There may not be a more apt lyric to describe our present moment than that repeated line from No Shelter, a single from the otherwise forgettable soundtrack of the Godzilla movie from nearly 30 years ago. We’re a couple days into the aftermath of Donald Trump ordering the kidnapping of the president of Venezuela, Nicholas Maduro (and his wife), to stand trial in New York for violating U.S. law. Our president–who was elected and re-elected in large part because he played a successful businessman on reality TV–didn’t just order and monitor this raid from his tacky and unsecure club in Florida, he made sure pictures of him looking serious were sprayed all over social media.

In the lead-up to the blatantly-illegal kidnapping of a foreign head of state, the might of the US military has been given the task of blowing up defenseless speedboats and killing their occupants in both the Caribbean and the eastern Pacific on the suspicion (which has yet to be proven) that they are carrying illegal drugs. The Trump administration shared drone footage of at least one such boat being destroyed by a missile.

Whether it’s Trump, or Pete Hegseth, or Stephen Miller, or anyone else in his administration, it really seems that they engage in war and cruelty for entertainment. Social media accounts run by government officials regularly post either insulting AI slop, or ads that clearly reference fascist and white supremacist imagery from the past. Today brought news that someone used non-public information to bet on Polymarket that Maduro would be captured and netted over $400K on a wager of a little over $32K.

Even worse, it’s entirely possible that Maduro’s kidnapping is just the start of this latest escalation of Trump’s lawlessness. Cuba, Colombia, even Mexico could be next. It seems the only lyric of No Shelter that didn’t age well after all this time was “Trade in ya history for a VCR”.