this post was submitted on 05 Jan 2026
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The Media Refuses to Call Trump’s Venezuela Attack an Act of War (theintercept.com)
submitted 5 days ago by HellsBelle@sh.itjust.works to c/world@lemmy.world
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WHAT WOULD DONALD Trump have to do for the U.S. media to frame what he is doing in Venezuela as an act of war?

This isn’t a rhetorical question. It’s an actual inquiry, the pursuit of which can reveal a lot about how U.S. media’s default posture is state subservience and stenography. In the past few months, President Trump has committed several clear acts of war against Venezuela, including: murdering — in cold blood — scores of its citizens, hijacking its ships, stealing its resources, issuing a naval blockade, and attacking its ports. Then in a stunning escalation on early Saturday morning, the administration invaded Venezuela’s sovereign territory, bombing several buildings, killing at least 40 more of its citizens, kidnapping Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and his wife from their bed, and announcing they will, henceforth, “run” the country.

This episode seems to indicate that the president can do almost anything in the context of foreign policy, and the media will still overwhelmingly adopt language that is flattering and sanitizing to the administration when describing what has unfolded. This dynamic reached a new low Saturday morning, when the U.S. media rushed to frame the administration’s unprovoked attack as, at worst, a “ratcheted up” (CBS News) “pressure campaign” (Wall Street Journal) and, as was more often the case, some type of limited narcotics police “operation” (CNN).

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[–] ameancow@lemmy.world 21 points 5 days ago (1 children)

Media is just bought and controlled by the corporate donor class who have installed this administration to begin with. Every major outlet is compromised.

Every time you see media making the administration angry or they have spats, it's just performance. I think if everyone realized how much of what we are experiencing is kayfabe people would have a mental breakdown.

[–] SoleInvictus@lemmy.blahaj.zone 5 points 4 days ago (1 children)

I keep trying to point this out to my mother, who keeps overreacting to one news story after another. She agrees in the moment that it's all theater, then goes right back to being outraged by every obvious bait story.

[–] ameancow@lemmy.world 3 points 4 days ago (1 children)

My parents were also people whom I would make great efforts to explain things to them with reason and logic and they would understand it and act logical when presented with logical arguments, but the moment an emotion rose up in them again it would all go out the window.

Some people can't deal with emotions, they never worked out the basic concept that emotions are not the same as factual reality, they just respond to a feeling and let their brains write whatever story fits immediately to explain and validate those feelings, even if the story doesn't make sense. The only way you can get people like that to stay aligned on a particular idea is to present them a constant narrative that provokes their emotions.

Unfortunately, this is a known technique now for capturing large segments of the population. Fear and anger are much stronger emotions than any others so as long as you can keep people scared or paranoid or angry at some other group, you can tell them anything and they won't bother trying to reason it out.

[–] SoleInvictus@lemmy.blahaj.zone 3 points 4 days ago (1 children)

You're not a mean cow at all! As someone that's about to start therapy with a spouse with a similar issue, you just handed me the beginning of the proverbial thread I need to start pulling on. So serendipitous!

[–] ameancow@lemmy.world 2 points 4 days ago

I'm very glad to hear that you're taking the right steps to working something out with your partner.

I guess if I were to pass on any measure of aged wisdom on the issue, it would be that having an emotional/reactionary state of mind is not entirely bad. If you're a logical thinker who defaults to reason first before reacting to an emotion, that will serve you well in life making decisions and figuring out problems, but it's not necessarily "better" than being someone emotional.

Just like an emotional/reactionary person needs to learn that their system isn't the only valid way to deal with the world, a logical minded person isn't necessarily having a "better" experience in life. We are all deeply emotional creatures and trying to squash that can be just as damaging as letting our feelings run away with us and falling down some conspiracy hole. A feeling person has more potential for healthier emotions and emotional intelligence than someone who just sticks to systems and "policy" about life.

Making this concession is key to reaching out and bridging that gap. We all have things to work on in ourselves, the key to good relationships is deciding together, as a team, what traits or values you're going to share and what you need to work on improving, and acceptance that you're never going to "get there" and be the best version of yourself, you can only keep trying for someone who you decide is worth it, and hopefully that person will share that same perspective.