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There was a time, not long ago, when people would claim with a straight face that Donald Trump was a populist who prioritized the interests of working-class Americans and avoided stupid foreign wars. “Trump’s Best Foreign Policy? Not Starting Any Wars,” then-Sen. J.D. Vance crowed in 2023. As Trump assembled his second-term national security team in 2024, Republican Sen. Rand Paul, of Kentucky, claimed to be “amazed by the Trump Cabinet” and the president’s rejection of “warmongers.” A mere two months ago, one of those Cabinet officials, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, told a conference in Bahrain that Trump had ended the “counterproductive and endless cycle of regime change or nation building” that has defined U.S. foreign policy for decades.

The president’s brazenly illegal military assault on Caracas last week would embarrass these people, were they capable of embarrassment. Trump did not govern as a populist during his first term; his second has been an unabashed celebration of crass imperialism and the superrich.

And the superrich are thrilled. Hedge fund billionaire Bill Ackman croons that Trump’s war in Venezuela “will lower oil prices, which is good for America.” The

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