American Conservative managing editor Jude Russo recently slammed MAGA apologists giving cover to President Donald Trump’s lies over the military strikes on boats in the Caribbean Sea.
Writing in the American Conservative, Russo was particularly reproachful of an article by Juan Pablo Villasmil justifying Trump’s bid for regime change for the sake of “regional stability,” among other objectives.
“Well, all right. Lay aside whether ‘regional stability’ is really fostered by regime change … How about the fact that the administration is lying all the time about what we’re doing here?” argued Russo. “The White House has gone to extravagant lengths to avoid making its case to the public or even to Congress, or even just describing what it’s actually up to; it has put out patent nonsense about drug control and ‘determining’ that we are at war while it ratchets up force posture in the Caribbean.”
Russo railed at the ease with which Trump misleads his own voters.
“Why are the president’s men lying to us about it, and is that actually all right? Reasonable people of goodwill might set aside such niceties during a true national crisis, but in fact Venezuela is a nuisance rather than a threat,” Russo said. “Even the dubious Wilson-era adventurism in the Western Hemisphere rose to a more serious standard for action. It’s not histrionic to think this all seems somewhat ... bad.”
“My contention is not just that the administration’s policy is stupid, although it may well be,” Russo added, “but that the way it’s going about it compromises what is actually good and distinctive about America. Do you want to live in a country where the government lies to you — deliberately and flagrantly — in order to justify using your tax dollars to pursue its own private ideas of how best to use American power? Does it make you feel better if they know they’re lying? Do you like that the powermen are improvising novel theories of international conflict on the fly so they do not have to come to you to make the case for whatever it is they’re doing down there?”
Russo insists his complaints are not “moral theatrics.”
“These are questions about what America is, and what its core interests are,” Russo said. “Are a few puddles of oil or a gravel patch with some nickel worth selling off the remaining tatters of constitutional government? Isn’t this way of doing business a little, well, un-American?”
“If Villasmil wants unaccountable politicians with unlimited powers for doing violence, policy and law made by decree and padded by propaganda, and a fundamentally passive, subject population, he might be better off taking a flight to China — or Venezuela,” Russo said.
Read Russo's column in the American Conservative at this link.