Maduro Now Wishing He’d Taken Trump More Seriously. Warmth of Collectivism. Walzing Off Stage? Vogue Waxes Tedious on Bardot. CBS Revamp Debut
What a glorious weekend!
The United States suddenly feels like her brash old self again. Nobody can claim after Saturday that American power is only theoretical. Wall Street Journal foreign affairs sage Walter Russell Meads leads off his Monday column this way:
Operation Absolute Resolve demonstrated again that the worst mistake a world leader can make is to underestimate Donald Trump. Immured in his Brooklyn cell, Nicolás Maduro will have ample time to reflect on how much better his life would have been had he taken Washington’s warnings seriously and slipped into a luxurious exile. In Cuba, Nicaragua and beyond, other leaders will ask themselves whether the time has come for a graceful retirement.
Remember how former Border Czar Kamala Harris went on a much-publicized quest to locate the root causes of our illegal immigration crisis? Well, leave it to President Donald Trump to find one: now former Venezuelan dictator Nicolas Maduro. Not that Ms. Harris is thanking Mr. Trump.
“Trump’s Regime Change in Venezuela” is the headline on a Wall Street Journal editorial. The Editors argue that Trump’s putting a stop to Maduri “sends a salutary message to America’s adversaries”:
President Trump’s capture of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro early Saturday is an act of hemispheric hygiene against a dictator who spread mayhem far and wide. Whether he admits it or not, Mr. Trump is now in the business of regime change that he’ll have to make a success.
The stunning nighttime raid is the culmination of a showdown that was building for months as Mr. Trump sent a naval flotilla to the Caribbean. Mr. Maduro resisted U.S. offers to leave peacefully, and Mr. Trump followed through on his threat and ousted the despot. The U.S. President had to act or lose credibility with the world after choosing the face-off. Pulling it off without American casualties is remarkable. …
Mr. Trump’s willingness to depose Mr. Maduro is also another step in the revival of U.S. deterrence from its collapse under Barack Obama and Joe Biden. The overall message to our adversaries is salutary. If Mr. Trump can succeed in reviving Venezuelan democracy, the Castro coterie in Cuba may want to start looking for some other place to live.
The Free Press’s Niall Ferguson is less enthusiastic than Ms. Must about the “back to the future aspect” of Trump’s actions in Venezuela. Good Headline from the Free Beacon: “Trump Resolves the Maduro Problem.” In response to U.S. actions in Venezuela, Elliott Abrams, who has served in high positions in Republican administrations, says “Let Freedom Ring” in the Caribbean in 2026. But it’s not only Caribbean leaders who are paying attention. Iran’s mullahs had to be watching, and indeed the London Times reports on cue that the Ayatollah Ali Khamenei “has a back-up plan to flee the country should his security forces fail to suppress protests or desert.” Kudos to Powerline for spotting this. Meanwhile, Richard Goldberg and Peter Doran write:
By ousting Maduro, Trump has begun to liberate the country while striking at the heart of the axis between Russia, China and Iran and providing more democracy, oil and security to our friends in the Western Hemisphere.
The U.S. has vowed to eliminate from Venezuela the Middle Eastern terror organization Hezbollah, which has established itself there. “No Dictator in the World Can Sleep Safely Any Longer” is the headline on a U.K. Telegraph offering.
President Trump said that the U.S. will “run” Venezuela for a while. Examiner Chief Political Correspondent explores this, saying it all depends on the meaning of the word “run.” Were the administration’s actions legal? Berkeley law professor John Yoo says yes. Ditto former U.S. Attorney Bill Barr and GW law professor Jonathan Turley (also here). The Left, including older white ladies, needs smelling salts or is just so terribly bored. Townhall’s Kurt Schlichter lets it rip.
“‘The Warmth of Collectivism’ Comes to City Hall” is the headline in a City Journal piece that highlights New York’s socialist Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s cuddly take on an ideology that has led to the deaths of millions. The clever folks at the Babylon Bee managed to combine the fall of Maduro and the rise of Mamdani in one story. Here’s the headline:
Democrats Confused Why Venezuelans Cheering Downfall Of Nice, Warm Collectivism
Meanwhile, back at City Journal, Heather Mac Donald writes that “The West Can Protect Itself from Terrorism and Urban Violence.” This is because these acts are predictable, and policy changes can remedy them. Mac Donald writes of these attacks:
These are not random events. No one is surprised to learn of the religion and ethnic background of the perpetrators, once the authorities deign to disclose those facts to the public. …
The same wearying predictability applies to the grotesque street crimes in American cities committed weekly by mentally ill vagrants, whether the fatal stabbing of a young woman in a Charlotte subway train in August or the near-fatal immolation of a young woman on a Chicago subway train in October. …
This predictability should be a boon to any official who puts public safety ahead of more recent priorities such as promoting diversity and tolerance. Only Donald Trump, however, among Western leaders, possesses the indifference to elite opinion to enact the obvious prophylactic measures. …
Ms. Mac Donald has been very busy. She also has a piece on the perennially fascinating issue of class struggle in the current Claremont Review of Books. Speaking of class warfare, a New York City Council member says that New York Mayor Mamdani’s plans for landlords amount to “straight up tyranny.”
Fashion Dictator: Remember when Vogue was the arbiter of high style? Writing (and very amusingly) in Unherd, Valerie Stivers explains how Vogue is the victim of DEI and other dumb ideas. The piece is headlined “The Fat Girl Era Is Killing Vogue.” I loved Stivers on Vogue and Bardot:
Vogue’s online obituary for the late Brigitte Bardot is a case in point. The magazine long ago abandoned its mission of providing gorgeous inspirational eye-candy for young women who were never going to be able to afford the clothes, in favor of the dreariest woke-ism. So it’s no surprise that the Vogue cultural critic and body-positivity icon Emma Specter has written about Bardot’s politics instead of her style.
Bardot was a French actress, singer, sexpot, and style icon, whom Vogue could have celebrated for many things — her smoky eye, her blond beehive, her embodiment of French-girl chic, which combined bombshell cleavage with boyish, gamine stripes. I’ve never particularly liked Bardot — she had the cruel face of a small animal, a sclerotic trout-pout, and looked spray-tanned long before it was a thing — but you could learn a lot about scarves from her. The orange skirt, metallic jacket, and black beret she wore in the video for the song “Bonnie and Clyde,” with Serge Gainsbourg, was both playful and timeless, and would look good on the streets of any city today. If you wanted to know what to pair with pumps, or how to rock an off-shoulder corset top, or the scornful angle at which to hold a cigarette, Bardot was your girl.
Specter, a writer for a major fashion magazine, doesn’t mention any of this. “Mourning Brigitte Bardot Doesn’t Mean Absolving Her,” the headline on her obit piece reads. …
Lassie, What Happened to Timmy? Newsweek reports that 2024 vice-presidential candidate and Minnesota Governor Tim Walz is mulling over dropping out of the gubernatorial race for re-election. Walz has a presser scheduled for today. The press advisory says that Walz will discuss “news of the day.” Powerline’s Scott Johnson, an inveterate Walz watcher, has a good post on Walz.
On Ms. Must’s wish list for 2026: more good media outlets that do real reporting. That’s why I’m pulling so hard for Bari Weiss, CBS’s new Editor-in-Chief, to succeed. Liberals and progressives do not want Weiss to succeed. John Fund has an interesting and hopeful piece at National Review on Weiss’ pick for CBS’s new Evening News anchor, Tony Tony Dokoupil, and the revamped format, debuting tonight.
