GOD DAMN THE OIL MAN: DONALD TRUMP, THE CRUDE OIL KING
The Crude Oil King
(To the tune of "The Pusher" by Steppenwolf)
You know I’ve drilled a lot of wells
Oh Lord, I’ve signed a lot of bills
But I’ve never touched a tariff
That my spirit couldn't fill
You know I’ve seen a lot of leaders walking 'round
With sanctions in their eyes
But the Big Man doesn't care
If the barrel price drops or flies.
God Damn! The Oil Man.
God Damn! The Oil Man.
I said God Damn! God damn the Oil Man.
You know the driller, the driller is a man
With a bit of shale in his hand
But the Dealer in the Palace
Is a brand-new kind of man
The driller for a nickel
Gonna sell you lots of sweet heat
But the Mogul’s gonna squeeze you
‘Til you’re begging on the street.
God Damn! The Oil Man.
God Damn! The Oil Man.
I said God Damn! God damn the Oil Man.
Well now, if I were the Boss of Caracas land
I’d stop the flow of heavy crude to the Orange Man
I’d block him if he stands, and I’d ghost him if he runs
And I’d fight him with my pipelines, and my debt, and all my guns.
GOD DAMN! The Oil Man.
God damn the Oil Man.
I said God damn! God damn the Oil Man!
How Trump's "Drug War" on Venezuela Turned Out to Be Just Another Fix for America's Dirtiest Addiction
In which we discover that the only cartel Washington really cares about is OPEC
They told us it was about democracy. They said it was about human rights. They whispered sweet nothings about "liberating the Venezuelan people" and "restoring freedom." But let's be honest—America doesn't invade countries for abstract nouns. America invades for thick, black, combustible nouns. The kind that comes in barrels.
Welcome to the latest episode of "Intervention: Petroleum Edition," starring Donald J. Trump as the Crude Oil King, a man so committed to fighting drug addiction that he's willing to secure the world's largest oil reserves to do it. Because nothing says "Just Say No" quite like "Just Say Drill, Baby, Drill."
THE GREAT BAIT-AND-SWITCH: FROM COCAINE TO CRUDE
For months, the Trump administration has been playing the greatest hits of American foreign policy: economic sanctions, naval blockades, mysterious boat explosions in the Caribbean, and enough hawkish rhetoric to make John Bolton blush (which, given his mustache situation, is really saying something). The official story? Venezuela is a narco-state, a drug trafficking hub, a clear and present danger to American soccer moms everywhere.
But here's the thing about cover stories—they're like toupees. If you look too closely, you can see what's really underneath.
Turns out, the "drug" Trump has been after all along isn't cocaine, heroin, or fentanyl. It's that sweet, sweet crude oil—specifically, the 300+ billion barrels of proven oil reserves sitting underneath Venezuelan soil like a geological trust fund. That's more than Saudi Arabia, more than Canada, more than anywhere else on God's green (soon to be oil-slicked) Earth.
The "War on Drugs" was just the gateway drug to the real addiction: petroleum.
AMERICA'S OLDEST VICE: BLACK GOLD, TEXAS TEA
Let's talk about America's oil problem. We're not casual users—we're mainlining 20 million barrels a day, every day, like a nation-sized junkie with a credit card and no concept of tomorrow. We've been hooked since Spindletop, and every president since has been either a dealer or a user. Usually both.
Trump, however, has taken this addiction to new heights. Or depths. Depending on how you feel about offshore drilling.
He looked at Venezuela—a country in economic freefall, its people starving, its infrastructure crumbling—and saw not a humanitarian crisis but an opportunity. A business opportunity. The kind of opportunity that makes a real estate developer's heart go pitter-patter. All that oil, just sitting there, controlled by the "wrong" people. It's like finding out your neighbor has a wine cellar and a broken lock.
THE DEALER IN THE PALACE
The beauty of Trump's approach is its shameless efficiency. Why bother with the pretense of "spreading democracy" when you can just cut to the chase? Previous administrations at least had the decency to lie convincingly. They'd spend months at the UN, building coalitions, crafting narratives about weapons of mass destruction or humanitarian interventions. They'd hire PR firms. They'd get Colin Powell to do a PowerPoint.
Trump? Trump just tweets about it at 3 AM and sends in the boats.
"Venezuela has drugs!" (Translation: Venezuela has oil.)
"We must stop the cartels!" (Translation: We must control the cartels—the oil cartels.)
"Maduro must go!" (Translation: Maduro must go, and whoever replaces him better accept ExxonMobil's friend request.)
It's almost refreshing in its honesty. Almost. If it weren't, you know, a violation of international law and basic human decency.
IRAQI DÉJÀ VU: THE SEQUEL NOBODY ASKED FOR
Of course, we've seen this movie before. Iraq, 2003. "Weapons of Mass Destruction" was the tagline, but "Weapons of Mass Production" (oil wells) was the plot. We were told it would be quick, clean, surgical. "We'll be greeted as liberators," they said. "It'll pay for itself," they promised.
Twenty years, trillions of dollars, and hundreds of thousands of lives later, we're still there. Because here's the thing about oil wars: they're not like other wars. They don't end. They metastasize. They become "commitments." They turn into "strategic interests." They evolve into "protecting our investments."
Oil is a forever drug for a forever war.
And Venezuela? Venezuela is shaping up to be Iraq 2.0: Electric Boogaloo. Same script, different hemisphere. The only difference is that this time, we're not even bothering with the WMD excuse. We're going straight for the crude.
THE ENVIRONMENTAL PUSHER: KILLING USERS AND NON-USERS ALIKE
Here's where the metaphor gets uncomfortably literal: oil really is killing us. Not metaphorically. Literally. Climate change isn't a future threat anymore—it's a present-tense catastrophe. Wildfires, hurricanes, droughts, floods, species extinction, coral bleaching, ice caps melting like a snowman in July.
But does the Crude Oil King care? Does the man who thinks windmills cause cancer and climate change is a Chinese hoax give a single golden toilet about the planet's future?
Narrator voice: He does not.
Trump's approach to climate change is the same as his approach to everything else: deny, deflect, and double down. Why invest in renewable energy when you can invade Venezuela? Why build a sustainable future when you can squeeze a few more decades out of fossil fuels? Why think about your grandchildren when you can think about your quarterly profits?
The cruelty is the point, but so is the profit margin.
And here's the truly diabolical part: oil addiction doesn't just harm the users. It harms everyone. You don't have to drive a Hummer to suffer from climate change. You don't have to work for an oil company to breathe polluted air. You don't have to support the invasion of Venezuela to deal with the geopolitical instability it creates.
Oil is the ultimate secondhand smoke, except instead of a smoky bar, it's the entire planet, and instead of asking people to step outside, we're all locked in together.
THE VENEZUELAN PEOPLE: COLLATERAL DAMAGE IN A RESOURCE GRAB
Let's spare a thought for the actual Venezuelans in all this—you know, the people we're supposedly "helping." They've been living through an economic apocalypse for years: hyperinflation, food shortages, medical supply crises, mass emigration. Millions have fled to neighboring countries. Those who remain are surviving on ingenuity, black markets, and remittances from relatives abroad.
And now? Now they get to be the prize in a geopolitical pissing contest between Donald Trump and Nicolás Maduro, two men whose combined empathy could fit in a shot glass with room left over for actual shots.
The sanctions that were supposed to "pressure the regime" have instead crushed the population. The naval blockades that were supposed to "stop drug trafficking" have strangled an already gasping economy. The military posturing that was supposed to "restore democracy" has pushed the country closer to civil war.
But hey, at least ExxonMobil's stock is doing great.
THE BIPARTISAN ADDICTION: BOTH SIDES OF THE AISLE ARE HOOKED
Before we get too comfortable pointing fingers at Trump, let's acknowledge an uncomfortable truth: America's oil addiction is bipartisan. Republicans drill openly and proudly. Democrats drill apologetically while wearing a Patagonia fleece. But they both drill.
Obama drilled. Bush drilled. Clinton drilled. Biden's drilling. They all drill. Because oil is the one thing that unites our hopelessly divided nation: the belief that we deserve cheap gas, regardless of the cost to everyone else.
Venezuela is just the latest fix in a long line of fixes. We've couped Iran (1953), invaded Iraq (2003), destabilized Libya (2011), and cozied up to Saudi Arabia (always) all in service of the same addiction. We've overthrown democracies and propped up dictatorships. We've armed rebels and bombed civilians. We've done everything except the one thing that might actually help: admit we have a problem and commit to getting clean.
But that would require sacrifice. That would require change. That would require acknowledging that maybe, just maybe, our lifestyle is unsustainable and our foreign policy is morally bankrupt.
And America doesn't do sacrifice. America does invasions.
THE CRUDE OIL KING'S LEGACY: A PLANET ON FIRE
So here we are. Trump, the self-proclaimed master dealmaker, has made perhaps his biggest deal yet: trading Venezuela's sovereignty for America's oil security. Trading the planet's future for short-term profits. Trading any pretense of moral authority for a few more years of business as usual.
God damn the Oil Man, indeed.
He's not the first Oil Man, and he won't be the last. But he might be the most honest about it, in his own twisted way. He's not pretending to care about democracy or human rights or the environment. He's not hiding behind flowery rhetoric or international norms. He's just doing what America has always done, but with the subtlety of a golden skyscraper with his name on it.
He's drilling. He's dealing. He's feeding the addiction.
And we're all along for the ride, whether we bought a ticket or not.
THE PUSHER VS. THE DEALER: A DISTINCTION WITHOUT A DIFFERENCE
The song says the pusher is different from the dealer—one's just trying to make a living, the other's destroying lives for profit. But when it comes to oil, that distinction collapses. The small-time driller and the Big Man in the Palace are part of the same system, the same supply chain, the same addiction economy.
Trump isn't an aberration. He's the logical conclusion of a century of American energy policy. He's what happens when you let the addiction run unchecked for so long that you forget it's an addiction at all. He's what happens when the dealer becomes the president.
And the truly terrifying part? He's not even the worst-case scenario. He's just the most obvious one. The next Oil Man might be smarter, smoother, more palatable to polite society. They might use better euphemisms and hire better speechwriters. But they'll still be feeding the same addiction, fighting the same forever wars, sacrificing the same people on the altar of petroleum profits.
CONCLUSION: THE ONLY WAY OUT IS THROUGH (TO RENEWABLE ENERGY)
So what's the answer? How do we break the cycle? How do we stop the forever wars for the forever drug?
The uncomfortable truth is that we can't—not as long as we're addicted. Not as long as our entire civilization runs on fossilized dinosaurs. Not as long as we value cheap gas over human life, quarterly profits over planetary survival, short-term comfort over long-term existence.
The only way out is through: through the painful process of admitting we have a problem, through the difficult work of building alternatives, through the political courage to stand up to the oil industry and say "enough."
But that would require leadership. That would require vision. That would require giving a damn about something other than the next election cycle or the next earnings report.
And if there's one thing we've learned from the Crude Oil King, it's that we shouldn't hold our breath. (Which is probably good advice anyway, given the air quality.)
So God damn the Oil Man. God damn the system that created him. God damn the addiction that sustains him. And God damn us for letting it continue.
But mostly, God damn the Oil Man.
Because at the end of the day, Venezuela isn't about drugs. Iraq wasn't about WMDs. Libya wasn't about humanitarianism. It's always been about oil. It's always been about the addiction.
And until we get clean, the Crude Oil King—whoever wears the crown—will keep dealing, keep drilling, and keep damning us all.
The driller for a nickel gonna sell you lots of sweet heat,
But the Mogul's gonna squeeze you 'til you're begging on the street.
God damn. God damn the Oil Man.
[The author would like to note that no actual boats were harmed in the writing of this article, though several metaphors were stretched to their breaking point, much like America's credibility on the world stage.]
