Weekend Quotables
“It was a brilliant operation.” The patient died.
I was going to write a satirical piece about Trump running Venezuela, and as his first act as colonial governor, deporting thousands of Venezuelans to El Salvador’s CECOT.
But a friend reminded me that when a system’s actual behavior is already so extreme, the satirical version becomes indistinguishable from policy. The joke fails because the reality has already drifted into the absurd.
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The Washington Post followed the NYT’s lead in referring to Trump’s military assault on Venezuela as an “operation,” a term that used to mean a medical procedure.
The deliberate use of bureaucratic, euphemistic, or reality‑inverting language to make extreme actions sound routine, inevitable, or even benevolent. It’s one of the most reliable early‑warning systems of backsliding democratic journalism.
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Speaking of in-pocket journalism, why is there no reporting in the Western press or TV networks about the anti-US demonstrations currently taking place in Venezuela and throughout Latin America? ABC makes some mention, saying only that “Chavista bases are mobilizing.” The network also has Trump admitting that his puppet, Maria Corina Machado, “doesn’t have the support within or the respect within the country.”
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During an Oval Office meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on August 18, 2025, Trump latched onto Zelensky’s comment that Ukraine could not hold elections during wartime. Trump responded:
“During the war, you can’t have elections? So let me just see, three and a half years from now, if we happen to be in a war with somebody, no more elections? That’s good.” — C-SPAN
More Weekend Quotables
Cornel West
Here we are, starting the new year with old-style gangsterism and old-fashioned imperialism. — X
Secretary of State Marco Rubio
“I don’t care what the UN says. The UN doesn’t know what they’re talking about…” — Stammering
Brazil’s President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva (Brazil shares a border with Venezuela)
“These acts represent a grave affront to Venezuela’s sovereignty and yet another extremely dangerous precedent for the entire international community.” — Straight Times
Corbin Trent
Let me say that again. The United States military conducted airstrikes on a sovereign nation’s capital, killed an unknown number of its citizens, and dragged its head of state out of his bedroom in the middle of the night. And the word the paper of record chose was “capture.” — America’s Undoing
Pres. Trump
…warned Colombia’s president Gustavo Petro that he has to “watch his ass,” said “Cuba is going to be something we’ll end up talking about,” and warned that “something will have to be done about Mexico.” “American dominance in the Western Hemisphere will never be questioned again.” — Palm Beach Post
Mr. Fish
Dictatorships are a thug’s paradise. Gangsters, whether on Wall Street, Silicon Valley, or in the White House, cannibalize their own country and pillage the natural resources of other countries. — Chris Hedges Report
MAGA Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene
Americans disgust with our own government’s never ending military aggression and support of foreign wars is justified because we are forced to pay for it and both parties, Republicans and Democrats, always keep the Washington military machine funded and going. — @Repmtg
The observation about "operation" becominga medical euphemism is sharp. When language starts obscuring what's actually happening instead of clarifying it, journalism stops serving any real function and just becomes PR. I remember seeing similar framings during previous interventions where the press normalized actions by just tweaking vocabulary. What troubles me most is how quickly this language gets adopted across outlets without any apparent coordination, almost like a reflex. The satire-reality overlap point is particularly on target btw.