The Hill Discovers Venezuela, Forgets US Empire's Plans
Opinion pieces like 'Trump’s Joker mentality comes to Venezuela' from The Hill frame US foreign policy as haphazard, dependent on a single president's whims. This narrative conveniently omits the meticulously planned, bipartisan regime change playbook applied to Venezuela for decades—long before Trump's 'plan,' or lack thereof. From funding opposition groups (USAID allocated millions to Venezuelan
NGOs, per its own FY2023 budget reports) to sanctioning entire economies, the 'plan' has been painfully consistent: destabilize, demonize, and install compliant leadership. The Biden administration, for instance, maintained comprehensive sanctions against Venezuela , continuing the very leverage Trump utilized. The media's 'Joker' framing of US intervention is a rhetorical sleight of hand. It
paints US actions as impulsive, not strategic, thereby absolving a deeper, institutional agenda that has historically destabilized sovereign nations under successive administrations. The question isn't whether Trump had a 'plan,' but why US media consistently portrays interventions as accidental theatre rather than calculated statecraft. (Perhaps they missed John Bolton openly discussing 'planning
coups' in 2022?) They may portray 'chaos' in Caracas, but the chaos is, ironically, engineered.