I believe that the bipartisan freak-out over a Congresswoman’s criticism of AIPAC provides a window into the true nature of the American empire.

Minnesota Congresswoman Ilhan Omar has published an apology for making self-evident observations about the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC). AIPAC spends enormous amounts of time and energy in seeking to influence US foreign policy in favor of Israel, and is one of the most influential lobbying groups in Washington.

It all started when GOP Leader Kevin McCarthy threatened punishment for @IlhanMN and @RashidaTlaib over their criticisms of Israel, and alt-jouralist Glenn Greenwald tweeted “It’s stunning how much time US political leaders spend defending a foreign nation even if it means attacking free speech rights of Americans.”

Things escalated quickly when representative Omar retweeted Greenwalds comments and added “It’s all about the Benjamins baby.”

And, that’s when the entire political and corporate media class lost their shit due to Omar’s equation of money and Jews, or something.

Batya Ungar-Sargon tweeted “Would love to know who @IlhanMN thinks is paying American politicians to be pro-Israel, though I think I can guess. Bad form, Congresswoman. That’s the second anti-Semitic trope you’ve tweeted.” Omar tweeted back “AIPAC!”, to which Ungar-Sarson responded, “Please learn how to talk about Jews in a non-anti-Semitic way. Sincerely, American Jews.”

Meanwhile, Democratic Party leaders condemned Omar in unison.

What this tweet storm demonstrates beyond the fact that Twitter is the equivalence of junior-high school, is that there are some things you can’t talk about. Indeed, an example has been made. Who among those in Congress or the media will criticize AIPAC now?

Going further, I believe that this whole affair illustrates an unstated truth about the modern American empire, and that’s why the attack against Omar was so savage.

Contrary to the myth of Israel as a plucky little democracy alone in a sea of hostile Arab powers, the Jewish state is an integral part of the transnational corporate empire nominally headed by the US. Israel is a western imperialist military operation that was created in the heart of the most strategically crucial location on earth in 1948. It should hardly be a surprise that there is a transnational political-media campaign to keep that operation going, especially as pertains to the US, the country that maintains the worlds reserve currency along with the most powerful military force in history. In reality our world is dominated not by sovereign nations and governments, but by a transnational alliance of influential plutocrats who have no loyalty but rather use governments as tools to advance their agendas.

During the Cold War many of the benefits of the American empire accrued to US workers, which was one of the key reasons the leading trade unions supported the multi-generational conflict against the USSR. However, like everything else in our neoliberal dystopia, the US empire has gone transnational. As a result, average Americans no longer receive the benefits from the American empire. I’ve come to believe that Trump was elected in part due to Americans desire to have their fathers empire back. But, for whatever reason, whether Russia-gate, or the intense media hostility, or that he always wanted to do these things and the rest was just bull-shit he said to get elected, it certainly appears that Trump has surrendered to the transnational power structure.

We can observe this in the way that the corporate media has responded to Trump’s aggression towards Venezuela. After spending the last couple years breathlessly painting Trump as a pawn of Putin, if not an actual Russia intelligence asset, the corporate media turned on a dime and started spewing out blatant propaganda supporting his effort to overthrow the elected government of Venezuela.

However, this behavior is not what Trump supporters wanted. Overthrowing the governments of sovereign countries, destroying their economies, stealing their oil, and otherwise bringing them into the fold of the global capitalist transnational cabal is not exactly what the Americans who voted for Trump meant by “Make America Great Again.”

Unfortunately, there is no more nationalist American empire. There is nothing to make great again. The American empire of MAGA is a fiction, a fantasy, a nostalgia that Donald Trump used to sell his presidency. What there is, in reality, instead of America, is a supranational global capitalist empire, a decentralized, interdependent network of global corporations, financial institutions, national governments, intelligence agencies, supranational governmental entities, military forces, media, and so on.

If all of this sounds far-fetched or conspiratorial, pay attention to what is going on in Venezuela.