Venezuela, and the Death of Old-Fashioned Romance

Deposed Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro being extradited in handcuffs

You already know that, in the small hours of January 3^rd, 2026, American forces invaded Venezuela and arrested President Nicolas Maduro. The situation immediately got worse when Taco Administration spokespeople hinted darkly that this was a test run. Other states, including Cuba and Greenland, are potentially next. This action announces both a disdain for United Nations treaties, and America’s potential withdrawal from NATO.

Three days later, a young Threads user with the sign-on handle “josselocks” posted a query. It read, in part, “Do guys like even talk to girls in real life anymore? Like you see them in bookstore and decide to go up and start a conversation.” The poster’s bio indicates she’s 19, and therefore prime age to search for a spouse or long-term partner, perhaps yearning for the old-fashioned “meet cute” that populates romance novels and romantic comedy movies.

Poor “josselocks” got quickly ratioed. Multiple posters, mostly men, including me, reminded her that a decade of public messaging has asserted that women are sick of unsolicited male attention, and that men shouldn’t approach women unprompted in public places. The discussion was more nuanced, of course. But the consensus held that social mores have shifted, and approaching women in public has become insuperably risky for many men.

These two events seemingly exist in different spheres, a Venn diagram with no overlap. Yet upon consideration, I spotted more going on than my initial, flippant response admitted. These two events represent a breakdown in shared social values that makes trust between strangers possible. With it, this failure of trust threatens more than one country or one big-hearted teenager’s ability to audition a mate. Western civilization is threatened.

I’ve written recently that our understanding of social organization has evolved. Nation-states were once the private property of their monarchs, or whatever warlord could hold the throne against challengers, foreign or domestic. Since the Enlightenment, philosophers have attempted to assign moral purpose to states retrospectively. But these attempts are always provisional, changing, and inconsistent. We agree what role states serve for now.

Less obviously, but more pertinent for daily life, we’ve likewise reevaluated what families are for. No longer do people marry to ensure legitimate inheritance, as medieval aristocrats did, or to bind working families in mutual indebtedness, as peasants did. We choose voluntarily when and whether to marry or procreate. Men choose wives, not for the likelihood of hardy offspring, but because relationships serve moral values and bring emotional satisfaction.

Families and nations thus serve concrete purposes. These purposes may be economic, moral, social, or whatever, but in organizing societies or households, we start by understanding that all participants agree on that purpose. We needn’t agree on everything constantly, but we at least share core principles. For instance, a relationship might flourish over a love of books. A state might flourish over a commitment to hemispherical peace.

Somehow, too many Americans seem surprised that a President elected on his supposed merits as a billionaire, thinks America should exist to serve billionaires. While we’ve watched Republicans kick the poor for their poverty, and Democrats fold like wet rags, the Taco Administration has invaded an OPEC nation without Congressional authorization. They’ve shown paltry interest in Venezuelan democracy or civil rights, but are aggressively expropriating its oil reserves.

For this Administration, “trust” exists only between the wealthy and the strong. The greatest masses of people, American or international, don’t deserve respect, consideration, or trust. This administration regards poverty protection, labor rights, and public schools as theft from the wealthy, and strength as the only moral imperative. So they’ve deployed troops into their own cities while invading abroad.

This top-level dick-swinging machismo corresponds with the rise of “masculinity influencers” like Andrew Tate, flexing their literal muscles performatively. The entire MeToo movement happened because some men proved themselves untrustworthy. Sure, not all men, but how many does it need to be? But the counter-push has been real: the ubiquity of TikTok “creep-shaming” videos altered the landscape so men can’t trust women who can’t trust men.

Taken together, on the personal and national levels, we’ve created a culture that no longer includes trust. From national borders to personal boundaries, from checks and balances to love and marriage, all our social arrangements have relied on the expectation that we can trust one another to behave honorably without constant supervision. Right now, all around us, in real time, we’re witnessing that trust wither on the vine.

Without that trust, all social philosophy is empty talk, and the experiment of freedom fails.