They’re not hypocrites; they’re self-interested liars

If you’ll recall, just 2½ weeks before the kidnapping, Trump Declares Closure of Venezuela’s Airspace by Dave DeCamp (Scheer Post),

““To all Airlines, Pilots, Drug Dealers, and Human Traffickers, please consider THE AIRSPACE ABOVE AND SURROUNDING VENEZUELA TO BE CLOSED IN ITS ENTIRETY,” the president wrote on Truth Social.

“It’s unclear if the declaration means that the US will impose a no-fly zone on Venezuela, which would be an act of war. Such a step or any military strikes on Venezuela would be illegal without congressional authorization, per the US Constitution.”

The fact that this continues to be mentioned is pathetic. Not a single instance of U.S. state violence in the last 80 years has had congressional approval. That means that it has all been illegal.

This legal nuance doesn’t make any difference to the dozens of millions of people that the U.S. has killed. The only difference now is that the POTUS now declares war on his own personal web site.

The U.S. is post-constitutional. There is no constitution anymore. Just forget it. Open that glass case and let anyone walk in and take it. It means nothing. It hasn’t for a long time, but the Trump administration has officially blown all the doors off of any potential enforcement mechanism. He dares the other branches to enforce anything against him. When they do, he retreats! But mostly they don’t. Why? Self-interest and cowardice. They’re afraid to rock a boat that’s carrying them along as well—in pretty nice circumstances, for most of them!

The article In pardon of narco trafficker, Trump destroys his own case for war by Kelley Beaucar Vlahos (Responsible Statecraft) writes,

The title is already wrong because it buys into the notion that Trump’s case for war with Venezuela was based on the drug trade. I know that’s what he gave as the reason but it’s not the real reason.

PinnochioYou see, Donald Trump and everyone surrounding him lies for personal advantage. The only reason they do any of the myriad awful things that they do is that they think it will bring them personal advantage, power, wealth, or a combination thereof.

I figured I’d point that out because I’m not sure enough people have noticed it. These poor people keep arguing against the Trump administration as if refuting any of their fake reasons would change anything at all.

Trump backs his moving van up to the house and starts unloading the whole house’s contents through the back door, while everyone else is in the front yard, arguing about a sign with the N-word on it.

A corollary of that is that they can’t be hypocrites because they don’t really believe in anything. If they were to ever do anything that benefitted others while either not benefitting themselves, or that caused them to lose wealth, power, or advantage (or a combination thereof), then that could be construed as hypocritical because that would run counter to the only perceivable principle in anything they’ve done until now.

When Trump pardons a convicted drug dealer so that he can return to power as president of one country, and accuses another of dealing drugs with no evidence as a casus belli against another country, then that’s not hypocrisy: it’s business as usual.