The U.S. mission to seize Venezuela's President Nicolás Maduro has pushed the concept of regime change back into everyday conversation. "Regime Change in America's Back Yard," declared The New Yorker in a piece that typified the response to the Jan. 3 operation that saw Maduro exchange a compound in Caracas for a jail in Brooklyn. Commentators and politicians have been using the term as shorthand for removing Maduro and ending Venezuela's crisis, as if the two were essentially the same thing.
Geopolitics are being reduced to videos lasting just a few minutes. Social media has surpassed traditional media, not only in the speed with which it is created and shared, but also in its ability to frame our reality. People have the illusion of knowing what is happening and why within just a few hours-or less-of major world events. But reality is more complicated.