I grew up in Eastern Europe. For 90% of people there at the time, US = paradise. Maybe it was propaganda, I don't know. Later in life I got travel a lot and meet a lot of Americans and for most, their moral and ethics are at the exact opposite of what the US is showing now.

I don’t understand why this has been downvoted, it’s true that the US has done many interventions in the past based on vague rationale or simply by misleading public opinion. And it has always been a part of its’ state propaganda to make it look like they are on the good side, doesn’t mean they are though every time. The difference this time is that they didn’t even try that much to shape a proper narrative.

The US has been annexing land almost since its foundation. Ask the original Native Americans. Or the people of Hawaii. Or Puerto Rico.

The US USP was essentially just its success as a consumer economy, with relative prosperity compared to Rest of World and nice things to buy.

And there used to be nominal free speech. You could criticise the government, and nothing would happen unless you became organised enough to start threatening capital, in which case you might well be murdered.

That's the good news. The bad news is that non-whites in the US have always had a much worse time of it, and the veneer of freedom has always been very thin for them.

Now the US has stopped pretending to be a creative economy and has decided not to hide its addiction to violent extraction.

So we'll see how that works out for everyone.

If Trump won't offer something better than military in Venezuela, then those socialist tendencies in Venezuela are not going to disappear.

20th century means that we’re talking at least 2.5 decades ago. That’s a long time. And for the most part, US foreign policy regarded much of those actions as folly even if they will never say that publicly.

You’re absolutely right with your assessment but beyond that this is also a rolling back of the clock to thinking from decades ago.

Yep, but folks love their veneer. The morals of the American people and that of the state department / industrial complex aren't the same.

Oddly in this case the US government seemed to do something that many Venezuelan expats support. We'll see if it helps the lives of regular Venezuelans at all.

Also a number of sci-fi from the last decade or two predicted or imagined the US in a war in Venezuela in the 2030's. It makes more sense to view it not for oil but more to keep Chinese and Russian influence out of the US's "backyard". Apparently both had been getting close to Maduro.

We also have to recognize that these particular narratives actually created some objectively positive accomplishments as well. That's what made the postwar US different than the postwar USSR. We can plainly see the results in some pretty well set up experiments (eg East Germany vs West Germany). It's very easy to criticize the failings of liberal American values and liberties looking from a vantage point where we get to take those values and liberties for granted.

... but now it seems as if people got bored of those lofty narratives, and the US can't even prevent its own domestic jihadis from overrunning the country with backwards fundamentalism. So now we're staring down their equivalent of Sharia law while they rally around regime-sponsored murderers ramping up sectarian violence.

The last US backed coup in latin America was Bolivia 2019

The US is literally dictating that certain things must happen as they prefer in Venezuela, or else. Venezuela has no agency as a sovereign nation as long as this is the case, ie. they've been annexed.

> Existing US refineries are designed for heavy

I'm aware of that. Nevertheless, this is not a growth industry, and expecting riches from it in 10 years time or more is thinking mired in past. It's not serious.

More serious commentary on that:

https://www.politico.eu/article/the-problem-with-donald-trum...

https://edition.cnn.com/2026/01/08/climate/china-venezuela-o...

https://electrek.co/2026/01/03/electric-vehicles-will-end-oi...