Alastair Crooke
When the moral pose is openly and exultantly flaunted as sham then young Christians who take themselves seriously become rebellious.
So, finally an act of unvarnished predatory action by Trump and his team - the abduction of President Maduro in a lightning night-time military strike - has launched 2026 into a pivotal moment. A pivotal moment not just for Latin America, but for global politics.
The 'Venezuela method' is aligned with Trump's 'business first' approach which is rooted in constructing a 'financial reward system', whereby diverse stakeholders to a conflict are offered financial benefits that permit the U.S. to (ostensibly) achieve its own objectives, whilst locals continue to extract rewards from the exploitation of (in this case) Venezuelan resources - under U.S. close supervision.
In this template, the U.S. does not need to create a new governing régime from scratch, nor put 'boots on the ground' - for Venezuela, the plan is that the existing government of the newly-sworn in President, Delcy Rodriguez, will remain in control of the country - so long as she follows Trump's wishes. Should she or any of her ministers fail to follow that blueprint, they will receive the 'Maduro treatment', or worse. Reportedly, the U.S. has already threatened Venezuela's Interior Minister, Diosdado Cabello, that he will be targeted by Washington unless he helps President Rodriguez meet U.S. demands.
Put another way, the plan comes down to a single underpinning premise that the only thing that matters is the money.
In this context, the U.S. approach to Venezuela resembles that of a Vulture Hedge Fund 'buy-out': Remove the CEO and co-opt the existing management team with money to run the company to new dictates. In Venezuela's case, Trump likely hopes that Rodriguez (who has been 'talking' with Secretary Rubio via the Qatari royal family, and who is also the Minister responsible for the oil industry) has squared off all the factions that compose the Venezuelan power structure to accept the relinquishment of state sovereign resources to Trump.
What is so pivotal here is the shedding of all pretence: The U.S. is in a debt crisis and wishes to seize - for exclusive U.S. use - Venezuelan oil. Submission to Trump's demand is the only variable that matters. All masks are off. A Rubicon has been crossed.
"Venezuela will be turning over 30 and 50 MILLION Barrels of High Quality, Sanctioned Oil to the United States of America, sold at market price with the money controlled by me", Trump has written on Truth Social.
The erasure of the American 'project' - the substituting of self-interested hard power for the American narrative of it being 'a light to all nations' - constitutes a revolutionary change. Myths and their supporting moral stories provide the meaning to any nation. Without a moral framework, what will hold America together ? Ayn Rand's celebrated belief that rational selfishness was the ultimate expression of human nature cannot reconstitute social order.
The western Enlightenment has turned on its own values - and has destroyed itself. The ramifications will ripple throughout the world.
Aurelian writes:
"It was Nietzsche, purveyor of uncomfortable truths, who pointed out that the 'Death of God', and the consequent lack of any agreed system of ethics would lead to a world without meaning or purpose, because all values are baseless, all action is pointless, all outcomes are morally equivalent and no objectives are therefore worth pursuing...".
In his book Will to Power, Nietzsche's thesis was that the end of all values and meaning would imply the end too, of the very concept of Truth, and would reveal the impotence of mechanical western Reason. Collectively, this would amount to "the most destructive force in history", and would produce "catastrophe". Writing in 1888, he predicted this would happen over the next two centuries.
Nietzsche was saying that when you cross that Rubicon, it is no small matter. The West would then lose the internal architecture that makes Moral life possible, both internally, and as an actor on the global stage. A state that loses its internal architecture becomes merely a mobster threatening anyone who will not accede to its predations and give it the money on which it has set its eyes.
It is far too early to say how events in Venezuela will turn out, but what can be discerned is that Caracas is collectively strategizing about how to manage an aggressive U.S. within the context of rising popular nationalism at home. Nor can we predict how Team Tump's wider ambitions to hollow out the South American regional fabric (Cuba in particular) will fare. Equally, it is too early to judge whether Trump's plan to 'acquire' Greenland may succeed.
What can be said nonetheless is that the existing calculus across the globe is upended by the shift to a nihilistic anti-values paradigm.
The world now is governed by strength, by force and power. "We have power", (Team Trump is proclaiming), so we set the terms on the ground. Russia, China, Iran and others will understand that international niceties should be discarded. It is time to be resolute and utterly hard-nosed, for risk is no longer thought through and critical thinking is absent. Risk abounds.
Coercion breeds the search in others for more effective deterrence - in whatever form - and the merits to any diplomatic engagement will be carefully reviewed. How to trust the U.S. ? Can the U.S. be convinced to revert to the politics of classical negotiation ? Such a claim now will invite a heavy dose of scepticism.
How to protect oneself ? Every leader is quietly doing the calculation. None less so than the Europeans.
Back in 2022 when Russia's Special Operation in Ukraine began, western leaders were very aware of both their democratic 'gap' and lack of moral authority. The Special Operation in Ukraine however, seemed to give them a flag around which to gather their divergent constituent nations. They chose to reach for the Manichaeism that President Biden was embracing in respect to President Putin. It was good versus evil. Many Europeans were drawn to it; it seemed to fill a hole in EU legitimacy.
But today, Trump has ripped away that moral pose. Through the excitement of promoting Ukraine as a symbol for Europe taking the stage as a moral actor, as a consequence the EU at least rhetorically has been edging towards catastrophic war with Russia through a catalogue of misjudgments about the nature of the military conflict - and its causes. The EU leadership has bet the Union on inflicting a humiliating defeat on Putin; but has no answer to the present impasse beyond building castles-in-the-sky multi-point proposals that it hopes to persuade Trump to somehow impose on Moscow.
Instead Trump warns Europe rather that it anyway faces "civilisational erasure" and says that he is considering using military force against Denmark to acquire Greenland. Europe is left naked... and pretending to have moral agency.
Finally, how will this American shift to zero-sum nihilism impact within the U.S. ? The MAGA base already has been fractured by Trump's increasingly open partiality towards Israel - placing Israel First ahead of America First - and now by Jewish billionaires insisting that any criticism of Israel be digitally suppressed.
The images out of Gaza of dead women and children have galvanised many young Americans under 40 years old. Gaza has proved to be the example of an amoral power-politics so extreme that it has radicalised a younger generation that increasingly was leaning toward an uncompromising Christianity.
This was particularly true of the key constituency, Turning Point USA. A big part of the MAGA win in 2024 was due to this youth movement with thousands of chapters, Christian values and high energy. Turning Point USA potentially still offers the prospect for a formidable 'Get Out the Vote' operation.
But what many Republicans ignore is that their voter base is roughly one third of the electorate who turn out to vote, and therefore for Trump to win, he will need to persuade at least half of the 'Independent third of the country' to vote Trump. Polling shows his approval rating currently standing at -10.
A small group of GOP party officers in combination with powerful established politicians and billionaire donors seek to limit MAGA's reach over the Republican Party. Just as they crushed the earlier Republican Tea Party movement that rose in 2010, the party apparatchiks want MAGA brought back under full Party control and to accept leadership instructions on who can stand as GOP lead candidates going into the 2026 midterm elections - and beyond into 2028.
In 2016, the agenda of the 'Sea Island' cabal of uniparty leaders and donors was focussed on preserving the business model of DC politics from the 'wild card' represented by Trump. Today, this extended group aims to fracture the MAGA base that has come to underpin the GOP, in order that they may continue their practice of purchasing all 'horses (candidates) in the race'. The object being to provide a semblance of choice, whilst limiting that 'choice' to two lead candidates acceptable to both wings (Democrat and Republican) of the Uniparty command.
The problem here is that when the rulers become self-absorbed and without scruple, the amorality doesn't remain contained at the top. It cascades down party structures. And when the moral pose is openly and exultantly flaunted as sham - as Team Trump is doing - then young Christians who take themselves seriously become rebellious. They are silent no more. They understand the nature of the game being played against them.
Will they ultimately comply with the party apparatchiks ? That is a good question. The future course of America, to a large extent, hangs on the answer.