On Jan. 3, United States special forces swooped into Caracas and kidnapped Nicolás Maduro, the despotic Venezuelan president. After the event, U.S. President Donald Trump declared that America now “runs” Venezuela — and plans to seize 50 million barrels of its oil to sell on the open market.
This sort of explicit power-grab is unprecedented among NATO countries. Kidnapping the head of another state, then seizing that state’s assets and taking control of its government, is something even the most autocratic of rulers would shy away from. Yet shortly after abducting Maduro, Trump threatened Colombia’s leftist president Gustavo Petro — a democratically elected leader who is by no stretch of the imagination a despot — with the same fate.
The U.S. has been veering toward fascism for some time. That is why my family and I decided to leave for Canada last March: Canada is a diverse and healthy democracy. Yet in my short time here, I have observed an alarming level of naïveté about what is happening south of the border.
