Caracas Chronicles

How far down the rabbit hole is Venezuela? This far down the rabbit hole: the government-controlled Supreme Tribunal just ruled that everything the opposition-controlled National Assembly has done, does and will do was, is and will be unconstitutional…and the nation mostly yawned in return.

To somebody coming at it from the outside, it’s simply befuddling. This should be a major constitutional crisis: the will of the crushing majority of the electorate last December undone by a gaggle of partisan hacks. It looks like a Fujimori-style self coup, it ought to have shaken the nation to the core, right?

Each new lunatic rant the TSJ hands down as a sentence merely adds to the bulging indictment against it.

Except it didn’t. The Supreme Tribunal’s bizarre origin, unembarrassed partisanship and unfailing hackishness have destroyed its standing so completely, we just sort of roll our collective eyes at each new outrage. By now we’re well past the point of diminishing returns: each new lunatic rant the TSJ tries to pass off as a sentence merely adds to the bulging indictment against it.

At this point, the Tribunal barely qualifies as one; it doesn’t do any of the things that make a tribunal a tribunal. It doesn’t actually hold hearings, doesn’t make even a show of considering evidence, doesn’t so much as pretend to rule impartially. Still it huffed and it puffed, threatening constitutional, criminal, civil, administrative, disciplinary, ethical, political and social sanctions.

In the wake of September 1st and #VillaRosa, the juridical pataleta just looks desperate and weak: the Nth temper tantrum from people who know they’re on their way out.