Two Videos
by Zach Rabiroff
The clip is 23 seconds long. It opens with some deliberately grainy footage of erstwhile Venezuelan President Nicolàs Maduro giving a furious speech; the subtitles (which rattle and jitter across the bottom of the screen in English) translate his words as, “Come and get me! / I'll wait here in Miraflores / Don't wait too long / Coward!” The video then cuts to Secretary of State Marco Rubio who, in a speech of his own, says the words, “now if you don’t know, now you know,” words popularized in the 1994 song “Juicy” by The Notorious B.I.G.
Next, we see a still photograph of Maduro, now in handcuffs, earmuffs, and a dark visor, apparently captive in what looks like an aircraft cabin. Finally, briefly, Donald Trump strolls triumphantly in slow motion down a White House hallway. The score is “Hypnotize,” also by The Notorious B.I.G. The video was posted less than three hours after the military operation to kidnap and depose Maduro had taken place on January 3.
Another video appeared online four days later, and it is very different. It is approximately the same length as the White House video, but there are no quick cuts, no subtitles, and no musical score. It shows two ICE agents approaching a car in a residential Minneapolis neighborhood, while a third agent, standing in front of the vehicle, draws a gun. An unseen voice shouts, “No!”
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