Of sheep and goats
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R) of Georgia is disillusioned. Once the MAGAest of Donald Trump’s faithful, she posted a lengthy tweet Saturday morning as Trump began his press conference on his attack on Venezuela and capture of President Nicolás Maduro and his wife.
Can you say crisis of faith? “Boy were we wrong.”
I’ve served on the Homeland Security Committee for the past three years. I’m 100% for strong safe secure borders and stopping narco terrorists and cartels from trafficking deadly drugs and human trafficking into America.
Fentanyl is responsible for over 70% of U.S. drug overdose deaths and fentanyl comes from Mexican cartels made with chemical precursors from China and trafficked across the U.S. Mexico border.
Mexican cartels are primarily and overwhelmingly responsible for killing Americans with deadly drugs.
If U.S. military action and regime change in Venezuela was really about saving American lives from deadly drugs then why hasn’t the Trump admin taken action against Mexican cartels?
And if prosecuting narco terrorists is a high priority then why did President Trump pardon the former Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernandez who was convicted and sentenced for 45 years for trafficking hundreds of tons of cocaine into America? Ironically cocaine is the same drug that Venezuela primarily traffics into the U.S.
The next obvious observation is that by removing Maduro this is a clear move for control over Venezuelan oil supplies that will ensure stability for the next obvious regime change war in Iran.
And of course why is it ok for America to militarily invade, bomb, and arrest a foreign leader but Russia is evil for invading Ukraine and China is bad for aggression against Taiwan? Is it only ok if we do it? (I’m not endorsing Russia or China)
Regime change, funding foreign wars, and American’s tax dollars being consistently funneled to foreign causes, foreigners both home and abroad, and foreign governments while Americans are consistently facing increasing cost of living, housing, healthcare, and learn about scams and fraud of their tax dollars is what has most Americans enraged. Especially the younger generations. Boomers and half of Gen X will cheer on neocon wars and talking points, but the other half of Gen X and majority on down see through it and hate it.
Americans disgust with our own government’s never ending military aggression and support of foreign wars is justified because we are forced to pay for it and both parties, Republicans and Democrats, always keep the Washington military machine funded and going.
This is what many in MAGA thought they voted to end.
Boy were we wrong.
As the baby boomers slip away both in votes and power, the electoral future will be decided for candidates that focus on American economic populism and promising prosperity for Americans only.
As of right now, neither party is offering the solution.
So how has MAGA reacted to the Venezuela invasion? Are isolationists who flocked to Trump’s America First marketing dancing in the streets to Y.M.C.A.?
TBD, writes Philip Elliot over at Time:
The unanswered question is how Trump’s core supporters will respond. They are voters who helped upend a half-century of Republican hawkish instincts and who viewed regime change as a discredited relic of a bygone era. What is clear, however, is that this is a moment of enormous reset for U.S. posture in global intervention, and one whose consequences are difficult to predict.
“We’re going to be running it,” Trump said of Venezuela from his private club in Florida. And, he hinted, Venezuela might just be his opening gambit.
“It” is the opposite of the what Trump promised them.
Trump, lured by the promise of an oil-rich nation he might control as a viceroy, saw nothing but upside for the U.S. energy sector. But what he was unsure of—even among his inner circle—was the tolerance for this type of expansionist viewpoint. While Trump’s advisers have described the policy as an extension of the Monroe Doctrine, many of his most ardent supporters have been far less comfortable with the notion that the hemisphere should fall under American political and commercial dominance. In the simplest terms, it was game on.
Trump’s posture now is a return to colonialism. In a sense, Elliot suggests, “the first steps at unfurling a new American empire.”
“This is what many in MAGA thought they voted to end,” wrote an exasperated MTG.
Trump the Narcoleptic feels unfettered. The Supreme Court gave him carte blanche to commit crimes. Americans obsessed with the cost of eggs gave a convicted felon another term in the Oval Office. He’s cast aside his base. He no longer brags about the size of rallies. He’s going for empire like his buddy Vlad.
In an hour-long news conference explaining the strike to the American people, Trump made no concessions that he perhaps betrayed his campaign pledges. Instead, he warned that the aggression may not stop inside Venezuela. Specifically, he called out Colombian President Gustavo Petro, who condemned the operation. “[Petro] has cocaine mills. He has factories where he makes cocaine. … He’s making cocaine. They’re sending it into the United States,” Trump said. “So he does have to watch his ass.”
One would think Trump might have to watch his. MAGA true believers staged a failed insurrection five years ago over not getting what they wanted from the November 2020 presidential election. Trump summoned them and they came. He won’t summon them again. They won’t come.
If there is a judgment coming that separates the MAGA sheep from the MAGA goats, the America First true believers from “my Trump right or wrong” MAGAs, it is too early to tell. For his part, Trump seems not to care. He never did. MTG found out the hard way.