All-American Authoritarianism

Last month, Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and his wife were seized by American special forces and flown to New York, to face criminal charges which included allegations of narcoterrorism and drug-trafficking. 

 

Despite Trump’s precedents, this case is novel, and particularly startling. To abduct a president from their bed, without the authorisation of the international community, is almost unheard of. This is true even against the backdrop of Venezuelan-U.S. relations having deteriorated significantly over the past decade, denying American companies steady access to potentially lucrative oil reserves. It is clear that under the reign of any other US president, something as overt as this would have been unthinkable. For Donald Trump, however, this latest violation of international law does not even feature in his current news cycle.

 

But while Maduro’s case may seem unique, it is one we have seen before, under stronger pretenses—it is hard to imagine how Saddam Hussein would have fallen without the nuclear weapons scare. And naturally, because a NATO-backed assault on national sovereignty is legitimate, it was different with Gaddafi. And it was the CIA who operated to overthrow Patrice Lumumba. And Kwame Nkrumah’s toppling was officially a native military coup (it was only later confirmed to have U.S. involvement).

 

Trump’s emerging authoritarianism reveals itself clearest not in U.S. foreign policy, but through the escalating and indiscriminate use of force at home. ICE has become the most visible agent of this shift. Raids are becoming constant features in schools, workplaces and homes. Children are taken from classrooms, families removed from their homes in the early hours of the morning. Undocumented or not, being taken captive by ICE is followed by indefinite detention, without clear charges, without timelines, and often without any realistic avenue for appeal. There is no endpoint to the system, only suspension.

 

So if it’s not imperialism, what do you call it, when a government begins to arbitrarily arrest, deport, murder people? Is it not the exact same context in which prior countries have been invaded and pillaged by Western forces, or U.S. backed movements? It is authoritarianism.

Whilst the US government continues its neo-colonial search for oil in the Caribbean, it is becoming evidently clear that the tides of U.S. imperialism will not end beyond their borders. It is only logical, only natural, that this force comes crashing back to the shores of the nation that deals such a devastating blow to any opposing state overseas. 

 

Trump’s campaign to end illegal immigration has metastasised into a governing strategy. The groups of American citizens who welcomed this totalitarian style of leadership when it was targeted by others are now subject to it. And while ICE’s enforcement methods seem arbitrary, it is clear that ICE represents a transformation in the nature of policing itself.

 

ICE operates as a federal agency, and in doing so overrides local authority as national intervention renders state governments largely powerless to intervene. Cities can protest, governors can object, but enforcement continues regardless. The federal nature of ICE means that, in theory, they remain accountable to Congress and subject to the courts. In practice, however, they are accountable only to a system that has deferred to executive power, as Congressional oversight has been minimal, and attempts to impose restrictions have been split clearly on partisan lines. The Republican-controlled House and Senate in 2025 have shown little concern for constraint, and the result is a gradual yielding of democratic institutions. While the structures for oversight are intact, it is in this gap between constitutional design and political will that the slide towards authoritarianism becomes most visible. Like a modern Ceaser, Trump has hollowed out the republic as he imposes his will onto America. 

 

In his Discourse on Colonialism, Aime Cesaire argues that Nazism was not a new, brutal phenomenon. What horrified Europe was the direction of the violence, as applied to Europeans. Fascism in Europe was simply the barbarism formerly imposed on the non-European colonies. He writes:

 

it is the crime against the white man, the humiliation of the white man, and the fact that he applied to Europe colonialist procedures which until then had been reserved exclusively for the Arabs of Algeria, the coolies of India, and the blacks of Africa

 

Since 2016, political scholars have struggled to categorise Trump’s America. Terms like ‘democratic backsliding’ dominate the literature, as though what is unfolding were an unexpected deviation from liberal democratic norms. But this framing relies on a willful amnesia about the United State’s global power. 

 

Legitimacy—as it is being denied to the immigrants into the United States—has been denied to entire countries, warranting interventions and projects of democratic state-building. The denial of women’s rights, one of the most cited markers of an authoritarian regime, has also been carried out by US forces overseas. Most notably in Afghasnistan and Iraq where there was systemic sexual violence associated with military occupation. Overseas, instances of blatant violence have been criticised, yes, but always in a detached sense – cited as instances of American imperialism, or racism, or sexism. 

 

The most recent deaths at the hands of ICE have been those of two white American citizens:  Alex Pretti, an ICU nurse, and Renee Nicole Good, a poet and writer. While the level of outrage has been significant and justified, it is clear that this represents an escalation in ICE’s use of force. Yet ICE’s militant policing did not begin in 2026; perhaps it is only now, as the violence reaches beyond those labeled ‘alien’ that the country is forced to confront it. 

 

There are no more perverse ‘-isms’ to hide behind, now that violence is being directed toward the core of American society. Cesaire was right in his diagnosis of Western imperialism. Violent force has extended beyond the traditional targets of U.S. imperial force and is now being termed fascist as it expands indiscriminately across America. Trump is not shocking because he is unprecedented. It is his threat to rupture the bubble of tranquillity that has long surrounded the United States – from Greenland, to Canada, to Panama, to Venezuela, and now firmly on American soil.

 

Words by Naima Aden. Image via Wikimedia Commons.