You MAD-uro Bro?
Settling the Score on Trump's Venezuela Adventure
Section 1: Is Trump a Neoconservative?
No, no neocon would enact a 17% effective tariff rate1 and domestic protectionism, nor a sealed border and the largest deportation operation ever conducted. Neither would neocons so furiously push back against the DEI mandates that Trump built his movement by opposing, nor would they attack European allies and NATO. In the eyes of any reasonable observer, Trump’s domestic policy cannot be classified as neoconservatism for good reason. Despite the recalcitrance and resistance of a thoroughly neocon-captured republican congressional caucus, Trump has gone out of his way to govern far to the right of any neocon.
The reason people2 resort to this characterization of Donald Trump is due to his foreign policy, and specifically his military campaigns. The first example being the strike on Iranian nuclear facilities and now second the capture of Venezuelan dictator Maduro. These actions, along with the appointment of Marco Rubio to Secretary of State, rightly lead to the characterization of Trump as following an essentially Neoconservative foreign policy agenda based on interventionism and regime change. To a great extent I do believe Trump follows a neoconservative foreign policy, but there are also some striking differences in both the scale and scope as well as the execution of these operations. Trump clearly does not believe in the nation-building operations which neoconservatives are so fond of.
However, to understand why Trump pursues such a foreign policy we must return ourselves to the hours and days following his attempted assassination in Butler, PA. Immediately following the assassination, many former enemies of Trump who had either actively or passively opposed him decided to abandon Kamala’s doomed campaign and cut deals with Donald Trump. When Donald Trump had nobody and nothing more than populist sentiment at the start of his second campaign, one woman stepped forward to fund him. Miriam Adeleson. By funding him at such a time, she secured the Israeli interest, which isn’t saying much considering Trump was already a Boomer from NYC, and therefore a Zionist almost by default. What the populist and the ideologue sees as a betrayal is simply an acknowledgment of reality and the practice of statesmanship by Donald Trump.
After the assassination attempt on Trump, Trump seized the opportunity to bring on-side corporate interests and to cut deals with former enemies of his administration in numerous spheres of policy, chief among these tech and Wall Street. Mark Zuckerberg calls Trump a ‘bad ass’,3 Bill Ackman breaks out his wallet, and corporate America starts to signal that Trump’s inevitable victory is not only normal, but preferable - and might even put Woke away. Money is never free though, most of all in politics. Trump was rightly cutting deals with former enemies to make sure his second term didn’t end up like his first; a descent into gridlock and farce with nothing but tax cuts for corporations to show for it. Trump secured his political flanks, and thus secured not only his election but an elite realignment which would allow him to govern with less friction and implement some of his favored policies. These concessions to elite, moneyed interests are the ingredients of the statesmanship and pragmatism necessary to get Trump’s most important policies through a still thoroughly neoconservative and ‘uniparty’ House and Senate.
Populist and overly ideological commentators are tempted to see Trump’s compromise with the Tech Bros, the Paypal Mafia, Wall Street, Venture Capital, and the Zionist Right as a betrayal because they see Trump merely as an ideological icon who can draw upon the ‘power of the people’ to simply ‘do things’. This is not how politics works, and it is not what wins elections. The 2024 Presidential Election cycle cost approximately $14,804,105,512. Republicans need roughly half of that. You don’t have that much money, and neither did Donald Trump. Whether we like it or not, about 100 people are responsible for practically 99% of that money, which means winning relies on making at least some faction of them happy. And making them happy means promising to do what they want. Until Republicans discover a new elite faction capable of putting up eight billion dollars every two years from now until forever, we have to work with what factions already exist.
That means; The Zionists, Wall Street, Tech Bros, and the Globalists. Trump managed to align three castles against one. Relying on a strategy of ‘rejecting all four centers of power to most authentically represent the people’ means losing. The only reasonable question, then, is whether or not he gave away so much that his victory is meaningless; this is the case made by people like Nick Fuentes. Ultimately, it relies on Trump not accomplishing any important planks of his domestic agenda, and often this critique emerges during frustrated outbursts about him refusing, for no good reason at all, to ‘just do things’.
Section 2: The ‘Fix Everything Easily’ button, and why it still can’t be pressed.
‘Just Do It’ coincides with another common complaint in the aftermath of the Venezuelan operation; that it is clear and obvious proof that when the President wants to do something he can easily do it. On these grounds the populists attack Trump on immigration and other issues by accusing him of not being as serious about them as he is about neoconservative foreign policy. This is a fundamental misunderstanding of the nature of foreign versus domestic policy in a constitutional republic, even one teetering on the edge of post-constitutionalism. Geopolitics is a realm without rules or a common judge to settle disputes; it is the state of nature, it is the law of the jungle, it is a realm where the only limit on what is possible is how much power you have and your ability to wield it. Any attempt to act in the same manner in the domestic sphere is to operate outside of law and outside of the constitution itself.
Some on the right yearn for Trump to do this,4 to ignore law and to rule for the good of the people. Less than pearl clutching, I mean that it relies on the ability to convince both the regime’s apparatchiks and the public en masse to cooperate with such operations. It is clear that the American people themselves are simply not ready to accept such a proposition. Unless we are prepared for Red Caesar right now, which we are not, it makes no sense to compare Trump’s actions in the foreign and domestic spheres, as these subjects are of a fundamentally different nature. We must firmly root ourselves in the political reality that Donald Trump is operating in, as outlined above. Once again, this domestic landscape is one of razor thin House and Senate majorities, as well as an openly hostile administrative state. Many right-wing commentators set up this tension as an equation, saying something akin to “I would accept Venezuelan regime change as a concession to the interests that funded Trump as long as we get 15 million deportations, etc.”5 The obvious thing is, unless we are prepared to ignore the rule of law and the American people, and essentially accept an authoritarian military rule in America (possibly following a destructive civil war), Trump actually can’t do these things. Trump has done far more than any previous politician to solve these issues and is constantly pushing the system about as far as Americans are willing to go. This much is obvious.
We have gone from no tariffs to huge tariffs, from two million illegals entering a year to two million illegals leaving in a year,6 from Woke infecting every facet of life to universities hiding and renaming their DEI offices while scrubbing them from their websites. Trump is far from perfect, but his strategic concessions have so far outweighed what was lost, namely a slightly less interventionist foreign policy and a slightly more disruptive immigration and trade policy, to appease the Israeli and corporate interests, respectively. I say ‘slightly’ because any more significant movement in these areas would require congress to actually pass legislation on the topics, which is not going to happen and will not be happening anytime soon, no matter what compromises Trump makes or does not make. Trump’s gamble to get his domestic agenda accomplished is evident in the strategy of the ONE Big Beautiful Bill, as it is unlikely that Trump’s ICE funding would have gotten through the Senate without the pork barrel concessions to the neoconservatives on taxes and military strategy.
We can fix broken tax policy, it’s a hell of a lot harder to ‘fix’ 8 million additional migrants. Since Trump currently operates near the limit of what is politically possible, the only reason to attack him is to continue to force the Overton window rightward. There are better ways to do this than to attack the leader of your movement over policies he can’t realistically change.
Section 3: MAGA vs. America First foreign policy and the Venezuelan Operation
With all this considered, we can now examine the Venezuelan intervention without the noise that surrounds it on the right. The ideological split between what is labelled America First (Bannon/Vance) and Trump’s MAGA agenda illustrate the point. As Trump loves to point out, MAGA and MAGA foreign policy are whatever he says they are, and he is right as long as he is in power. Although, this doesn’t dilute the fact that he has also spawned the more coherent America First ideology. MAGA foreign policy is the use of hard power, either through trade and sanctions or kinetic military action to gain whatever Trump thinks is a favorable outcome for the United States, usually in the form of mineral resources or trade deals. It is, however, wary of American deaths, long wars, and nation building. Trump’s motto of “No New Wars” is an obvious reference to the long wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, as opposed to a principled stand against any military intervention. His broad use of the term, no doubt tactically, was meant to widen his coalition to include staunch anti-interventionists, but astute observers knew all along who Trump was. Whether this is neoconservatism with a spin or something else does not matter- call it what you like.
In this light, the rationale of the Venezuelan operation is straightforward, and Trump stands to gain or suffer from it depending on if he successfully concludes competent regime change in the country. If successful, Trump gains an ally in Venezuela and access to its vast oil reserves. He gains a country to deport the many hundreds of thousands of illegal Venezuelan migrants to, and cuts off the source of those many migrants. Venezuelan oil will lead to cheaper gas prices domestically, but more importantly (given currently low domestic gas prices) it harms America’s adversaries. Canada sees greatly reduced trade leverage as America diversifies away from them more easily, while Cuba faces more intense pressure without cheap Venezuelan oil. Furthermore, Trump increases pressure on the drug cartels flooding our country and on other Narco-regimes like Colombia and Mexico. He will probably gain modestly in the polls, although we should all recall the successful first gulf war and the fact that George H.W. Bush still was ousted due to discontent with domestic policy (taxes). Having a friendly regime in Venezuela is a significant boon to the United States, whatever motivation you think is truly behind the operation, from Israeli interest in isolating Hamas to narco-terrorist beatdown.
Understanding this, everyone should hope that Trump successfully transitions Venezuela to a capitalist, right-wing country with minimal U.S. involvement. He seems well on his way with the capture of Maduro and his statement that he does not believe Marchado, a socially progressive opposition leader, is fit for purpose. Right-wingers were rightfully worried that she would be installed despite her Globo-Homo loyalties due to her outspoken Zionism. It does not, at this moment, appear likely that this will be the case (despite the clamour coming from the neocons in congress). In realpolitik, though, it should only matter whether Venezuela becomes a friend to the U.S., rather than catering to the bespoke interest of certain political groups in the United States, whether that be Zionists on the one hand or on the other the podcast right, who object on the grounds that the U.S. may be, if Marchado emerges as leader, installing a socially progressive regime which would contradict Trump’s stated policy goals to restore the family and end sexual degeneracy.
As for subscribers to America First who may be anguished by these foreign policy adventures, I answer that Trump is simply the vessel for the first stage of the revitalization of our country. Many more stages are necessary to restore America to its republican glory, and America First is, without a doubt, the next step. For now, Trump is the bombastic salesman with the indomitable spirit to fight off the deep state and begin to win. He is not an ideologue; he cannot afford to be. We must not forget that Trump is simply a businessman from NYC who will do whatever he thinks fit for the moment. Trump is not simply a MAGA pragmatist, he is MAGA. Vance is the America First institutionalist who understands and can rationalize the movement which Trump has unleashed. Where Trump is pragmatic, Vance can be more principled. Whereas Trump does not eschew intervention, Vance indicates he does. Political shifts cannot take place overnight, those that do are called revolutions, and they are a resort to force which is to step outside of politics itself. America First supporters should continue to bide their time and build strength; for their champion is in the wings. We can only hope that Trump, who consistently engages in these high-risk operations, continues his streak of winning them. The coalition will not break over a quick strike on Maduro or a stealth mission in Iran, it breaks over a protracted regime change war. The Right can only win if Trump wins.
For those skeptical of this view of Vance, more is forthcoming.
- Sanfedisti
https://budgetlab.yale.edu/research/state-us-tariffs-november-17-2025
https://fortune.com/2024/07/19/mark-zuckerberg-donald-trump-badass/
https://www.dhs.gov/news/2025/12/10/thanks-president-trump-and-secretary-noem-more-25-million-illegal-aliens-left-us
An American-friendly regime in Venezuela also flips one of China's major oil providers and one of Russia's major defense equipment customers.
Great article, also glad to see that you are back Sanfe.