In 2023, then-Senator JD Vance endorsed President Donald Trump’s presidential bid for one big reason: Trump’s commitment to peace. “He has my support in 2024,” Vance wrote, “because I know he won’t recklessly send Americans to fight overseas.”

Flash forward to 2026, and Vice President Vance has been put in the awkward position of defending one of the most reckless US military raids of my lifetime: an explicit attempt to bring about regime change in Venezuela by abducting its president from his bed.

Key takeaways

• There is a long-standing myth that Donald Trump is a dove. This myth has always been at odds with reality, but after the seizure of Nicolas Maduro, it is simply indefensible.
• The myth stems from a refusal to grapple either with Trump’s record in office or to take his long-standing commitments to neo-imperialism seriously.
• Now, Trump’s particular brand of hawkish politics threatens to usher in a new era of global disorder.

This is not an exaggeration. Trump said during a Saturday press conference that America now “runs” post-Maduro Venezuela. Administration officials have said that the country’s Vice President, Delcy Rodriguez, will either rule according to American dictates or else. One of those dictates is that American oil companies be allowed to extract Venezuelan crude — and that the proceeds of their sales be used to finance US military activity in the country.

In essence, Trump is demanding Venezuela will become an American imperial vassal and pay for the privilege. If they do not, they will face a “a second and much larger attack” — and potentially even an invasion.

“We’re not afraid of boots on the ground,” as Trump put it on Saturday.

We may not get that far. Perhaps Rodriguez will strike some kind of deal, or Trump’s threats will prove to be empty. It wouldn’t be the first time.

But the fact that the US is even attempting a kind of regime change by protection racket, one that began with the brazen abduction of a foreign leader, is proof that Vance and the many, many, many others who insisted that Trump is some kind of dove have been taken for a ride (which was obvious to me from the start).

One question now is why they missed that reality. But the much bigger one is what Trump’s particular brand of hawkishness means for the country — and the world.

Yes, war for oil

Nearly 10 years ago, New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd published a column titled “Donald the Dove, Hillary the Hawk.” In Dowd’s telling, Trump........

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