The rule of law is the philosophy behind the Trump administration's decision to kidnap Nicolás Maduro.
White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth speak with members of the National Guard during a visit to Union Station on August 20, 2025 in Washington, DC.
(Al Drago-Poole/Getty Images)
Last Sunday, Stephen Miller, the chief wingman of newly minted neo-imperialist Donald Trump, wrote unusual post on X. His brazen rewriting of history is worth reading in full:
None of this is true: the colonial projects of the 18th and 19th centuries were never intended to make the natives rich and successful, any more than slavery was intended to improve the conditions of the slaves—a ridiculous and insulting position that Lost Cause proponents still defend today. Colonialism was—and is—about using raw power to accumulate more power, more resources, more markets, more military bases, and cheaper and more expendable labor. Miller's “reverse colonization,” or—to use language not borrowed from Nazis like Anders Breivik—a more liberal, race-neutral immigration system, never gave preferential treatment to new residents or naturalized citizens, but it did attract labor, talent, investment, and dreamers from around the world.
Allowing increased immigration was – and is – not about “self-punishment”; it is about maintaining the economic dynamics of countries. Immigrants—whether refugees, asylum seekers, or any other visa holders—start businesses, provide essential medical and home care skills, staff child care centers, and harvest crops that the homegrown population has long decided it does not want to harvest. Take away immigration and remove immigrants and you are left with a smaller, meaner, narrower, poorer culture.
Of course, the fact that Miller's white supremacist philosophy is based on lies and historically unfounded claims should come as no surprise. This is a political regime that, like all authoritarian regimes, thrives on disinformation and Stalin's rewriting of history to suit the needs of the moment. Become a witness White House efforts This week, around the fifth anniversary of the Trump-incited insurrection to turn a murderous MAGA mob into peaceful protesters, attacked by Capitol Police on the orders of Nancy Pelosi. There is something Goebbelsian in their understanding: if you simply repeat the Big Lie loudly and often enough, it will gain momentum. They accepted Orwell's idea that if you use the levers of government to maximize your propaganda, a shockingly large number of people will end up agreeing that two plus two equals five.
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For Lucan Way, a distinguished professor of democracy at the University of Toronto who has written about America's slide into “competitive authoritarianism,” the GOP's cooperation with Trump's Jan. 6 changes is the clearest indicator yet that the party as a whole has abandoned its commitment to democracy. “The Republican Party's open embrace of authoritarianism is,” he said, “the most important fact of the American political system.”
Way believes the United States has been functionally authoritarian since March, when Trump 2.0 began his offensive against law firms that represented Democrats and civil rights groups, as well as universities that the administration said were too “woke” in their approach to academics. “In a democracy, we can stand up to the government and not have our careers costly to us. In an authoritarian regime, you have to worry about contracts, about being investigated by the Department of Justice. That's clearly the case in the US.”
The bigotry and authoritarianism of Miller, a leading proponent of Trump's masturbatory fantasies of aggrandizement, were on full display this week. In addition to accepting Breivik's abhorrent anti-immigration creed, he also supported Hitler's philosophy of international relations. “We live in a world, a real world, that is governed by power, that is governed by power, that is governed by power,” he said in a statement. interview with CNN's Jake Tapper in which he argued that the United States would seize Greenland and its vast mineral resources, refusing to rule out the use of military force to achieve this goal. “These are the iron laws of the world since the beginning of time.”
In other words, we are big and have an army with an almost unlimited ability to cause harm, so – whether you are allies like Denmark or long-time enemies like Venezuela – submit to our will or expect to get the crap kicked out of you.
Might is right is the philosophy behind the Trump administration's decision to kidnap Venezuela's notorious leader, put a gun to the head of the remaining leadership in the wake of this act of international piracy, and quickly steal tens of millions of barrels of Venezuelan oil for sale by the United States on the open market with profits are personally controlled by one Donald J. Trump. What is happening is no different from the Elizabethan privateers who, with government support, plundered ships on the high seas, stole their treasure, and returned to England to add to the wealth of the country's crown.
Couple that with announcements of investment opportunities for hedge funds, oil companies and other corporate raiders, and you're still left with a taste of vinegar in your mouth. The raid on Venezuela was never about restoring democracy, protecting human rights, or improving the quality of life for the tens of millions of Venezuelans languishing under Maduro's deranged dictatorship—it was always about enriching the United States with another country's oil reserves. “This is not America First,” Massachusetts Senator Edward Markey. marked. “This is first and foremost authoritarianism.”
And if Trump then goes to Colombia, Cuba, Panama or even Denmark, you can bet your bottom cryptocurrency dollar that it will also have nothing to do with human rights and everything to do with access to resources coveted by the modern American Midas obsessed with gold and trinkets.
“They don't stand for democracy, economic development or peace,” said Antonia Juhasz, an investigative journalist who has written several books about the oil industry and the influence it has on U.S. politics. “The whole point was to remove Maduro” and then appoint a lawmaker who would do the bidding of the United States when it came to oil demand.
Although the United States has fought many wars over oil, Juhasz told me that previous administrations felt they needed to provide some bogus justification under international law. “What makes it [the attack on Venezuela] Another thing is that the Trump administration is making no effort at all to comply with international law. This is a very public event; This is not a secret mission. This is the public removal of the president of another country without any hint of legality.” And this opens the door to the jungle of the 21st century, in which the strongest simply absorb the weak.
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According to Juhasz, we are seeing the consolidation of an informal alliance of authoritarian leaders whose power is supported by the huge sums of money generated by the fossil fuel industry. “The Trump administration's attempts to control the Western Hemisphere, and to do so through energy and support for fossil fuels, bring Trump even closer to his pet authoritarian regimes, Putin and Mohammed bin Salman. It divides the world into spheres, allowing authoritarians to dominate their spheres of influence.”
This is what American authoritarianism looks and sounds like. This is an ugly beast from head to toe.
As I was finishing up this column, an ICE agent in Minneapolis shot and killed a peaceful protester as she tried to leave, blocking the way for ICE vehicles. Witnesses say that when they tried to help her, armed traffic police officers prevented them from reaching the scene. This is a tragedy that has been in the making for the last year. Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey responded with a furious speech. “ICE, get the hell out of Minneapolis,” Frey said. “People are suffering, families are being torn apart… and now someone is dead. That's on you. And you have to go, too. You have to make sure that no further damage, no further loss of life and limb, is caused.” He denounced ICE's claim that the agent opened fire in self-defense as “garbage,” as well as Kristi Noem's absurd attempt to justify murder by calling the victim a “domestic terrorist.”
I hope Frey's message is heard. Instead, I fear that the federal government is about to intensify its military occupation of cities. In these dark times, people of good conscience in the United States must stand up and resist this authoritarianism that seeks to destroy all that is good at home and export its carnage throughout the world.
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