Americans disapprove of Trump’s foreign policy. His escapades are likely to cost him | Sid Blumenthal

History tells us what happens when American presidents focus on foreign policy and neglect domestic economic policy

Donald Trump’s blitzkrieg since his 3 January seizure of the Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro has been guided by his triumph of the will, as he told the New York Times. “Yeah, there is one thing. My own morality. My own mind. It’s the only thing that can stop me … I don’t need international law.”

Trump treats the spectacle as a reality TV show in which he is both the executive producer and the host who ultimately declares himself the winner. At his 3 January press conference on the day of Maduro’s seizure, Trump mentioned “oil” 27 times, “money” 13 times and “democracy” not once. He trashed the democratic opposition as lacking “respect” and “support”. The capture of Maduro was a decapitation, not regime change. Indeed, Trump served as a convenient agent of an internal coup of the existing powers, whom he declared “an ally”. “We have to fix the country first,” he said. “You can’t have an election.”

Sidney Blumenthal, former senior adviser to President Bill Clinton and Hillary Clinton, has published three books of a projected five-volume political life of Abraham Lincoln: A Self-Made Man, Wrestling With His Angel and All the Powers of Earth. He is a Guardian US columnist