#1686 Venezuela, Thomas Jefferson and American Ideals

Listening to America

Society & Culture, History

4.6 • 1.1K Ratings

🗓️ 12 January 2026

⏱️ 53 minutes

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Summary

Clay and guest host David Horton of Radford University discuss the global implications of America's recent incursion into the sovereign nation of Venezuela. For the first segment of the program, Horton asks President Thomas Jefferson about the foreign policy crises of the early national period. After the break, Horton asked Clay to break character to contextualize the recent raid in the larger sweep of American history. Have there been similar incidents in previous decades? How will the kidnapping of the dictator Maduro affect America's standing in the world? Who gets to decide what foreign leaders to leave in place, and which to depose? What are the constitutional implications of this sudden military incursion? Is the post-World War II liberal world order crumbling? And what comes next? This episode was recorded on January 7, 2026.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hey, everyone. It's Clay Jenkinson with the introduction to this week's podcast, a conversation with David Horton. This Venezuelan business is really extraordinary, deeply troubling. I was troubled about it mostly from a U.S. constitutional point of view, the war powers and the desire
0:22.1	of the founders to kennel the dogs of war. David Horton's view is that we're watching the
0:28.9	end of the liberal world order, the post-World War II, UN, NATO, et cetera, world order,
0:35.9	and we're now moving into a kind of realpolitik or great nations, great powers, struggles,
0:44.7	largely about economic resources in the Arctic and so on, that this is just a small opening
0:51.8	salvo into what's going to be the divvying up of the world
0:55.5	between Russia, China, and the United States, with China and the United States getting much
0:59.9	more share than Russia. We'll see. But I think this is one of the most important programs we've
1:05.2	done in a long, long time. David Horton is more pessimistic than I am, but I was really taken by his argument that we are entering some very dangerous new ground.
1:15.1	And it's not really very much about a dictatorship in Venezuela.
1:19.0	It's about something much deeper.
1:20.4	It's not really about Donald Trump, although he's central to it.
1:23.9	It's about what really is the deep state, the most powerful capitalists in America,
1:31.3	figuring out how we are going to triumph in the new world order that's emerging and how we're
1:37.3	going to push it into being. I want you to listen to this, whether you agree with it or disagree, but if you like it as an
1:45.5	examination of these questions in a really serious way, then tell everyone you know and listen to it
1:53.8	twice, I think. I'm going to get a transcript and we'll see what we can do with that.
1:57.5	Well, this is a very, very important addition of listening to America.
2:04.2	And I don't want to spoil it by asking for money, but we obviously need your support. So please
2:09.9	do support us. You know, where else are you going to get discourse like this? It's not by any
2:15.7	means unique, but it is unusual.
2:25.3	And we always have a Jeffersonian founding fathers' enlightenment constitutional focus about these questions.
	...

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