'The dumbest plot': MAGA trounced for blindly following as Trump abandons promise

A journalist and lawyer slammed MAGA loyalists Monday over blindly following President Donald Trump as he abandoned his key campaign promise.

After years of criticizing America's foreign wars, Trump has now turned his full attention to global conflicts with his invasion of Venezuela and capture of President Nicolás Maduro, Slate's Jill Filipovic wrote.

"This is a president who promised to put America first: He ran on isolationism, as well as an end to the era of wars of choice, foreign quagmires, and the U.S. as the world’s police officer. What Trump has offered instead: wars of choice, with America as the world’s plunderer—and his followers not only cheer but invent ridiculous pretexts to defend this utterly unjustifiable move," Filipovic wrote.

The Trump administration has claimed that Venezuela has been responsible for bringing drugs to the U.S., despite Trump's recent pardon of a former Honduran president who had faced similar charges for drug trafficking.

"Trump is clear: He does not care about restoring democratic governance to Venezuela," Filipovic explained. "He doesn’t like Nicolás Maduro and wanted the spectacle of bringing him to the U.S. in handcuffs. He does like Venezuelan oil, and because he believes that American military power should allow him to grab whatever he’d like, he plans to take a lot of it."

Trump has also signaled an interest in attacking and invading other countries, including Colombia, Cuba, Greenland and Mexico — a stark difference from what his campaign focused on.

MAGA has mainly remained silent about the dramatic strategy shift and creating "ridiculous pretexts to defend this utterly unjustifiable move."

"This flies in the face of everything MAGA supposedly stands for. So what are MAGA loyalists doing in response? They’re lining up and making excuses," Filipovic added.

"'Start a war for oil to distract from problems at home' is the dumbest plot, but it seems to be our current storyline. And most of MAGA, a hollowed-out movement of unprincipled and morally vacant shills and sycophants, seems keen to play along," Filipovic wrote.