By Halie Soifer
WASHINGTON, D.C. — Like many of you, I enjoyed time away with family in the past week. Waking up to yesterday’s news of a large-scale U.S. military operation in Venezuela is not how I expected to start our weekend. Increased concern about the future of democracy – including our own – is not how I had hoped to end it.
What struck me most about yesterday’s events was the lack of a clear, consistent, and legitimate reason given by Trump for regime change in Venezuela. No one is sad to see authoritarian Nicolás Maduro deposed, especially not the people of Venezuela. But the justification for his removal by Donald Trump is, at best, tenuous. It’s also, in the opinion of many experts, a violation of U.S. and international law, and what comes next in Venezuela and around the world is anyone’s guess. These are all points made in JDCA’s response to U.S. actions in Venezuela yesterday.
But statements aside, the true test of whether Trump’s attack on Venezuela made any sense came in the form of conversations with my young boys. As I wrote following the horrific assassination of Charlie Kirk, our kids are watching, and current events transpire more quickly than we can sufficiently explain them to our children. In this case, having seen images of the U.S. military operation in Venezuela on television, my tween boys concluded it’s like “Conquer the World,” which is a game on Roblox.
While I was generally aware they were playing this game and didn’t mind because it generated newfound interest in world geography and foreign capitals, I have now taken a closer look. This game, supposedly for kids five-and-up, allows players to “invade other countries” and “use military strategies in order to capture as much land as possible,” in any time period – WWI, WWII, or WWIII.
Surely this isn’t the world we’re living in, or is it? After listening to President Trump’s press conference yesterday, I have serious questions. If our repeated military strikes on Venezuelan targets have never been about drugs, what’s the real reason? Maybe Secretaries Rubio and Hegseth think they’re playing “Conquer the World” as opposed to serving the American people and adhering to the Constitution by coordinating the deployment of the U.S. military to depose foreign leaders with Congress.
I have a master’s degree in international relations and have worked on foreign policy for four members of Congress and in two administrations, and I couldn’t adequately explain yesterday to my kids why the United States “conquered” Venezuela. Of course, the truth is complicated, but the rationales we’ve heard thus far from the Trump administration are too obtuse and inconsistent to justify this war of choice. If we’re honest, it’s not so different from Roblox, except this is no game. Lives, democracy, the future of a country, and American leadership are at stake.
Maduro is a repressive and corrupt dictator who overwhelmingly lost an election in 2024 and clung to power against the will of his people. Yet Trump didn’t once cite “democracy” in his remarks yesterday explaining his actions in Venezuela. Instead, Trump cited “oil” 27 times and outlined a plan for U.S. oil companies to assume control of Venezuela’s vast oil infrastructure.
Trump apparently didn’t want to install Nobel Peace Prize winner María Corina Machado, or her 2024 electoral surrogate, Edmundo González, as the leaders of Venezuela. Instead, he endorsed Maduro’s Vice President and Oil Minister, Delcy Rodríguez, who was sworn in as interim president. While Trump claimed yesterday that Rodríguez would act as a partner to the United States to “make Venezuela great again,” less than two hours later, she delivered a scathing televised address that condemned U.S. military action and cited Maduro as “the only president.”
According to Trump, America will now “run Venezuela,” but – as Rodríguez’s apparent loyalty to Maduro indicates – we’re already failing. We’ve also created a terrible global precedent for deposing leaders with shaky justifications. So, what’s stopping Russia or China, for example, from adopting a similar approach in Ukraine or Taiwan? Finally, what’s next for Trump’s “Conquer the World” approach – taking over Greenland, as he’s repeatedly suggested (and as Katie Miller, wife of Stephen Miller, suggested on X with an ominous “soon” yesterday)?
Today, my kids asked, “Are we still at war with Venezuela, and did we win?” What’s the answer? Are there winners in this equation? Maybe the Venezuelan people, but – even if we rid them of an awful dictator – do the ends justify the means, especially when it means further erosion of democracy, at home and abroad? If our elected representatives in Congress have no authority or oversight of the deployment of the U.S. military to overrun countries, what kind of democracy are we living in, and what does it mean for democracy globally?
Perhaps most importantly, what comes next? Not even Trump seems to know, demonstrating just how grossly unqualified he and those surrounding him are for the positions they’re now occupying. Looking forward to November, we’re hoping – and JDCA is focused on ensuring –Democrats take back control of Congress to create actual oversight and accountability for the Trump White House, which currently acts with impunity, is replete with corruption, and now appears to be invading countries for profit.
Amid all these questions, I’ve got only one clear answer, which can double as a New Year’s resolution: I must do a better job monitoring Roblox.
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Halie Soifer is the CEO of the Jewish Democratic Council of America.