Machiavelli Redux - Venezuela, Trump's Geopolitical Nationalism, And A Return To Historical Determinism

Bob Muzelle took the news of Trump's capture of Venezuelan dictator Maduro with alarm - another case of arrogant overreach, the instincts of a dictator, and the proof of liberal prophecies.  Of course he had to add, 'as unacceptable a leader as President Maduro might have been...', the now common and predictable cover for historical revisionism and embrace of socialist idealism; but in a speech to a gathering of protestors at the White House gates, he was as defiantly angry as he had ever been. 

The unilateral action by the President was no more than an oil grab, the use of American power for xenophobic territorialism, and another step in extending American hegemony over the Americas. 

Of course it was, and in so doing Donald Trump became not a historical aberration but the very incarnation of its inherent lessons.  As such he joins shahs, shoguns, kings, czars, emperors and their offspring in a Machiavellian pursuit of national self-interest.  There is one reason why President Xi and his predecessors have succeeded in developing China into a powerful economic, financial, military, and political force in a scant few decades - Machiavelli, self-interest, and the recognition of the dynamism and ineluctability of a self-interested, territorial, aggressive human nature. 

The same is true since Genghis Khan who with determination, skill, and absolute will extended his Mongol-Turkic empire from the Far East to Europe.  The history of the Ottoman, Persian, Russian, and British empires is no different. Policy was made not on moral or ethical principles, but on competitive power. 

American progressives reject any sense of historical inevitability,  Despite the millennia of human history, characterized by this same self-interested aggression and militant self-defense, liberals insist that we modern human beings are better than that, that we can overcome these predatory and anti-social tendencies which are no more than products of social variables unrelated to human nature. 

Deconstructionism, the now discredited and parodied philosophy of French intellectuals Lacan and Derrida among others, insisted that human will and enterprise were nothing more than social constructs, and as such reversable by adding other more humanitarian, consistently progressive ones. 

Yet Bob and his progressive colleagues never got over the demise of deconstructionism, and still feel that despite the Twentieth Century, one of the most bloody and brutal in history, its events are remediable or avoidable.  We can indeed achieve a more perfect, verdant, peaceful, and harmonious world if only we set our minds to it. 

 

Progressives never look at outcomes, only process.  The American capture of Maduro despite the universal cheering of Venezuelans and the promise of a return to peace, prosperity, and civility, is ipso facto wrong.  We simply should not be acting that way, using forceful means to promote our agenda.  We should be conciliatory and understanding of the diversity of cultures.  

Such febrile idealism has never worked, and the demise of the Soviet Union and the retreat of socialism of Western Europe are clear indications of that failure.  In Italy, France, Germany, the UK, Poland, Hungary, the Netherlands and other countries of the world the resurgence of the Right is no accident.  Years of policies of accommodation and social idealism have taken their toll. Historical cultural identity, nationalism, and conviction are back. 

 

Trump's unabashed nationalism, patriotism, historical determinism, and Machiavellian vision has been a strong motivator to anti-progressive activists everywhere.  It is no coincidence that the massive street demonstrations are happening now, for Iranians know that Trump has their backs.  'Harm a hair on their heads', Trump said of the protestors in Tehran, 'and there will be hell to pay'. 

Worldwide, citizens are realizing how much a threat radical Islam is to their historical, traditional desire for polity, civil justice, and freedom of thought and expression.  So much so that only on American campuses are there pro-Hamas demonstrations.  The rest of the world understands the deformed, hateful policies of Hamas, Hezbollah, al-Shabab, the Houthis, and all the rest of the Islamic terrorists committed to establishing an Orwellian Muslim caliphate; and Donald Trump has made it clear that he will do anything to stop their spread. 

Radical progressivism in the United States is ironic, for protestors' support for Hamas only encourages a society which demeans if not enslaves women, brutally enforces a punitive, penitential Sharia law, and intends to rule with authoritarian power.  In the name of 'diversity' (and endemic anti-Semitism) this support continues; but Europeans have come to their senses.  In their midst are millions of immigrants who hate the European way of life and are committed to destroying it, 

Trump's military operation to capture and removal of Venezuela's president is applauded by those conservative European and South American (Bukele and Milei) leaders, for it is an example of what they consider a legitimate use of power to counter the anti-democratic, terrorist movements threatening both culture and political civility.  As importantly it is recognized as something very familiar.  No European is ignorant of the spread and influence of empire and the means to do it. 

Bob Muzelle looked disconsolately at the White House.  His protest - the placards, the flags, the camaraderie, and the fellowship - had faded and ended with nothing more than some vaporous sense of political righteousness.  Maduro was a prick, a drug-running, corrupt autocrat with no business in power, and it was good that he was gone, so it was hard to gin up enthusiastic criticism of the means of removing him. Yes, this exercise of power meant that he might do the same thing in the United States, stage a coup in New York, for example, to get rid of progressives' Great White (almost) Hope, socialist Zorhan Mamdani; but this was unlikely. 

For an instant Bob's Yale classes in European history flashed back.  As much as he had struggled with following the impossible complexities of court intrigues, families, and overthrows thereof, he got the overall picture - kings take, use, and expand power; and civilization is expanded thereby. 

A horrible thought, but inescapable.  Bob threw his TRUMP DICTATOR! placard in a dumpster, hugged his fellow-protestors goodbye, and went back to his suburban Maryland home quite unsure of himself.