disobedience actions.
The policy of aggression and regime change toward Venezuela is bipartisan, as with the genocide and occupation of Gaza.
Prominent Democrats like Florida Congressmember Debbie Wasserman Schultz are cheering on the coup, calling it “welcome news.” Grotesquely, Wasserman Schultz is also effectively calling for full-blown war, saying that “cutting off the head of a snake is fruitless if it just regrows.”
Even “progressive” Democrats have limited their critique to merely asking for Congressional approval, while actively helping Trump and the Republicans manufacture false narratives about “narcoterrorism” to justify the assault. Senator Bernie Sanders, in his statement about the U.S.–led coup in Venezuela, calls Maduro a “corrupt and brutal dictator.” Sanders does NOT talk about the many corrupt and brutal dictators that the Democratic and Republican Parties have propped up around the world when it suits the interests of U.S. imperialism. In the context of bombing and a coup by U.S. imperialism, Sanders is parroting pro-war rhetoric like that which has been used by Trump and Republicans to justify this attack.
Both billionaire-backed parties have ratcheted up towards war on Venezuela. It was Democratic President Barack Obama who first declared Venezuela an “extraordinary threat” to national security in 2015. In 2020, Trump issued a bounty of $15 million for Maduro. Democratic President Joe Biden increased that bounty to $25 million, and Trump increased it again to $50 million.
The only way to stop the war on Venezuela is for the American working class, led by unionized workers and the labor movement, to urgently organize mass strike actions to build toward a one-day general strike against imperialist war and the billionaire class. Workers internationally must stand with working people in Venezuela against the privatization and plundering of their oil resources by U.S. and Western European oil companies. We must also fight to end the sanctions against Venezuela, which have had catastrophic consequences. Working people need to take the major oil and gas companies into democratic public ownership to put an end to their warmongering and destruction of the planet.
American working people and the antiwar movement cannot afford to have illusions in the Democratic Party. We need to build independently to fight both parties of Wall Street and war.
The spectacle of [Trump’s] press conference is amazing. It looked like something out of a Hollywood movie set, a B movie set. This is the Pirates of the Caribbean. This is Marco Rubio now the viceroy of Venezuela. This is an effort to run Venezuela with 15,000 troops. That’s utterly impossible. There is a government in Venezuela. There’s a people in Venezuela. . . . The reality is that we’ve seen this before. We’ve seen this in Panama. We’ve seen this throughout the history of Latin America, whether Nicaragua, whether Haiti, whether Mexico. The reality here is, very clearly, Trump made this about oil. He says that what they do want to run is not the country; what they do want to run is the oil fields. And that’s the central part of this discussion. I think we need to keep an eye on that ball.
And I think the other part of this is it’s clearly a message internally for U.S. politics with a view towards midterm elections. The U.S. can impose its will. We saw that clearly in the national security strategy documents that were revealed a couple of weeks ago, where the U.S. will control the Western Hemisphere. The U.S. will impose its will. The message is clear for Mexico. The message is clear for Brazil. The message is clear for everywhere in Latin America. What we’ve seen here is an effort at regime change.
And we heard this before. We heard this in Iraq, when Bush said that the oil production in Iraq will pay for the intervention. Well, that didn’t happen in Iraq, and it won’t happen in Venezuela. This is about regime change. This is about establishing U.S. dominance. This is about the U.S. regaining control and excluding China and Russia. And imagine what Putin must be thinking, or Xi Jinping, about zones of influence. Well, if the U.S. can exert its role in the Caribbean, well, why shouldn’t Russia exert its role in Ukraine? Why shouldn’t China exert its role in Taiwan? The dimensions of this are incredible.
The only truly astonishing thing about Donald Trump’s latest descent into authoritarian madness is that anyone still claims to be surprised. This is not a deviation from the plan. This is the plan. It is exactly what he promised from the beginning, and his MAGA base continues to swallow the con, the lie, the spectacle, without question, without memory, without shame.
So I sincerely hope that every single person who voted for this rat-fucking traitor, this false-promise prophet who bloviated endlessly about being the “peace president” and then promptly picked a fight with the Venezuelan regime, is pleased with what you bought. You elected a man in visible physical and cognitive decline, a man bereft of conscience, hollowed out by grievance and vanity, and obsessed with one thing only, remaining in the White House for as long as his body can be propped upright.
What we are witnessing is not just insane, it is entirely predictable. Trump laid out the blueprint years ago. During his 2024 campaign, he openly stated that he would not be a dictator “except for day one.” That wasn’t a joke. It was a confession. He has spent years praising strongmen like Viktor Orbán, Vladimir Putin, and Kim Jong Un, and now he governs in their image, weakening democratic institutions, attacking the rule of law, eroding basic human rights, and dismantling the safeguards that once restrained presidential power. The danger is now magnified by a U.S. Supreme Court decision that effectively grants presidents sweeping immunity for “official acts,” transforming the executive branch into a throne with legal armor.
And now, with war drums beating in Venezuela and new threats against Iran, the trajectory is unmistakable. Trump’s version of “peace” has always been submission, intimidation, and spectacle, chaos in service of control. He thrives on crisis because crisis justifies consolidation of power, and consolidation of power is the only legacy he seeks.
If you have never joined a protest before, this is the moment.
If you have never spoken up politically, this is the time.
If you believed it could never happen here, it already is.
The threat is not coming.
The threat is here.
And silence is exactly what Trump is counting on.
Since so many of your friends refuse to say this to you, I will: you are morons. I do not care how many degrees hang on your wall, the most dangerous form of stupidity is political illiteracy, and you used your vote to elevate a corrupt, authoritarian grifter who only ran for president to avoid prison, and now he is dragging the country with him.
History will not be gentle with any of you.
– Michael Jochum
via social media
January 3, 2026
“Get the Oil Flowing”: Trump’s Own Words Make His War Aims in Venezuela Clear – Jake Johnson (Common Dreams, January 4, 2026).
The Horror of Trump’s Press Conference From a Venezuelan Perspective – Michelle Ellner (Common Dreams, January 4, 2026).
Defying Trump, Venezuela VP Says “We Will Never Again Be a Colony of Any Empire” – Jake Johnson (Common Dreams, January 4, 2026).
Run Venezuela? They Can’t Even Run the United States – Richard Eskow (Common Dreams, January 4, 2026).
Global Protests Tell Trump and His Cronies: “Hands Off Venezuela” – Jake Johnson (Common Dreams, January 4, 2026).
UPDATES: “Imperialist Intervention”: Law Professor David Cole on the Illegality of U.S. Attack on Venezuela – Democracy Now! (January 5, 2026).
Major U.S. Newspapers Just Love a Good Illegal Military Intervention – Ari Paul (FAIR via Common Dreams, January 6, 2026).
Chevron Stocks Surge After Trump Vows to “Take Back” Venezuela’s Oil After U.S. Attack – Democracy Now! (January 6, 2026).
The U.S. Is Acting Like a Rogue State in Venezuela – Joseph Bouchard (Common Dreams, January 7, 2026).
Trump and Miller’s “Iron Law” of Imperialist Barbarism – Andre Damon (World Socialist Web Site, January 7, 2026).
Progressives Rip “Spineless” Dem Leaders for “Empty” Response to Trump’s Venezuela Attack – Brett Wilkins (Common Dreams, January 7, 2026).
How the U.S. Stole Latin America – Uncivilized (January 15, 2026).
See also the previous Wild Reed posts:
• Max Blumenthal: Quote of the Day – October 11, 2025
• CAIR Responds to María Corina Machado Being Awarded the 2025 Nobel Peace Prize
• A Call to Halt an Illegal Invasion of Venezuela (2019)
• Jeffrey Sachs: Quote of the Day – May 1, 2019
• Quote of the Day – November 11, 2018
• Saying “No” to Endless U.S. Wars
• Remembering Manuela Saenz: “Liberator of the Liberator”
Opening image: A fire at Fuerte Tiuna, Venezuela’s largest military complex, after a series of explosions in Caracas on January 3, 2026. (Photo: AFP via Getty Images)
All other images: Michael Bayly – Minneapolis, Saturday, January 3, 2026.
