by Jacob G. Hornberger

June 30, 2026

When I see President Trump condemning the self-described democratic socialists in New York as communists, I can’t help but wonder whether the U.S. national-security establishment (i.e., the Pentagon, the CIA, and the NSA) and the Republican-controlled U.S. Congress intend to revive their old anti-communist Cold War programs like COINTELPRO, McCarthy hearings, and even state-sponsored assassinations.

Harkening back to the old Cold War racket, Trump is making it clear that communists pose a serious threat to U.S. national security. He recently stated that “communism has wrought devastation upon nations and souls” and that domestic communists pose “the most serious threat to our country since its founding.”

Given that the national-security establishment wields the omnipotent, totalitarian, non-reviewable power to assassinate people it deems to be drug dealers, terrorists, communists, and anyone else who it considers to be a threat to “national security,” including American citizens, one can only wonder whether any of these democratic socialists in New York or elsewhere might soon find themselves in the crosshairs of a CIA or Pentagon assassin.

But wait a minute. What about the socialist-communist regime in Venezuela? Aren’t Trump and the U.S. national-security establishment partnering with that regime? Indeed, can’t one argue that it is the U.S. government itself that is running that socialist-communist regime, with Venezuelan socialists and communists simply carrying out the orders of Trump, the Pentagon and the CIA?

Remember: Throughout the decades that the Venezuelan government was controlled by Hugo Chavez and Nicolás Maduro, the nation’s system was socialist and communist. That was one big reason that the U.S. government imposed a severe system of economic sanctions on the Venezuelan people. The goal was to inflict maximum economic harm on the Venezuelan populace in the hope of inducing them to rise up in a violent revolution, with the aim of replacing the socialist-communist regime with a pro-U.S., rightwing “capitalist” regime.

Hugo Chavez: “I am convinced that the path to a new, better and possible world is not capitalism. The path is socialism…. Socialism, this is the direction, this is the path to save the planet. Capitalism is the road to hell.”

Nicolás Maduro: “Speaking about the working class, Marx said that time was needed to change history. Marx was right…. We will continue constructing Bolivarian socialism.”

Delcy Rodriquez, who replaced Maduro as president after U.S. officials kidnapped and transported him to the United States to stand trial as an accused violator of U.S. drug laws: “We are building socialism despite the [U.S.] criminal blockade.” She has repeatedly praised “our socialist model” and “the Bolivarian socialist project.”

While Trump and his military-intelligence forces removed Maduro from power, the Venezuelan socialist-communist system has remained intact, with Rodriguez now at the helm and essentially agreeing to become a socialist-communist puppet of Trump and the U.S. national-security establishment. Ever since, the U.S. government has partnered with this socialist-communist regime and, arguably, has actually been running it.

But keep in mind something important: The socialist-communist, central-planning system in Venezuela has not changed. It is still the system governing the country.

Keep in mind something else that is important: This socialist-communist regime was not legitimately elected. With the overwhelming power of the Venezuelan national-security establishment, the socialist-communist regime simply remained in power after overwhelmingly losing the national presidential election in 2024.

In fact, it would be difficult to find a better example of a morally corrupt and brutal tyrannical regime than the unelected Venezuelan socialist-communist regime now headed by Rodriguez. U.S. officials used to recognize that, which was the reason for their brutal and ruthless system of economic sanctions against the Venezuelan people. But no longer. Now Venezuela’s socialist-communist system is obviously perfectly acceptable to U.S. officials.

Now, with the earthquake that has just struck Venezuela, Venezuelan dissidents are pointing out the obvious — that the socialist-communist regime is responsible for the unsafe building structures that have resulted in the deaths of thousands of people. They should also be pointing out the important role that U.S. sanctions have placed in the construction of such unsafe buildings.

Risking being jailed and tortured by Venezuela’s socialist-communist regime, the dissidents are also publicly criticizing the horrific response of Venezuela’s socialist-communist regime to the devastation brought on by the earthquake. Ironically, it is now the U.S. national-security establishment that is coming to the assistance of Venezuela’s socialist-communist regime with hundreds of millions of U.S. taxpayer dollars in military assistance and aid. Hey, what’s a few more hundreds of millions of dollars added onto the U.S. government’s $39 trillion national debt.

Meanwhile, the leader of the Venezuelan dissidents, Maria Corina Machado, has been trying to return to Venezuela by flying there. So far, however, U.S. and Venezuelan officials have blocked her from returning to her country. But isn’t freedom of travel supposed to be a natural, God-given right? Doesn’t Machado, who is a Venezuelan citizen, have the right to travel to her own country?

What’s weird is that all this is considered perfectly normal by the mainstream press, especially the rightwing mainstream press. Trump declaims against U.S. communists while the U.S. government is partnering with Venezuelan communists and dissing Venezuelan anti-communists. What’s weird about that? In the Bizzaro World in which Americans live, there’s nothing weird about it at all. Just a normal part of living under a national-security state form of government.