Shoot First And Ask Questions Later - From Drug Boats To Antifa The Trump Doctrine Of 'Go Ahead, Make My Day'

While the Trump Administration was blowing Venezuelan drug boats out of the water - an expression of the Monroe Doctrine (American Latin American hegemony) redux - the American Left was howling foul.  A breach of international law, an unconstitutional outrage, another example of a rogue president out to intimidate, conquer, and destroy all in his path. 

Correct they were, but foul it was not - just the nationalistic instincts of a Machiavellian president who, as a member of the same club as Putin of Russia and Xi of China, had no qualms of asserting American dominance.  If Xi could tame the Uighurs and the Tibetans, forcing them into the Han Chinese orbit; and if Putin could do the same with the Chechens and North Ossetians, Trump could do the same with Venezuela. 

The removal of Maduro and the military occupation of Venezuela were not only successful attempts to secure the world's largest proven oil reserves and to rid the hemisphere of one more anti-American, socialist regime, but to show the world that this president was no longer an internationalist patsy.  This president was unintimidated by political pressure and was unabashedly willing to use military force to gain his objectives.  It was a 'You're Next' shot across the bow to any and all in the hemisphere and beyond. 

By the closing days of World War II, Japan was already a beaten nation, its troops beaten, captured, and killed as American armed forces moved their way up the Pacific island chain. It would not be long before these same troops marched to Tokyo, captured or killed the Emperors and forced Japan's surrender. 

However American President Truman dropped the atomic bomb on both Hiroshima and Nagasaki ostensibly to end the war quickly and to save American soldiers from having to fight their way to the Imperial Palace; but the real reason many observers have noted, was to send an unmistakable message to Stalin and the Soviet Union - we have an apocalyptic weapon in our arsenal, and we are not afraid to use it. 

 

Donald Trump is cast in the same mold.  The invasion of Venezuela and the capture and arrest of Maduro, and the destruction of Iran's nuclear capacity were not just designed to achieve specific, limited, geopolitical goals; but to tell the world at large that the United States will no longer sit by and watch its enemies gain ground. 

This doctrine of 'purposeful aggression' has not been confined to international waters.  The deployment of federal troops in search and destroy missions - i.e. to find illegal aliens and deport them, and to establish a paramilitary presence to deter and stop violent crime - is nothing less than testing the limits of Constitutional law and exercising executive authority to challenge them. 

At the same time, the President has made good on his promise to neuter and destroy Antifa, the American underground terrorist group organized to defy Donald Trump and what they consider his fascist measures of extrajudicial control and intimidation. 

Trump of course has branded Antifa as an internal terrorist organization, and while stopping before raiding their nests, he has found other, indirect ways of confronting them.  Antifa protestors have interrupted ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) operations, blocked the paths of ICE convoys, and assaulted ICE vehicles, and in so doing have committed illegal terrorist activities.  The arrest and detention of these violent protestors sends a message to all domestic terror organizations - you will be next. 

In the last few days (early January 2026) an Antifa protestor was shot and killed as she tried to run over an ICE officer with her SUV.  While stating that any death is regrettable, Trump spokesmen were unapologetic in their defense of the officer.  His life was put in danger by a woman defiant of law, order, and the legitimate mission of federal agent, and paid the price. 

Moreover, the message was as clear as Venezuela, Hiroshima, and Nagasaki.  We will not tolerate the obstruction of justice - i.e. the capture and deportation of those who have broken American law by entering the country illegally - and we will not shy away from the use of force. 

In so proclaiming, 'the days of George Floyd sainthood are over', a reference to the accidental death at the hands of police of a wanted criminal, a serial offender, and a black social misfit after which ensued months of tributes to the dead man and calls to severely restrict and defund the police. The forces of law and order, whether they are local police, federal agents, the National Guard, or the US military will not be impeded from carrying out their mission and achieving objectives set by the President of the United States. 

In other words, a complete reversal of the Biden doctrine of commiseration and collusion, and a restatement of normal, historical, legal policies of disciplined governance. 

This of course has aroused Antifa and its liberal shills and the attacks upon federal officials has increased. Yet, the Trump Administration has not backed away or backed down, and its response has been harsh, uncompromising, and as violent as that of those attacking his military. If violent protests occur, they will be met with unmitigated force.

 

This is exactly what the hundreds of millions of Trump supporters voted for - a return to an unapologetic, muscular foreign policy, a rollback of corrosive liberal idealism, and the restoration of a nation of laws and the forces of order to enforce them.  There will be blood, said Donald Trump, as there always has been in any fight for American sovereignty and freedom.  America will no longer be cowed by the international community, chastised by socialist hedgers, and buggered by the self-serving arrogance of 'The Third World'. 

'How many divisions does the Pope have?, Stalin replied to a critic who challenged him on the Vatican's censure of Soviet Communism; and Donald Trump has the same answer for his critics.  The new world of realpolitik, the doctrine of nationalistic self-interest proposed by Machiavelli and continued by Henry Kissinger, Nixon's Secretary of State, is here to stay.  Muscles ,not daintily lifted pinkies at a tea party are the new zeitgeist, the new ethos, and the new American meme.