In the news coverage, public statements, and official explanations surrounding the coup attempt by Donald Trump and Juan Guaido, the liberal hypocrisy of the ruling class is breathtaking. How can a country like Spain, where hundreds of Catalan civilians were physically beaten to suppress the 2017 independence referendum, demand that “fair, free and transparent elections” be held on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean? How can a man like Emmanuel Macron, deeply unpopular, the tyrant and tear-gasser to the gilets jaunes, denounce another head of state as repressive? However, now and then, an individual from the ruling class comes along who is unburdened by such needs for public justifications, a zealous and undisguised mover-and-shaker behind the scenes of counterrevolutionary intrigue. That man is Elliott Abrams, newly appointed US Special Envoy to Venezuela.

“You are risking your future and your lives,” said Trump to Venezuelan military officers in a war-mongering speech in Miami on 18 February. “You will find no safe harbor, no easy exit and no way out. You’ll lose everything,” he added, perhaps frustrated that there have been so far no significant cracks in the Venezuelan armed forces, a month after the beginning of the ongoing US coup attempt.