Republicans and right wing media supporters are cheering on Donald Trump after the U.S military bombing of Venezuela and the kidnapping of its president, Nicolas Maduro and his wife, in a surprise military operation overnight.
The bouquets of tribute began tossing early Saturday via X and continued throughout the morning.
“A new day is here for Venezuela and Latin America,” exclaimed Republican Senator Rick Scott of Florida. “The United States and our hemisphere are safer because of President Trump's leadership. God bless America and God bless the people of Venezuela!”
Maduro’s downfall began when the Trump administration indicted him for drug trafficking and corruption in 2020. Trump was elected to a second term in 2025 and began building a case against the president as a narcoterrorist and illegitimate leader and dictator. He sanctioned him, seized oil tankers, and last week the CIA hit one of its ports. Now he is headed to New York for fresh indictments, according to reports today.
That Trump has not gone to Congress for approval to engage in a war against Venezuela in order to overthrow its leader — something Trump insisted he would never do — has not in any way diminished the exuberance washing over social media by regime change disciples and anti-communist die hards in Miami-Dade County today.
“Today's action, ordered by President Trump, is what decisive leadership truly looks like,” says “dean” of Florida’s anti-Castro delegation in Florida, Rep. Mario Diz-Balart. “Our country has faced an unprecedented national security threat from the illegitimate Maduro regime. Unabetted for years, Maduro has sent drugs into our country, killing an untold number of Americans, kidnapped innocent Americans, flooded our country with violent cartel members from Tren de Aragua and the Cartel de los Soles, while destabilizing regional security.”
(Balart is undeterred, of course, by Washington’s own intelligence community hedging against these claims. But so was the Bush Administration as its own intelligence warned about Saddam Hussein’s WMDs and links to Al Qaeda before the run-up to that war.)
Each of these postings endeavor to remind us that Maduro is not only a drug trafficker but a dictator as a justification for the “imminent threat” he put Americans in, in order to justify a new war, a reasoning that will be sure to stretch credulity for many who have actually lived through Iraq, Libya, or even further back — Grenada, Panama … Vietnam.
In an early statement, “Constitutionalist” Senator Mike Lee, who used to introduce bills insisting the country could not go to war without a Congressional declaration, actually argued the operation fell under the president’s authority to protect troops from an imminent threat.
But the Constitution is the last thing on the minds of the ecstatic this morning.
“All those complaining this was unlawful, George HW Bush did exactly the same thing in Operation Just Cause in Panama — all without an AUMF from Congress. Ronald Reagan also invaded Grenada without an AUMF. So spare me the TDS about Trump trampling the Constitution and international law,” posted reliable war disciple Marc Theissen. Because, of course, two wrongs make a right, and it was good we stopped all those drugs from flowing from Panama and the region with Noreiga gone, right?
Like a spiritual cleansing, regime change does wonderful things for the faithful. They share chants like liturgy to ratify what they believe is the only course of action. "l am grateful for our brave troops, intelligence officers, and law enforcement who ensured a successful military operation in Venezuela leading to the arrest and indictment of the illegitimate narco terrorist Nicolas Maduro. Hundreds of thousands of Americans have been killed by Maduro’s terrorist cartels trafficking deadly drugs into our country. Justice must be served,” said New York Republican Rep. Elise Stefanik.
Those exact words, hardly rearranged, are repeated by Senators Tom Cotton, John Cornyn, Lindsey Graham and more today.
The “TRUMP DOCTRINE” puts America First in the Western Hemisphere,” declared Republican Rep. Chip Roy, “taking out drug cartels, & promoting free markets & democracy.”
We saw this coming down Broadway when neocon lifers like Marco Rubio took over the foreign policy in this administration and his cadre started coopting "America First" language to promote intervention in "our hemisphere" including regime change.
Whether they want to call it by its name, or “America First,” regime change (some will argue Muduro is gone but his regime is intact) is the “Trump Doctrine” now. Judging from Trump's press conference today, the oft-maligned "nation building" is too. Hang on tight, we're in for a bumpy ride.
To update, not all regime changers are fully satisfied, at least not yet. Elliott Abrams, who has been preaching the cause since the the Reagan-era interventions in Latin America, raised concerns Saturday in the Free Press that Trump was not installing Machado's opposition, but had appeared to be moving in the "Chavismo lite" direction by putting Maduro's vice president in charge of the transition.
"That is a formula for disaster, and if that’s U.S. policy, Trump will have turned triumph into a new crisis," Abrams implored.
Abrams has dreams of Venezuela being "a pro-American, free-market democratic government. The migration flow would be reversed as many Venezuelans return home to build their own and their nation’s future." Seems like as regime changers were using MAGA, they might have been used by other forces inside Mar-a-Lago, with oil rather than democracy on their minds.
