In the wake of the Trump administration’s successful operation in Venezuela over the weekend, we’ve heard the usual hypocritical objections from the left: that the action was “illegal” (it wasn’t), that Trump is merely after Venezuela’s oil (he isn’t), that the arrest of Nicolas Maduro represents “Iraq 2.0” (it doesn’t).
These objections are of course as disingenuous as they are inaccurate. And anyway, whatever military operation Trump might undertake against America’s foes overseas will always be reflexively denounced by Democrats in the most hysterical terms — even when it’s wildly successful, as this one was.
But it’s the objections and outrage coming from the right that are more important — and more concerning. Rep. Marjory Taylor Greene, lately of MAGA, took to X to post a lengthy dissent, decrying the Venezuela operation as “regime change” and a betrayal of Trump’s base. The people who thought they were voting for Trump to end “our own government’s never ending military aggression and support of foreign wars” were wrong, says Greene.
Her grievances are representative of a not-insignificant swath of the right that is committed to a certain way of doing things, and specifically to a strict adherence to the rules-based international order. Writes Greene: “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?”
This is an important question, and it gets to the heart of some pretty deep misunderstandings of American power and national interest on the MAGA right, which is understandably wary of any foreign military action after decades of disastrous neocon adventurism abroad.
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