Trump Pardons Honduran 'Democrat,' Targets Venezuelan 'Dictator'
The NYT's analysis of Trump targeting Venezuela while pardoning former Honduran president Juan Orlando Hernández (convicted of drug trafficking, among other things) suggests a 'contradiction.' (One might call that giving Trump too much credit for a moral compass.) But the real story isn't Trump's inconsistency; it's the U.S. establishment's unwavering commitment to destabilizing leftist
governments while propping up friendly strongmen, regardless of their criminal records. Hernández, it's worth remembering, came to power following the 2009 coup against democratically elected Manuel Zelaya, a coup the Obama-Biden administration subtly endorsed, paving the way for years of impunity and drug-fueled governance. This isn't a 'Trump contradiction'; it's the standard American foreign
policy doctrine for Latin America. Target the resource-rich, independent nations like Venezuela, which dared to nationalize oil, and back the 'democrats' who facilitate corporate interests and drug flows north. The media's role, as demonstrated by the NYT, is to package these blatant exercises in geopolitical power as 'puzzling' or 'contradictory' actions of a singular bad-faith actor, rather than
the predictable outcome of imperial strategy.