We are now living in a grievance culture, with no guardrails. Meaning? Anyone with a grievance can exact revenge on anyone else, at any level, with little cost, monetary or legal. In fact, grievances can make you rich - look at Riley Gaines. Trump is the prime practitioner of this, and he operates on a global scale - a whole country has offended him and now they must pay his price. To reflect his MO, now anyone, MAGA acolytes or just momentarily aggravated humans, can ruin someone’s life, and even take it.
Law used to constrain stalkers and harassers to some degree, but now, when everyone can be a stalker with that dopamine kick of causing real damage, law is yawning and turning to social media to get a case pre-judged by the public. When the law is the biggest troll, how can it be wrong to be an asshole?
Witness some local protest organizer in Grand Rapids, MI being arrested for the crime of protesting the Venezuela incursion. Trump didn’t target her, it was a local MAGA cop. Look at how the stochastic slurs made by Trump forced a good governor out of his re-election campaign. Look at the dozens of university professors who were fired by the work of their students, look at Charlie Kirk, the dead martyr himself, who made millions out of his grievances, who created those same campus activists.
It is personal now. It’s not just your friend being deported or your spouse losing their job, it’s your neighbor who hates your cat, your brother-in-law who owes you money, a cop who’s having a bad day.
Everyday is a bad day in Trump’s life, his mental illnesses spiraling into childish tantrums that end in a country being invaded this week, next week, who knows. And there are all kinds of grievances being assuaged in Venezuela. The irritation that the Epstein files is causing him needs to be scratched til bloody. The need to justify his empire and Hegseth’s military cosplay. The loss of his donor’s property when the Venezuelan oil fields were nationalized.
The mythic war against Socialism, drug cartels and dictators, has been honed down to a grievance against one man he can arrest, several he can kill and lots and lots of news coverage not about Epstein. He gets great results - he gets richer and looks more powerful. None of this is legal, but Trump’s needs must be met. And that conquest will be the launching ground for the next incursion.
This is a warning - he needs a body count. He wants to be pettier than Putin in his eliminations. He doesn’t care if you’re an oligarch or a hospital orderly. Venezuela is a testing ground for his need to imprison, torture and kill any of us who he imagines are enemies. With the 80+ boat killings, it is clear that they were brown cyphers whose lives were nothing to him, except as offerings to his demented ego and useful to his plans.
Just think how many camps can he build in his new lawless “network state?” How many Venezuelans will be sacrificed? How many Americans will be disappeared? What level of brown person death will be enough to sate his appetite? And just remember how well the GOP ran another country last time.
Maybe you or someone you know will end up in Trumpezuela, but more likely, your landlord will double your rent, your boss will fire you without cause, your neighbor will shoot your cat and your brother-in-law will have your house swatted by the grumpy cop. It’s all grievance, all the time now.
Why not report your kid’s teacher who didn’t return your phone calls - she looks brown. Nothing to lose. Enjoy the new normal, bitches.
