The ending is curious. We’re already in a lawless world, because of one lawless state that keeps destabilizing and couping sovereign states, with the complicity of the other states who only now worry it maybe wasn’t a great idea, after all.

Rubio was unanimously confirmed by senators in both parties, including all 47 of the Democrats in Congress’s upper chamber—even progressives like Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren voted for him. But as Bryce Greene wrote for Current Affairs at the time, it was always obvious that Rubio was a dangerous warmonger who had ambitions to attack and destabilize Latin America in particular. In 2021, he all but threatened Maduro’s life, posting a picture of Libyan president Muammar Qaddafi’s corpse along with a message about “the willingness of many nations to support stronger multilateral actions to dislodge” what he called the “Maduro crime family.” But Democrats allowed him to sail through unchallenged, and now he’s realized his long-held ambition to take Maduro out. This past year also saw the rollout of the disastrous “TACO Trump” slogan, for “Trump Always Chickens Out,” which Senator Chuck Schumer used to criticize Trump for not being aggressive enough against designated enemies like Iran. He should have been careful what he wished for, because Trump definitely isn’t “chickening out” now. Yes. Both. 🤬. Sides.