America the Dictator

Today, America didn't capture a dictator. America became one.

In the early hours of January 3, 2026, the United States invaded Venezuela, captured President Nicolás Maduro in his bed, and posted trophy photos of him blindfolded aboard an American warship.¹ Then Donald Trump stood at Mar-a-Lago and said the quiet part out loud:

“We’re going to get back our oil.”¹

Our oil. In a sovereign nation 2,000 miles away.

This is not a story about Venezuela. This is not a story about Maduro’s crimes, real as they are. This is a story about what America just became—and what we stand to lose if we don’t stop it.

What We’re About to Lose

The international order that emerged after World War II was built on a simple premise: nations cannot simply invade other nations and take what they want. The UN Charter, which the United States helped write, states in Article 2(4) that all members “shall refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state.”

We didn’t just violate that principle. We obliterated it. And we did it while bragging about stealing oil.

For 80 years, this framework—imperfect, hypocritical, selectively enforced—did one crucial thing: it prevented great power wars. The major powers agreed, however grudgingly, that borders meant something. That sovereignty meant something. That you couldn’t just take a country because you wanted its resources.

That agreement is now dead. We killed it.

And if you think the consequences will be limited to Venezuela, you’re not paying attention.

The World Is Watching

Vladimir Putin has spent years claiming the right to invade Ukraine—to “denazify” it, to protect Russian speakers, to address “security concerns.” The West condemned it as illegal aggression, a violation of sovereignty, a crime against the international order.

What do we say now?

We just invaded a sovereign nation, captured its leader in his bed, announced we’d “run” the country, and declared we’d take its oil. We didn’t even bother with the pretense of a border dispute or ethnic claims. We just took a country. Putin’s propagandists are writing their speeches as we speak.

Xi Jinping has watched Taiwan with predatory patience for decades. The entire American posture on Taiwan rests on the principle that nations cannot absorb other nations by force. We’ve told China for years: you cannot simply take Taiwan because you want it.

We just took Venezuela because we wanted it. Because it has oil. Because we could.

Xi isn’t just watching. He’s taking notes.

Every regional power with territorial ambitions now has permission. India and Kashmir. Israel and whatever it decides it wants. Turkey and Kurdish regions. Every autocrat with an army and a grudge just got the green light from the world’s most powerful democracy.

The message we sent today is simple: might makes right. Take what you can. Justify it later.

The wars that follow—and they will follow—won’t be fought by Trump. They won’t be fought by the people cheering today. They’ll be fought by kids who are in elementary school right now. We are writing checks in blood that our children and grandchildren will have to cash.

What He Said

Listen to what Trump actually said. Not what his defenders will spin. What he said.

“We’re going to get back our oil.”¹

“We’re going to have our very large United States oil companies—the biggest anywhere in the world—go in, spend billions of dollars, fix the badly broken infrastructure.”² Venezuela sits on 303 billion barrels of crude—a fifth of the world’s proven reserves.²

“It’s not going to cost us anything, because the money coming out of the ground is substantial.”¹

The President of the United States announced, on camera, that America invaded a country to take its wealth. He didn’t hide it. He didn’t dress it up. He said it plainly, and he expects you to cheer.

He announced the United States would “run” Venezuela “until such time that we can do a safe, proper and judicious transition.”¹ And hours after the strike, he posted a photo to social media showing Maduro blindfolded and handcuffed aboard an American warship—a trophy shot, like a hunter posing with a kill.

This is not foreign policy. This is colonial extraction dressed up as law enforcement.

And about that “law enforcement” justification: Trump claims each boat strike saves 25,000 American lives from drug overdoses.³ There are three problems with this:

• First, fact-checkers found no evidence the boats were even carrying drugs—the administration has never produced any.³

• Second, American overdose deaths are driven by fentanyl, which is manufactured in Mexico and smuggled across the land border; Venezuela produces cocaine, and the Caribbean isn’t a significant fentanyl route.³

• Third—and this is the part that matters legally—even if every word of Trump’s claim were true, international law is unambiguous: drug trafficking is a law enforcement matter, not a military one.⁴ The “war on drugs” is a rhetorical construct, not a legal authorization for extrajudicial killings.⁴ There is no armed conflict in the Caribbean. These aren’t enemy combatants. Under both international and American law, you don’t get to summarily execute suspected drug smugglers—let alone invade a sovereign nation to do it.

The Cornered Regime

Why now? Why Venezuela? Why this moment?

Because a cornered animal is the most dangerous kind.

This invasion didn’t come from nowhere. It was the culmination of months of deliberate escalation. Since September, U.S. forces have been striking boats in the Caribbean and Pacific accused of carrying drugs—at least 35 known strikes, at least 115 people killed.⁵ Last week, the CIA conducted a drone strike on Venezuelan soil itself—the first known direct operation inside the country.⁵ Trump declared the U.S. was in an “armed conflict” with drug cartels.⁵ He surrounded Venezuela with what he called “the largest Armada ever assembled in the History of South America.”⁶

Step by step, he escalated. And nobody stopped him. So he kept going.

The Trump administration is drowning domestically. The tariffs have cratered the economy. The Epstein files implicate allies. ICE raids on churches, schools, and veterans have turned “law and order” into a punchline. Approval ratings are collapsing. The base is restless. The narrative is slipping.

This is what authoritarian regimes do when they feel the walls closing in: they create a bigger crisis. They wrap themselves in the flag. They find an external enemy to distract from internal failures. They bet that nationalist fervor will drown out domestic discontent.

This is the wag-the-dog moment we’ve been warning about.

Don’t let them make you forget. Don’t let them change the subject. The economy is still collapsing. The corruption is still spreading. The fascism is still advancing. Venezuela doesn’t change any of that—it just adds war crimes to the list.

The Constitutional Crime

Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution grants Congress—and only Congress—the power to declare war. This is not ambiguous. This is not open to interpretation. The Founders were explicit: they had lived under a king who could wage war on a whim, and they wanted no part of it.

Congress did not authorize this invasion.

Congress did not debate this invasion.

Congress wasn’t even informed until after bombs were falling.

The Armed Services committees in both houses of Congress—the committees with jurisdiction over military matters—were not notified by the administration of any actions.⁵ The “Gang of 8”—the top congressional leaders with access to the most sensitive intelligence—received no briefing before the strike began.¹ The Department of Defense notified congressional staff only after bombs were already falling.¹

“We got no notice at all from the White House or from anyone,” said Rep. Joaquin Castro, ranking member of the House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on the Western Hemisphere.¹

Senator Andy Kim put it more bluntly: “Secretaries Rubio and Hegseth looked every Senator in the eye a few weeks ago and said this wasn’t about regime change. I didn’t trust them then and we see now that they blatantly lied to Congress.”¹

Trump’s excuse? “Congress will leak, and we don’t want leakers.”¹

As though the Constitution offers the President a suggestion rather than a command. Article I doesn’t say the President may seek congressional approval for war if it’s convenient. It says Congress—and only Congress—declares war. The Founders didn’t include an asterisk for operational security.

Then watch what happened next. Secretary of State Rubio worked the phones Saturday morning—to shore up support among Republicans.¹ Not to brief Congress. Not to explain the legal authority. To manage the political fallout, party by party.

Republican Senator Mike Lee initially questioned whether the attack was constitutional.⁶ Then Rubio called him. Suddenly, Lee announced the operation “likely falls within the president’s inherent authority under Article II.”⁶ Senator Tom Cotton got the same treatment—after a call with Rubio, he declared that “Congress doesn’t need to be notified every time the executive branch is making an arrest.”¹

That’s how quickly Republican “constitutionalists” abandon the Constitution when their team is in charge.

Meanwhile, Democrats learned about the invasion of a sovereign nation from the news.

This was an illegal war launched by executive fiat. The President decided to invade a country and did it—then briefed his party to manage the politics. That’s not how republics work. That’s how one-party states work.

The Maduro Paradox

Yes, Nicolás Maduro is a bad guy. A dictator. A narco-trafficker. A man who stole elections, imprisoned opponents, and drove millions of his own people into exile. No serious person disputes this.

And it doesn’t matter.

The question was never “Is Maduro bad?” The question is: “Who are we?”

Are we a nation of laws, bound by a Constitution that limits executive power? Or are we an empire that takes what it wants, when it wants, because it can?

Are we the country that built the post-war international order—the UN, the principles of sovereignty, the framework that prevented great power wars for eight decades? Or are we the country that just burned it all down for oil?

Maduro lost his presidency today. He lost his freedom. He may lose his life.

America stands to lose far more: our Constitution, our international legitimacy, our moral authority, the order we built, and any claim to being a nation of laws.

We lost more than he did.

---

There’s more below, but first: If work like this—cutting through the propaganda and naming what’s actually happening while it’s happening—feels worth having in the world, please consider supporting The American Manifesto. Paid subscriptions make it possible to keep sounding the alarm when the sirens should be deafening.

---

The Choice

This is not an obituary. America is not dead. The Republic is not finished.

But it is in mortal danger—more danger than at any point since the Civil War.

What happens next depends on what we do. Not tomorrow. Not next week. Now.

Congress must act. This war is illegal. Every member of Congress—Democrat and Republican—must be forced to declare where they stand. Are they with the Constitution, or with the coup? There is no middle ground.

The courts will be tested. Legal challenges are coming. The question is whether any institution remains willing to check executive power, or whether we’ve already crossed into territory where the law is whatever the President says it is.

We must refuse to be distracted. The administration wants you talking about Maduro’s crimes, not America’s. They want you debating whether the dictator deserved it, not whether we just became one. Don’t take the bait.

And the world must decide how to respond to an America that no longer plays by the rules it wrote. Our allies are horrified. Our enemies are emboldened. The middle powers are recalculating. The international order we built is crumbling, and we’re the ones holding the sledgehammer.

This is who we are now—unless we stop it.

The alarm is ringing. The house is on fire. Call your representatives—today, not tomorrow. Demand they go on record: Constitution or coup?

And when you’re ready to understand how America became this—a country that invades sovereign nations for oil while its own people drown in debt—read The Freedom Illusion. It’s the story of how the system was built to extract from you, and how we break it.

The Freedom Illusion — Part I

---

What’s Your Move?

This is the moment we’ve been dreading. The moment when the slow slide into authoritarianism becomes a sudden lurch.

• If you’re a veteran who swore an oath to the Constitution, how does this land?

• If you have representatives in Congress, have you called them today?

• What would you say to someone who thinks this was justified because “Maduro was a bad guy”?

• What do you think happens next—in Venezuela, in the world, in America?

The comments are open. The conversation matters. Talk to each other.

1. NPR, “‘We are going to run the country,’ Trump says after strike on Venezuela“, NPR, January 3, 2026.

Comprehensive breaking news coverage of the U.S. military strike on Venezuela, including Trump’s Mar-a-Lago press conference where he announced the U.S. would “run” Venezuela and declared “We’re going to get back our oil.” Documents the capture of Maduro and his wife, the posting of trophy photos showing the blindfolded president aboard the USS Iwo Jima, Trump’s boast that the lights in Caracas “were largely turned off due to a certain expertise that we had,” and his claim that running Venezuela “is not going to cost us anything because the money coming out of the ground is substantial.” Also includes Rep. Joaquin Castro confirming Congress received “no notice at all,” Sen. Andy Kim’s accusation that Secretaries Rubio and Hegseth “blatantly lied to Congress” about regime change, Trump’s excuse that “Congress will leak,” Rubio working phones Saturday morning to shore up Republican support, and Sen. Tom Cotton’s claim that “Congress doesn’t need to be notified every time the executive branch is making an arrest.”

2. CNN, “What the US strike in Venezuela means for gas prices and the largest proven oil reserve on the planet“, CNN Business, January 3, 2026.

Documents that Venezuela holds 303 billion barrels of crude oil—approximately one-fifth of the world’s proven reserves, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. Includes Trump’s statement that the U.S. would “have our very large United States oil companies—the biggest anywhere in the world—go in, spend billions of dollars, fix the badly broken infrastructure.” Establishes the economic stakes driving the invasion and the resource-extraction motive behind Trump’s claim that America would “get back our oil.”

3. PolitiFact via PBS NewsHour, “Fact-checking Trump’s claim that each boat strike off Venezuela’s coast saves 25,000 lives“, PBS, October 19, 2025.

Comprehensive fact-check of Trump’s repeated claim that each boat strike saves 25,000 American lives. Documents that the administration provided no evidence the boats were carrying drugs, that drug experts say there is no way to calculate lives saved from drug interceptions, and that Venezuela plays a minor role in trafficking drugs that reach the U.S. Notes that American overdose deaths are driven by fentanyl manufactured in Mexico and smuggled across the land border—not cocaine from the Caribbean. If Trump’s claim were accurate, five boat strikes would have saved nearly double the number of Americans who die from drug overdoses in an entire year.

4. Human Rights Watch, “Q&A: US Military Operations in the Caribbean, Pacific“, Human Rights Watch, December 16, 2025.

Legal analysis establishing that international human rights law—not the law of armed conflict—governs these operations because no armed conflict exists in the Caribbean between the United States and any drug-trafficking organization. Explains that drug trafficking does not constitute an armed attack justifying military force, that the “war on drugs” is a rhetorical construct rather than a legal authorization, and that these encounters “should be—and until very recently had been—approached using a law enforcement paradigm.” Documents that UN special rapporteurs on counterterrorism and extrajudicial executions concluded the strikes violate international human rights law and constitute unlawful killings.

5. Regina Garcia Cano and Konstantin Toropin, “US strikes Venezuela, says Nicolás Maduro has been captured“, Military Times (Associated Press), January 3, 2026.

Documents the historical parallel: the operation occurred exactly 36 years to the day after the U.S. invasion of Panama that led to the capture of Manuel Noriega on January 3, 1990. Notes the attack lasted less than 30 minutes with “at least seven blasts” that sent residents fleeing into the streets. Includes the eyewitness account of Carmen Hidalgo: “The whole ground shook... This is horrible. We heard explosions and planes... We felt like the air was hitting us.” Confirms Venezuelan Vice President Delcy Rodriguez’s statement that “some Venezuelan civilians and members of the military were killed” and that Armed Services committees in both houses were not notified. Documents the escalation leading to the invasion: 35 known boat strikes killing at least 115 people since September, the CIA drone strike on Venezuelan soil last week, and Trump’s declaration of “armed conflict” with drug cartels.

6. Victor Loh, “U.S. attacks Venezuela, captures Maduro and his wife; AG Bondi says charges include ‘Narco-Terrorism’“, CNBC, January 3, 2026.

Details that U.S. forces waited four days due to weather conditions, that Trump described the operation as “a brilliant operation, actually” to the New York Times, and that new charges were filed against Maduro’s wife (who was not indicted in the original 2020 case). Documents Sen. Mike Lee’s initial constitutional questions and subsequent reversal after being briefed by Secretary Rubio, announcing the operation “likely falls within the president’s inherent authority under Article II.” Notes Trump’s December warning that it would be “smart” for Maduro to leave power and his announcement that Venezuela was “completely surrounded by the largest Armada ever assembled in the History of South America.”