Progressives Rip 'Spineless' Dem Leaders for 'Empty' Response to Trump's Venezuela Attack

As Donald Trump blows by Barack Obama's record for most countries bombed by a US president, progressive observers are fuming over Democratic leadership's inaction in response to the abduction of Venezuela's president and other illegal acts of war.

Congressional Democrats' reaction to Trump's brazen bombing and invasion of Venezuela and kidnapping of President Nicolás Maduro—who faces dubious narco-terrorism charges in the US—ranged from open praise by members of the party's conservative wing like Sen. John Fetterman (D-Pa.) and Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Fla.), to fierce condemnation by Congressional Progressive Caucus Deputy Chair Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) and other anti-war leftists including Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.).

However, numerous observers have noted that, as Chris Lehmann wrote Tuesday for the Nation, senior Democrats including Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, both of New York, "are doing what they do best on Venezuela: Nothing."

Trump "staged an illegal coup," Lehmann argued. "Chuck Schumer's response? Empty words and meaningless parliamentary maneuvers."

Schumer did co-sponsor a war powers resolution aimed at blocking Trump from using military force in or against Venezuela. However, like nearly every other resolution ever introduced in a bid to force presidential compliance with the 1973 War Powers Act, it failed to muster enough votes to pass. Trump has now ordered attacks on 10 countries, compared with seven bombed under Obama and at least six under his predecessor, George W. Bush.

"The central complaint from Democratic leaders has been that the Trump White House didn’t properly consult Congress in advance of its crime spree. And even that grievance rings hollow," Lehmann said. "Thus far, Democrats have shown no inclination to pursue an impeachment resolution against the president—the clear constitutional remedy for such abuses—even as a growing chorus of lawmakers are calling for it, together with leaders of the party’s activist base."

"Sadly," he continued, "the party’s inert approach to illegitimate acts of war well predates Trump’s Venezuela rampage; leading Democrats sat on their hands while their own president backed a genocidal war in Gaza—a lockstep posture of complicity so deeply ingrained that the Democratic National Committee refused to let any Palestinian speaker take the stage at the party’s 2024 convention."

"Democrats likewise enthusiastically hailed Barack Obama’s raid in Pakistan to kidnap and execute Osama bin Laden with little thought that it would serve as a precedent for later imperial errands like Maduro’s ouster," Lehmann added.

Truthdig contributor Conor Lynch on Monday noted the stark contrast between the Democratic Party's left wing and its leadership in response to Trump's aggression, highlighting a warning from Graham Platner, a military veteran and progressive US Senate candidate from Maine, about politicians “on both sides of the aisle trying to convince us all that somehow this was justified.”

Lynch wrote that "more than two decades and countless deaths later, the party that led the US into disastrous quagmires in the Middle East is intent on leading the country into yet another war."

While there are more anti-war Democratic voices in Congress than there have been since the Vietnam War era, many senior Democrats in both chambers have a history of approving wars. Every current Democratic lawmaker who was in office in 2001 voted to authorize the so-called War on Terror, while Schumer, Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.), and several House Democrats still in office assented the following year to the disastrous invasion and occupation of Iraq.

"Most Democrats supported the invasion of Iraq," Lynch continued. "This was partly due to the initial public support for the war and the George W. Bush administration’s fabricated intelligence about [former Iraqi President] Saddam Hussein’s 'weapons of mass destruction' (much like the Trump administration’s fabricated claims about the Venezuelan government’s support for 'narco-terrorism')."

"Today there is no excuse for Democrats to stand by as another Republican president—this one historically unpopular—launches an illegal invasion in our own backyard," Lynch asserted. "Indeed, it is not only morally correct but politically smart to oppose the illegal attack on Venezuela, as there is little appetite for another regime change crusade among the American public."

"If there was ever a time for Democrats to grow a spine, it’s now," Lynch added. He pointed to Rep. Ro Khanna's (Calif.) declaration on Saturday that "if you cannot oppose this regime change war for oil, you don’t have the moral clarity or guts to lead our party or nation.'"

Progressive Democrats of America (PDA) issued a similar call Sunday, urging members of Congress "to reject the shameful bipartisan complicity in this campaign of escalating aggression, and to replace it with a sound, sensible foreign policy grounded in diplomacy, human rights, and the self‑determination of all people, including the Venezuelan people."

"This is not foreign policy," PDA said of Trump's aggression. "This is militarized authoritarianism. We must act to stop it now, before it spreads to inflame the entire region, if not the entire globe in a dangerous, unnecessary conflict. We are outraged, but this moment demands more than outrage. It demands organized, coordinated resistance."