I think you’ve had the best, most likely accurate post here so far.
Right. If this were any other president, it would not be seen as that big a deal. But because it’s this demented, dying old mutherfucker, people are going to be worried.
The taking of Maduro does not upset me personally, and it likely is not illegal per past precedents. The whole only Congress can declare war but the president is commander in chief thing is, like the Second Amendment, a messy and poorly thought out element of the Constitution. Since the end of WWII, the issue has never really been settled. Here is a fairly rigorous article about it:
That said, because this is Trump, we don’t know what’s going to happen. Not just because Trump is unpredictable but also because the man is dying before our eyes. Did you see his speech (if it can be called that) after the attack? If ever there was a time when Trump should have been hopped up on whatever he takes and ready to promote his “success,” this was it. But he was barely coherent–barely awake!
So, really, my guess is that this isn’t the start of vast conquests, etc., though he may do something else small (relatively speaking) of a similar nature.
I would like to counter a couple of points I see in this thread.
The damage Trump is doing is permanent. We can never recover, etc. etc. I think the trust that Trump has done to the credibility of the GOP and any future presidents that come from it (may there be none) is extreme, but foreign leaders will understand that a Democratic government is not the same thing. Europe has its own issues with RWNJs these days.
Trump’s move will create new alliances. Europe will move toward China. Incorrect. Trump is temporary madness. China is a permanently bad, untrustworthy, and incompetent actor on the global stage, albeit not outright evil and crazy like Russia. The CCP is selfish and dedicated to preserving its own power over the long term. Europe is weak and knows that continuing to hitch itself to the back of the American Ford F-150 is its best bet.
The US is in decline. Sure, but every country in the world is facing the same problems right now as growth sputters, making capitalism (including China’s state capitalism), which requires a high rate of growth in order to balance its books, move from “late stage” to “terminal.”
In Trump’s incoherent speech, he openly said that the oil companies were going to run Venezuela and rebuild the infrastructure to get the oil flowing again. Such a move is gauchely imperialistic, but it’s not crazy (though Trump himself is crazy). It can even be seen as an organic move (mediated by Trump) on the part of the capitalistic economy and political structure of the US: i.e., plucking the last fruit on the tree, low-hanging or not, since growth opportunities have stalled. The desire to extract resources in Greenland is similar. If there are other moves to be made, they will probably proceed in this direction, though most likely mitigated by the saner (not saying much!) minds around Trump that can perform a cost-benefit analysis. Thus, I don’t think an invasion of Greenland is likely, but an incursion into Cartel Land in Mexico seems possible.