“The action takes place in an oppressed and tenacious country…” This is how Borges begins to narrate the story of Fergus Kilpatrick in his tale “Theme of the Traitor and the Hero,” and similarly, the dawn of January 3 in Caracas ended with the capture of Nicolás Maduro.
The entire country, which today stretches across the world with almost 9 million Venezuelans living abroad, undoubtedly felt great joy and the sensation of having regained what had been lost over two decades, a victory that took a century to achieve: democracy.
However, my joy—let’s say mine, to avoid bothering those who shout in their messages: “How great it would be if we became the 51st state of the US”—my joy lasted precisely until noon, when we all heard the press conference from the always unpredictable and narcissistic Donald Trump. He spoke as if he were Bolívar entering Caracas with a laurel crown, proclaiming himself the new Liberator of the country and once again throwing us back into the same hole from which we had all hoped to emerged that very morning.
With Trump’s words, erected as the “new master” of the country, the kingdom of uncertainty, insecurity, and distress reappeared, a place we all lived in recently. Furthermore, it caused immense sadness because, at the end of the day, the country, as Barrera Tyszka says, Venezuela: “Is not a party hall. Nor is it a territory of struggles and resistance. (And) Now we are ruled by bewilderment.”
Indeed, as the same author notes, it is challenging to discuss the future that awaits us since it is open and unpredictable, far from what the fierce Trump and his administration believe; this unpredictability is irreducible and is not always feasible to control ex-ante.
Delcy Rodríguez has already hinted that only God governs her destiny. And Trump continues to assert that he is, precisely, God.
In any case, the facts have shown that now, as never before, Monterroso’s story holds perfect relevance, only this time I would add the plural: “When (we all woke up), the dinosaur was still there,” for there is no other sentence that fits his decision to impose Delcy Rodríguez as the head of the transition.
This decision carries a grim hypothesis, as Delcy Rodríguez and her brother (how things change, there was a time when it was said Jorge Rodríguez and his sister) are pointed out as those who delivered Maduro.
Delcy Rodríguez at the forefront leaves, on one hand, the entire sinister machinery of chavismo intact, as if she were not complicit in corruption, co-responsible for the crimes against humanity committed by the regime and, in essence, a fundamental part of the criminal structure that Trump professed to combat. On the other hand, such an imposition is a new version of what Chávez and Maduro had initiated, namely, the delivery of the country to the Russians, Chinese, Iranians, Cubans, etc. This time the delivery is made to an actor who is at the ideological antipodes of the first, even though they share the hallmark of authoritarianism.
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Trump has spoken clearly; he, who is not a friend of democracy, a word that has never been heard in all his interventionist jargon, also shows no affection for the Venezuelans whom he literally kicked out of his country—matters that do not concern him at all; he says that he and Marco Rubio will direct what is called the “transition,” a path that no one knows towards where it leads, and they will take charge of the country that is now an “ex-nation” since the decisions made in the central aspects of its policy, fundamentally economic and including oil production, will be decided outside its borders and within the framework of a foreign power, this time, in the USA.
Trump, in essence, announces the political construction of a protectorate, all of this behind the most significant oppositional political leadership and the citizens. The irony of this process is that Delcy Rodríguez has become the “true handmaiden” of the Empire, practically canceling what had been constructed since the rise of the Andean leaders to power: the nation-state.
Of course, there are sectors that have risen as apologists of Trump (there are always some) who justify “the true intervention that will come.” They are the ones who say it is better to serve the United States than the Russians, the Chinese, Cubans, and Iranians. Just as when Chavez came to power, they profess a strange cult of Trump, including a sector of communicators, analysts, commentators, and respected intellectuals who end up being odd translators of what Trump says but did not mean, twisting his arguments as Trump gives unexpected twists to his own. Thus they claim his discourse is a strategy because his goal is the “defense of the Venezuelan people,” and when he says that MCM “is a good person, but has no support or respect within her country,” it is not that he has brutally delegitimized her leadership, devaluing the quality and quantity of her leadership, but that he does so to protect her. But, they continue: “new elections” will come, and she may be elected because this entire process has an expiration date: thirty or sixty or ninety days, or even longer, if Delcy Rodríguez proves more useful than she believes.
Those who have justified Trump’s position prefer his pragmatism, which I would like to summarize in general lines:
1.- Trump assumes the role of “The Actor” (this generally means he thinks he is the only one acting), and his point of view intends to prevail, producing effects in a society he perceives as separate from himself. Given, not missing anything, his pathologically narcissistic personality has an egocentric view of society.
2.- The model of political interaction that Trump enforces, not only in the case of Venezuela but globally (“Oh! Greenland hopes I hit you”), is power, that is, the intentional imposition of effects on the socio-political world, emphasizing the categories of conflict, victory, and enmity. The ideal for Trump is that the effects he has predetermined occur and not others.
3.- This paradigm of “political realism” grants him the ability to formulate rationally founded judgments ex-ante.
Trump does not understand, nor does he have to (Martín Caparros describes him as: a primitive, semi-literate, vengeful, violent, disdainful man (who) commands the largest army the world has ever known), that in uncertain situations, one cannot calculate and measure with certainty the actions of other actors, who are also playing. Of course, some will say that Delcy and Co. have Trump’s gun at their temple, but there are always factors that, once set in motion, cannot be adequately and rationally read even with the world’s most powerful army. There are numerous examples in history of how the presence of randomness and unpredictability alter unexpected results and disasters arise. If randomness and unpredictability did not intervene, for instance, the fall of Byzantium and Napoleon’s defeat at Waterloo.
For over twenty years, chavismo has behaved more like a fox than a partridge; it has always camouflaged itself, proposing dialogues (Delcy Rodríguez has even proposed this to Trump and her brother, the head of the other power, the legislative branch, is negotiating it), agreements, pacts, and commitments, all violated once they achieve their goals while evading fulfillment. Now, with the Rodríguez brothers leading the government, masters of simulation and disguise, they will steer their political actions toward seizing a resource they currently have in short supply: time. They will wager everything to extend theirs for as long as possible to stay in power—let’s just say, for instance, until 2031 and perhaps even beyond.
At this moment, while Trump, amid the vagueness and levity with which he usually speaks to portray himself as “the savior of the country,” has left chavismo intact without Maduro in Miraflores (it will surely become a classic his slip of calling Maduro “an illegal dictator”; as we know from our Moral and Civic lessons, there are no “legal dictators”), I recall a concept from the Zulia jurist Manuel Delgado Ocando, “an organic intellectual of chavismo”: “The infinite transition,” assigned to the regime that Chávez had just begun, and knowing Trump’s mercantile and imperial nature, that old word that yet again pokes its nose could very well allow Delcy Rodríguez, once she pays tribute and various taxes and “does what we want her to do” (Trump dixit), to remain in Miraflores longer than the country desires. Because a barrel of oil is worth more than a Nobel Peace Prize, as Milagros Socorro states.
@enderarenas