In mafia capitalism Nicolás Maduro wears Nike

The image of Nicolás Maduro in Nike Tech Fleece symbolizes mafia-style capitalism, where geopolitical plunder becomes viral merchandise and war becomes consumable entertainment.

The release of the image of Nicolás Maduro, handcuffed and blindfolded, wrapped in a gray coat. Nike Tech FleeceThis was not a minor detail in the US invasion of Venezuela on January 03, 2026. It was the visual expression of the Trump doctrine, based on a "mafia capitalism," which violates all international conventions and agreements to expropriate the oil of the neighboring country. The brutal and indefensible geopolitical plunder found an ironic and fluid symbol, ready to be endlessly remixed by the logic of digital capitalism.

The reaction on social media and platforms was instantaneous and viral. Users pointed out the already well-worn "contradiction" between Nicolás Maduro's anti-imperialist discourse and the use of an icon of global capitalism, Nike. Jokes about "guerrilla" marketing, celebratory and defamatory comments, fashion and political editorials followed the logic of... over The image was algorithmically exposed and went viral, being remixed into memes and videos, including several montages in which Maduro appears as a rapper or a DJ.

The public image of a head of state is built upon symbols of authority: suits, uniforms, flags. The "semiotics of power" is rigid. The photo of Nicolás Maduro, shared by Donald Trump on his social media, breaks with this protocol to show a vulnerable body dressed for leisure.

The Nike tracksuit Tech FleeceAssociated with urban style and casual comfort, it completely shifts the context of Nicolás Maduro's violent capture as a political prisoner, to show him, the first act of a symbolic operation recurring in Trumpist rhetoric, as everyday banality personified.

The image of Nicolás Maduro becomes that of "just another guy" who goes to the gym or the supermarket. The message is clear: his power is over; now, you are just another face in the crowd. The geopolitical narrative of capture and trial has been superimposed by a domesticated aesthetic narrative, in the same way that Donald Trump declared that he viewed the military operation and the capture of Nicolás Maduro "as if he were watching a television program."

Cognitive extractivism

The extremely serious attacks on democracy on the continent and in the world cannot produce turbulence. What shocks the world has to be normalized by Donald Trump as part of a banal imperial menu.

Donald Trump systematically trivializes attacks on other countries and violations of international law, first through his speeches, then by governing through the use of force and memes, and by performatively using social media and images. Shortly after the attack on Venezuela, Katie Miller, wife of the White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller, posted an image of a map of Greenland in which the Danish island is painted with the colors of the United States flag; these images embody an offensive and cognitively extractive form of manipulation.

Donald Trump wages war using the logic of territorial oil extraction, but also cognitive extraction. Artificial intelligence images generate an imperial and brutal Donald Trump portrayed as the Pope (white robes, mitre, crucifix) or wearing a king's crown, a parody of a magazine cover. Timeshowing Donald Trump under the slogan “Long Live The King".

Another artificial intelligence video shows Donald Trump wearing a crown, piloting a jet called “King Trump"that pours brown substance on protesters, published on the day of national protests"No Kings"who took to the streets in several US cities and who mocked his desire for omnipotence."

Donald Trump still appears as a “God-Emperor"Giant and golden on a throne, inspired by the game" Warhammer 40,000, threatens political opponents. Another artificial intelligence video shows Donald Trump "saving" Gaza, with a golden statue of him in the background.

But nothing compares to the AI-generated video from January 05th in which Donald Trump appears with a mustache and Maduro-style hair, proclaiming himself the new president of Venezuela, speaking in English and Spanish and invoking "sexy." mamacitas, mariachis "and margarita drinks."

The images of Donald Trump disguised as Nicolás Maduro are the capture of the other through caricature, a form of political subjugation, a weapon of the culture war, designed to dominate the news cycle, humiliate opponents, inflame his base, and test the limits of public discourse.

But, like viruses, memes “have no morals” or destiny and can be endlessly repurposed. The AI-generated images of Nicolás Maduro captured create a fine line between those who condemn and mock the Venezuelan dictator and those who see him as a cool DJ or rapper, a celebrity Pop, an anti-hero.

Other images and memes ridiculing Donald Trump's "Monroe Doctrine," his voracious appetite for Venezuelan oil, his buffoonish persona, and his plundering policies,orange is the new black”, in puns referencing the color of the toupee and petroleum.

Narrative commodities

The endless slippage of meanings shows how decisive the fabrication of images is, prefiguring future scenarios that are either too horrific or too beautiful, even exploding clichés. The image anticipates and "realizes" the facts. Images are the factories of desirable facts or facts to be exorcised, and the flood of images and memes we receive through platforms enters into the dispute of meanings and desires, into the dispute of worlds.

In WhatsApp groups, where polarization manifests itself in memes and messages, I no longer receive... fake news Simply put, these are images generated by artificial intelligence that reflect what extremists and democrats want to express, prefiguring desires and feelings shaped by the images. The issue today is that the Big Tech and platform factories, like Donald Trump, also challenge and violate national laws and rules and promote extreme content; they are a laboratory for affective and political modulations.

To keep users engaged, algorithms prioritize content that generates strong reactions (anger, outrage, mockery, derision, embarrassment), creating echo chambers and fueling polarization. Of course, the attention and engagement economy uses virality as a metric for success, not informing, educating, or training. The most shocking, false, or manipulated images gain a longer lifespan in this business model.

While oil was a resource for a system (industrial-military), digital platforms are both the resource and the system itself (economic, social, communicative, affective). Oil needs pipelines and armed forces to be generated and secured. big techs They are, in themselves, the infrastructure of power in a data capitalism and commodities Narratives are vital in the attention economy and for political mobilization in the 21st century.

What happened in Venezuela has a name that Latin America knows by heart: naked imperialism, trade war, and business disguised as moral warfare. The scarecrows change names (fighting communism, drug trafficking, "terrorism"), but the objective is the same: to subjugate countries and peoples by force to obtain commercial and territorial advantages and to unbalance the geopolitical game of influence.

And this force is also exerted in the realm of images, transforming Nicolás Maduro's defeat into a media spectacle in which the prisoner of war becomes the unwitting poster boy for one of the most iconic global brands in the US: Nike.

The war will be meme-ified.

The invasion of another country is a violation of international law when it begins with bombing and ends with the kidnapping of a head of state (even if that head of state is a dictator), a violation that is aggravated by the announcement that the US will "administer the country" and expropriate its natural resources: Venezuelan oil.

The image of Nicolás Maduro's captured body, wrapped in a Nike product that immediately becomes an object of desire and exponentially increases searches, is the packaging of this operation: the war, and its violations, besides being a business, is also a phenomenon of "merchandising"viral."

And the perplexity increases when the subtext, appropriating the oil, is the official discourse. Donald Trump announced that major American oil companies will "invest billions" to "fix" Venezuelan business infrastructure and that the military presence will remain "until the demands are met." This is armed extractivism, a carte blanche to violate a country's sovereignty and establish a plunder of its riches.

Late capitalism completes its cycle when the brutality of material plunder is combined with the efficiency of symbolic plunder, transforming the image of the defeated enemy into something humiliating or “cool"Funny, banalized, repeated endlessly in a symbolic massacre and a consumerist impulse for the global masses."

And when the Secretary of Defense himself celebrates that, this time, the US did not "pay with blood" to "receive nothing economically in return," as happened in Iraq, the mask finally falls: the war was sold as a moral one and presented as a business deal.

Slop – Life and Death of Images

The image of Nicolás Maduro wearing Nike is the ultimate proof of this calculation: the military operation generated not only control of the oil, but also a “buzz"Free media coverage for a multinational brand, demonstrating how geopolitical violence directly fuels the gears of the market. Everything can become new consumption and merchandise."

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth told... CBS Evening News that the United States' intervention in Venezuela and the capture of President Nicolás Maduro is the "exact opposite" of the US invasion of Iraq: "We spent decades and decades and paid with blood, and we got nothing economically in return, and President Donald Trump reverses the script," Pete Hegseth told the host of CBS Evening NewsTony Dokoupil, assuming the commercial objective and the expropriation of wealth.

In this "reverse script," capturing a political rival becomes a marketing asset, and their image, also captured, becomes a meme that will be endlessly remixed.

Some media outlets called Donald Trump's operation "naked imperialism," according to legal experts interviewed by the agency. Reuters They pointed out the logical crux of the matter: drug trafficking and "gangs" do not authorize invasion under international law. Within the US, Tim Kaine called it an unauthorized attack and warned that this pushes American democracy toward tyranny.

But there is an even deeper logical knot, revealed by the photo: the knot that ties the violation of sovereignty to the indifference of the consumer market, which absorbs and celebrates the brand icon, ignoring or "bypassing" the context of violations that generate it.

The image becomes a “subject”: we are talking about the life of images, because everything happens within them. As Gilles Deleuze already stated in the time-imageIn announcing the advent of modern cinema, what matters now is the power of the images.

But today we could talk about another phenomenon, the generation of a pile of visual "garbage," the junk images generated by low-quality artificial intelligence in large volumes, which has been dubbed "slop", or "washing", "mud", images with factual errors or deepfakes, Generic, repetitive, and effortless content lacking originality, polluting in a way similar to spam, clogging channels and hijacking our time. Cliché images? Not just that, a stream of sliding images in an addictive, hemorrhagic scrolling design.

"Slop"It's more than a flaw, it's a symptom of the unregulated and massive moment of generation by artificial intelligence, viral production, and diet." fast food of algorithms. Understanding their layers helps to separate the jokes from the errors in generated content and visual extraction, with a deleterious, unethical, false objective, the target of any discussion about the regulation of platforms and the digital business.

Donald Trump's rhetoric is one of those meme and trash generators, but the US president transforms images generated by artificial intelligence, “slop"And visual mud in a factory of facts."

narrative economy

Therefore, announcing illegal, violent actions, generating trashy images, can lead to acts: kidnapping a president (it matters little whether a dictator or a democrat) or looting a country concretizes the narrative economy and sets "precedents" and threats. Tomorrow it could be any other rival: Colombia, Cuba, Mexico, Brazil, or Greenland.

Brazil 2026: We have a crucial election ahead of us, will we be under pressure, blackmail, and destabilization from Trump's rhetorical and warlike operation? When international law is violated and expropriating oil becomes the objective, the line between "intervention" and geopolitical piracy disappears.

And with it, the boundary between acts of war and consumer culture, between political prisoners and unwitting Nike poster boys, between bravado and rhetoric and speech acts that seek to materialize, also disappears.

The news feed as a battleground.

When Donald Trump invokes the Monroe Doctrine, created in 1823 under the motto "America for the Americans," he is not, and never has been, concerned with keeping European powers away from the continent. His objective, on the contrary, is to reaffirm the thesis that the Americas are of exclusive interest to the United States, using it to "justify" intervention in Venezuela as a pillar of a new American hegemony.

In this view, Latin America is once again reduced to a "backyard" under its direct influence: a territory whose natural resources are available to be plundered and whose governments can be overthrown or destabilized as it suits Washington.

The point is that the "backyard" is now also a feed In news, the demonstration of power occurs both through bombardment and the production of consumable viral images. Revisiting the doctrine, oil becomes the objective, the boundary between "intervention" and geopolitical piracy disappears, and, to the same extent, politics is converted into massive digital entertainment, and the logic of algorithms unleashes thousands of real and AI-generated images, memes, and texts.

The algorithm hasn't stopped churning out thousands of memes and images created by artificial intelligence in the 24 hours following the attack on Venezuela, along with thousands of statements from Donald Trump reaffirming his images.slopHundreds of comments about Nike and Nicolás Maduro, hundreds of images of the Nike uniform: Nicolás Maduro DJ, Nicolás Maduro rapperNicholas Maduro coolhundreds of fake news Regarding the American invasion, fake news ...from right-wing politicians claiming that "the MST will invade the US to free Nicolás Maduro" (laughs), a huge amount of rubbish, inventoried and debunked on fact-checking websites and agencies like Land, The Facts and vehicles with high traffic. What antibodies are we producing socially to neutralize these viruses?

Mafia capitalism is a mode of accumulation in which the boundary between legal and illegal economies becomes structurally blurred: businesses and the state operate according to logics of "protection" and tribute, capture of institutions, and the use (or threat) of violence to regulate markets, control territories, and extract income. That is, a capitalism that operates with mafia rules.

The rule of capitalism has always been that everything can be monetized, including the most egregious violations of all kinds. Nothing escapes the logic of monetization.

The year 2026 has barely begun, and it has begun badly: Donald Trump has once again treated Latin America as a territory to be plundered. By bombing Venezuelan territory and capturing Nicolás Maduro to take him to New York, Donald Trump tramples on the core of the international order: the principle of non-intervention and sovereignty of states and peoples, the prohibition of the use of force, except for self-defense, etc.

Domestically, the White House is ignoring Congress: no declaration of war, no warning, going against the Constitution and the law. War Powers Resolution.

The method now includes the creation of visual icons that summarize and trivialize the complexity of conflicts, transforming them into visual slogans to generate engagement and consumption—a generative artificial intelligence to manufacture and extract value.

Donald Trump's threats to annex Greenland hang over this autonomous territory of Denmark, rich in resources, and the military offensive in Venezuela was followed by demonstrations by members of the Maga movement (Make America Great Again(linked to President Donald Trump, indicating Greenland as one of the US targets. The imperial project is not content with controlling territories and resources; it seeks to dominate the global imagination, dictating narratives.)

The US is trying to tighten its grip on Latin America to neutralize China's influence, weaken the BRICS, and curb any de-dollarization movement. The logic is simple: treat infrastructure, energy, technology, and trade as matters of "national security," pull investments and production chains back into the American orbit, and pressure governments not to open up space for Chinese companies, credit, and agreements.

In the same vein, when countries talk about expanding payments in local currencies or creating alternative mechanisms, Washington reacts with threats of tariffs and economic sanctions.

In this war for hegemony, the battle of images is crucial. The photograph of Nicolás Maduro serves as a brutal visual warning: disobedience to unipolar power will be punished with force and then turned into a joke, a slapstick, trash, or a product, emptied of meaning.

But memetics are cruel and amusing, subverting the senses in a liquidation of those who want to govern through memes. Jair Bolsonaro, in Brazil, has become a meme-president; Donald Trump is his own caricature. The poison is the antidote in a meme economy.

Make Latin America again

In this scenario, Lula and Brazil emerge as a focal point of resistance because they defend sovereignty and diplomatic autonomy, refusing to automatically align themselves with Donald Trump. The Brazilian government condemns military interventions, condemned the invasion of Venezuela, and insists on a political solution and regional negotiation, rejecting the idea of ​​US intervention by force.

At the same time, Lula is advocating within the BRICS group for discussions on payment methods outside the dollar's domain and greater use of local currencies in trade. This is precisely why Brazil becomes an obstacle: because it hinders the project of transforming Latin America into a zone of economic and geopolitical subservience to the US.

This resistance, therefore, must also be on a symbolic level. It is necessary to reject the trivializing and consumerist reading that capitalism imposes on serious events, reaffirming and constructing a politics of images, beyond the images of politics, restoring the complexity of history against reduction to consumer trends or trash images.

In a polarized Brazil and in an election year, US intervention becomes a concrete threat: economic pressure, diplomatic blackmail, turbulence on Brazil's Amazonian border with Venezuela and Colombia, and in other coveted areas: undue trade tariffs and our greatest asset: the Brazilian and Pan-American Amazon, a territory of rare earths, water, biodiversity, and indigenous cultures.

Faced with this multifaceted threat, understanding the dimension of image guerrilla warfare is not a secondary exercise, but an essential part of a new visual ethics and ecology.

The US coexists with and trades with dictatorial and arbitrary regimes around the world. Even though Nicolás Maduro's government is condemnable, the intervention in Venezuela is indefensible, an explicit face of mafia-like capitalism, where business and profits are the brutal driving force, and no morality or ethics can sustain it.

There is nothing that sustains a mafia-like capitalism except war, violence, and the use of force and weapons, exactly like the drug traffickers and militias that Donald Trump claims to be fighting.

Semiotic violence

And this violence is also semiotic: it is the violence of emptying meaning, of stealing the narrative, of dressing tragedy in the jersey of the winning team, offering it to the public as just another disposable item in the forgettable media spectacle the next day.

President Lula and all the leaders of Latin American democracies face an enormous challenge: political, economic, and cultural coordination across the continent, centered around a clear and concrete dream: the BRICS countries as a political and diplomatic forum, promoting the interests of the Global South and creating financial and cultural alternatives in times of turbulence.

This cultural alternative needs to forge images and narratives, offering meaning where mafia-like capitalism imposes only an algorithmic blender that delivers dopamine.

Faced with the American retreat, leading the world towards new conflicts and investing in maintaining its illusory global primacy, a unipolar worldview, geopolitical reality points in another direction: towards an irreversible multipolarity.

A true multipolarity, however, will also be a battle of imaginaries, of multiple worlds, of multiverses. It will be a struggle to ensure that the images of countries and peoples are not hijacked or reduced to banality and cliché.

Donald Trump is reminiscent of characters from Hollywood films who romanticize plunder, colonialism, old and new forms of slavery and subjugation, and who, when faced with structural changes, both real and immaterial, go down fighting.

We live in an era of radical deregulation of images that flow in a continuous semiotic public sewer. This toxic avalanche of unsolicited visions (what would we rather "unsee"?) transforms the act of looking, historically violent, into a new violence: we are forced to consume visual garbage designed to capture our attention and extract more data, in a cycle that converts our mental landscape into predatory mining territory.