One of the more tiresome mantras of leftist media coverage is Trump allegedly paging through his “authoritarian playbook.” The media have their own protest playbook, as you could tell when leftists organized another mass protest titled “No Kings,” as if we’ve ever had a king. The network newscasts slobbered all over this Saturday event, using very similar language. “Millions” took to the streets! A “massive” nationwide turnout to oppose “what they call creeping authoritarianism.” They sound like they’re reading a press release. “More than 2,700 rallies in all 50 states,” as “organizers estimate seven million people” turned out. All of these newscasts carried no ideological labels – no “liberal,” no “leftist,” no “progressive,” and no whisper of extremism. You can tell from the crazy signs, like “Impeach Trump Again,” and also “Impeach, Remove, Convict, Repeat,” that these are some furious radical lefties. The networks with Saturday night newscasts – CBS, NBC, PBS, and NPR – aired 17 minutes and 51 seconds of mostly positive, “mostly peaceful” coverage (not counting the gushy headlines chatter at the beginning.) By contrast, January’s “March for Life” protest drew only 50 seconds, and that’s in part because NBC and NPR aired nothing.   This 18-to-1 number is an undercount…once you acknowledge that these networks kept celebrating these Saturday protests into Monday. Even the comedians were involved. NBC late-night comedian Seth Meyers boasted: “I can’t help but compare the size of the ‘No Kings’ rallies to the size of the right-wing Tea Party protests back in 2009, which were much smaller but commanded an obsessive amount of media attention.” This is false. A Media Research Center study by Rich Noyes in 2010 found very limited coverage in 2009, not an obsession. ABC, CBS, and NBC aired six reports on the April 15, 2009 “tax day” protests; just one report on the July 4 rallies; and six full reports on the September 12 rally on Capitol Hill. By comparison, The Nation of Islam’s “Million Man March” in 1995 was featured in 21 evening news stories on just the night of that march — more than the Tea Party received in all of 2009. Then consider the hostile tone that conservative protesters inevitably receive. In April 2009, ABC reporter Dan Harris passed along that “critics on the Left say this is not a real grassroots phenomenon at all, that it’s actually largely orchestrated by people fronting for corporate interests.” Inform people now that leftist billionaires like George Soros funded the vaunted “No Kings” organizers, and you’re a conspiracy theorist. Overall, reporters suggested the Tea Party movement reflected a fringe or dangerous quality. Dan Harris was at it again on ABC in September 2009: They “waved signs likening President Obama to Hitler and the devil....Some prominent Obama supporters are now saying that it paints a picture of an opposition driven, in part, by a refusal to accept a black President.” The networks refuse to acknowledge any fringy or dangerous talk at the “No Kings” events. On X.com, you could see a man was captured on video yelling into a bullhorn that ICE agents should be killed: "You gotta grab a gun, we gotta turn around the guns on this fascist system. These ICE agents gotta get shot and wiped out…The same machinery that’s on full display right there has to get wiped out." These networks aired happy press releases, and left any negative or hate-filled video clips out. Some mentioned House Speaker Mike Johnson predicting it would be a “Hate America rally” – just so they could quote protesters earnestly professing their patriotism. 

For decades, we’ve been told America’s wars are about drugs, democracy, or “defending freedom.” But look closer at what’s unfolding off the coast of Venezuela, and you’ll see something far more strategic taking shape. Donald Trump’s so-called drug war isn’t about fentanyl or cocaine. It’s about control — and a rebirth of American sovereignty.The aim of Trump’s ‘drug war’ is to keep the hemisphere’s oil, minerals, and manufacturing within the Western family and out of Beijing’s hands.The president understands something the foreign policy class forgot long ago: The world doesn’t respect apologies. It respects strength.While the global elites in Davos tout the Great Reset, Trump is building something entirely different — a new architecture of power based on regional independence, not global dependence. His quiet campaign in the Western Hemisphere may one day be remembered as the second Monroe Doctrine.Venezuela sits at the center of it all. It holds the world’s largest crude oil reserves — oil perfectly suited for America’s Gulf refineries. For years, China and Russia have treated Venezuela like a pawn on their chessboard, offering predatory loans in exchange for control of those resources. The result has been a corrupt, communist state sitting in our own back yard. For too long, Washington shrugged. Not any more.The naval exercises in the Caribbean, the sanctions, the patrols — they’re not about drug smugglers. They’re about evicting China from our hemisphere.Trump is using the old “drug war” playbook to wage a new kind of war — an economic and strategic one — without firing a shot at our actual enemies. The goal is simple: Keep the hemisphere’s oil, minerals, and manufacturing within the Western family and out of Beijing’s hands.Beyond VenezuelaJust east of Venezuela lies Guyana, a country most Americans couldn’t find on a map a year ago. Then ExxonMobil struck oil, and suddenly Guyana became the newest front in a quiet geopolitical contest. Washington is helping defend those offshore platforms, build radar systems, and secure undersea cables — not for charity, but for strategy. Control energy, data, and shipping lanes, and you control the future.Moreover, Colombia — a country once defined by cartels — is now positioned as the hinge between two oceans and two continents. It guards the Panama Canal and sits atop rare-earth minerals every modern economy needs. Decades of American presence there weren’t just about cocaine interdiction; they were about maintaining leverage over the arteries of global trade. Trump sees that clearly.RELATED: A war on Venezuela would be a war on reality Photo by PEDRO MATTEY/AFP via Getty ImagesAll of these recent news items — from the military drills in the Caribbean to the trade negotiations — reflect a new vision of American power. Not global policing. Not endless nation-building. It’s about strategic sovereignty.It’s the same philosophy driving Trump’s approach to NATO, the Middle East, and Asia. We’ll stand with you — but you’ll stand on your own two feet. The days of American taxpayers funding global security while our own borders collapse are over.Trump’s Monroe DoctrineCritics will call it “isolationism.” It isn’t. It’s realism. It’s recognizing that America’s strength comes not from fighting other people’s wars but from securing our own energy, our own supply lines, our own hemisphere. The first Monroe Doctrine warned foreign powers to stay out of the Americas. The second one — Trump’s — says we’ll defend them, but we’ll no longer be their bank or their babysitter.Historians may one day mark this moment as the start of a new era — when America stopped apologizing for its own interests and started rebuilding its sovereignty, one barrel, one chip, and one border at a time.Want more from Glenn Beck? Get Glenn's FREE email newsletter with his latest insights, top stories, show prep, and more delivered to your inbox.

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