Probably the most poignant scene in Brian De Palma’s 1983 film Scarface is when the cocaine baron protagonist played by Al Pacino gives a drunken monologue in a crowded restaurant, calling out the hypocrisy of the fellow well-to-do diners.
He tells them that “you need people like me, so you can point your f***g fingers and say, ‘that’s the bad guy!’ … So, what does that make you – good? You’re not good, you just know how to hide. Me? I don’t have that problem. Me? I always tell the truth – even when I lie.” This speech, perhaps more than any other description that has ever been deliberately written about him, perfectly captures the role of Donald Trump in Washington.
A distillation of the purest essence
Trump’s regime-change war against Venezuela, which just resulted in the illegal and arbitrary kidnap of its president, shows that far from breaking with the US imperialism that has dominated the world since at least the Second World War, he has distilled it in its purest essence and displayed it totally undiluted. Past US administrations have gone to great lengths to cloak their real interests behind purportedly noble objectives.
The British and US backed coup of 1953 that overthrew the democratically elected Prime Minister of Iran, Mohammed Mossadegh, was a reaction to Mossadegh’s nationalisation of Iranian oil reserves, which removed them from the control of the Anglo-Persian Oil Company (later known as BP). The coup relied on meticulously creating the false impression that Mossadegh was trying to centralise power in his office, and to usurp the Iranian throne.
Plenty of US sponsored wars and coups d’état during the 1970s and 1980s were sold as saving people from the tyranny of communism.
Forget moral justification
More recently, the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003 relied on months of manufacturing consent by the Bush administration and its British allies, in which they relentlessly spread the lies that Saddam Hussein had links to al-Qaida, and that he possessed Weapons of Mass Destruction. The invasion was a matter of averting a global threat. Nothing to do with Iraqi oil.
Less need is felt for such moral justification today. There is some half-hearted attempt by the Trump administration to give regime change in Venezuela a humanitarian rationale by presenting president Nicolas Maduro as a dictator and ludicrously accusing him of running a narco-trafficking operation into the US. However, Trump apparently lacks the intelligence or concern to give much conviction to this façade, and has been openly admitting for years that his primary interest in Venezuela is in seizing the largest proven oil reserves in the world.
Trump now appears even to be dispensing with the US modus operandi of installing a compliant local puppet leader following the overthrow of a foreign government. During his press conference on the raid in Venezuela, he was asked about María Corina Machado, the Venezuelan opposition politician who had seemingly been perfectly positioned to take over as president following the overthrow of Maduro, even dedicating her Nobel Peace Prize to Trump. However, Trump dismissed that possibility, claiming that she lacks the ‘support within or the respect within the country’. He instead appeared to suggest that the US would be administering Venezuela directly for the foreseeable future.
If nothing else, it’s always amusing that, sooner or later, Trump inevitably throws his most loyal sycophants under the bus.
Aside from the naked imperialism, in other respects Trump also seems perfectly representative of the rampant, unchecked capitalism that characterises the US. An overweight, crass, loudmouth billionaire with a net worth that outnumbers his brain cells, Trump revels in brazen displays of wealth that show no respect for taste or culture – one may cite as evidence his buildings in New York, or his recent demolition of the East Wing of the White House to build a grotesque ballroom.
He personifies the systemic corruption of US politics, having given Elon Musk an unofficial government position after the latter donated almost $300mn to Trump’s 2024 campaign. At a recent White House event, Trump bragged that enormous campaign donations from the billionaire Miriam Adelson had virtually bought his unwavering support for Israel’s genocide in Gaza.
The honest face of US capitalism
This brazen lack of a filter is arguably what most riles his critics among the political establishment. Not that he’s disrupting the status quo – he’s reinforcing it. Maybe the signature achievement of his first administration was a tax cut for the rich that made that of George W. Bush look like chump change.
One of Trump’s harshest Republican critics, former House Representative Liz Cheney, daughter of Dick Cheney, voted in line with the Trump administration over 90% of the time while she was still in Congress. Their concern isn’t that he is an aberration, but that he exposes them for what they really are. Despite being a pathological liar, Trump is the most honest face of US capitalism we’ve possibly ever seen.
Those who want to confront wealth, power and empire in the US must therefore recognise that merely removing Trump from office in 2028 (assuming he allows that to happen) will not be sufficient. He’s merely the most egregious representative of a deep rot in the political system which must be expunged at its root. Trump has, at least, allowed more people to see that.
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