I Never Thought that Anyone Would Write This! By James Reed

 There are moments in political commentary when one reads a sentence twice—not because it is subtle, but because it has crossed a rhetorical Rubicon. In the wake of the extraordinary U.S. operation that saw Nicolás Maduro seized and hauled before a New York court, it was perhaps inevitable that imaginations would run hot. Still, I did not expect to see the following words in print: "Trump must kidnap and try Albo." Yet there they were, published by David Llewellyn-Smith at MacroBusiness.com.au on 6 January 2026. The line is so grotesque, so manifestly absurd, that it can only be read as satire—a deliberately outrageous extrapolation from an already surreal geopolitical moment. And yet, like all effective satire, it works precisely because it is anchored to something real: the sudden normalisation of acts that, until very recently, belonged to the realm of dystopian fiction. What follows is an extended passage, reproduced to preserve the internal logic of the argument rather than to endorse it. He wrote the following at Marcobusiness.com. au on 6 January 2026:

"Honestly, what has gone wrong with the human mind? Every single debate I track these days is binary, usually supporting some political idiot or another.

The latest outbreak of conflict is a result of the actions the US has taken against Venezuela.

On one side of the debate, Trump cheerleaders are arguing that Maduro was an illegitimate, repressive, and incompetent leader.

These are inarguable facts.

On the other side, there are individuals who staunchly defend sovereignty, primarily those who oppose El Trumpo.

This argument is also valid, considering that El Trumpo is threatening to usher in a new era of anarcho-imperialism.

As is often the case, the truth lies somewhere in between. As always, the issue with the El Trumpo policy is its execution, not its conception.

If El Trumpo had assembled a coalition of the willing to accomplish this task, accompanied by a democratic succession plan that included military intervention if needed, would anyone be opposed to Maduro's removal?

The Venezuelans would certainly not object to Maduro's removal!

Instead, El Trump has truncated the Venezuelan leadership with no plan. This threatens to tip Venezuela into a bloodbath.

The lack of planning reveals the underlying motive. El Trumpo has done this not to benefit Venezuelans seeking greater freedoms, but to deepen his defamation of those people for domestic consumption.

El Trumpo has spent years defaming Venezuelan refugees as loons, rapists, and drug dealers for domestic political purposes. His coup without a leader provides him a cheap way to deepen those divisions at home as we head into the midterms.

A little foreign war is also a powerful way to rally the faithful.

But what of the broader implications? While El Trumpo appears lukewarm at best in his protection of Asian allies and is now selling China AI chips hand over fist, he is also busy forcing concessions upon Ukraine to placate the Russian dictator.

It is irrelevant whether El Trumpo has struck a deal with his dictatorial mates to divide the world into anarcho-imperialist spheres of influence. He is doing it. And so will they.

All of this leaves Australia in a terrible geopolitical position. Now, our homegrown cohort of China grovelers has plenty of material to exploit.

The US looks like a terribly unreliable partner and appears to be operating with no multilateral values or care for its own post-WWII order dedicated to freedom and self-determination.

With Labour in charge, the temptation to align with Beijing will only intensify, particularly following the appearance of a few more battleships off Bateman's Bay.

The next step will involve a significant increase in Chinese immigration and the capture of an unassailable number of federal seats by ethnic Chinese, which will be followed by the establishment of labour camps in the Pilbara for the likes of me and you.

If El Trumpo is going this way, then we need him to kidnap Albo and put him on trial for the destruction of the Australian way of life before Beijing completes the job."

Obviously tongue in cheek; we do not know if Trump even knows where Australia is, or what it is … or cares!

What makes the passage unsettling is not its conclusion—which is plainly absurd—but its premise: that the once-unthinkable has now entered the realm of policy imagination. Satire stops working when reality catches up, and the seizure of a foreign head of state by a superpower has already done much of that work for us.

https://www.macrobusiness.com.au/2026/01/trump-must-kidnap-and-try-albo/