What if they gave a war and nobody ever heard about it? That’s what the Trump administration is trying to pull off in its military campaign against Venezuela. Trump has made no effort to convince the American people to support regime change. And he’s inventing a fake non-organization, like SPECTRE from the Bond films, to declare as evil terrorists.
Especially on the Internet—but also in the real world of politics—whataboutism has become the standard approach to denigrating a valid argument or criticism. Rather than address the point head-on, people simply accuse the other side of failing to care about something the accuser claims they should have cared about but didn’t. Or, if the other side did care, the accuser just pretends they didn’t in order to prove that they’re hypocrites.
President Trump laid the legal groundwork for war and/or covert action against Venezuela on the basis that the Maduro regime is part of the “Cartel de los Soles.” As the New York Times reports, however, no such organization exists. It’s a derisive term invented by Venezuelan journalists to describe the corrupt generals—those with stars on their uniforms—who traffic drugs.
After decrying each other as enemies of all that is good and decent, Donald Trump and NYC Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani make nice. On the one hand, it’s good to see some civility. On the other hand, you have to ask yourself if—and when—these politicians ever really mean anything they say.
Democrats did manage to restore food stamps. But they lost healthcare. Without subsidies, millions of Americans will drop out of the Affordable Care Act marketplaces, which were already fragile, leading to the imminent collapse of the entire system. As imperfect as it was, Obamacare was the only significant legislative achievement of the Democratic Party since the 1960s, and now it’s on the way out.
Polls showed that voters were blaming Republicans, not Democrats, for the shutdown. Nevertheless, Democrats caved in completely to the Republicans. It was as if, during World War II, the Allies had invaded Europe and gone all the way to Berlin only to surrender to Hitler.
The Democrats were winning the battle for public opinion over the government shutdown. Inexplicably, they chose to cave in anyway to the Republicans without getting anything in return. Even more strangely, Democrat-aligned journalists and opinion mongers argue that somehow this will turn out to be a victory because they raised the issue of healthcare without trying to win it.
Trump’s campaign of retribution is so widespread and far-reaching that at a certain point, you have to wonder if you really matter if you are not in his crosshairs.
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