Compact Podcast – "Waltzing Away" (January 6, 2026)

Host: Matthew Schmitz
Guests: Geoff Shullenberger, Ashley Frawley

Episode Overview

This episode explores three main current events:

1. The extraction of Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro
2. The political downfall of Minnesota Governor Tim Walz
3. Geoff Shullenberger's Twitter run-in with President Nayib Bukele of El Salvador

The hosts analyze the geopolitical implications of Maduro’s removal, the persistence of regime structures in Venezuela, the true drivers of American involvement, the deeper roots of the Minnesota childcare scandal, and the personal and political meaning of having your work noticed—and refuted—by a head of state. Their discussion emphasizes continuity, pragmatism, and the often unseen dynamics shaping political outcomes.

1. Venezuela: The Removal of Maduro and American Foreign Policy

The Operation & Its Significance

• [01:55] Matthew Schmitz introduces the topic: The U.S.-backed removal of Nicolás Maduro from power in Venezuela, a supposed coup-lite that leaves much of the existing regime intact.
  • “We’re also told this isn’t a war because really it was just the removal of a single man.” – Matthew Schmitz

Is It Really Regime Change?

• [03:14] Geoff Shullenberger asserts:
  • “I would say no, it’s not regime change... operationally, it was highly successful... But… there’s a real danger in just destroying a military and governing apparatus.”
  • Comparisons: He draws parallels to the U.S. operations against Bin Laden and Gaddafi:
    • Bin Laden: an example of successful, coordinated "surgical" action (with alleged foreign intelligence collaboration)
    • Gaddafi: a cautionary tale of chaotic aftermath leading to failed statehood

Merits and Dangers

• Operational Success: The operation is seen as militarily clean and effective.
• Regime Continuity: Positive because mass destabilization was avoided, contrasting with the disastrous outcomes of Iraq and Libya.
• Critical Uncertainty: There’s no clear U.S. plan for the “day after.”
  • “At this point it's too soon to tell... a lot of contradictory messaging… the administration doesn’t really have a very clear plan of what things are going to look like going forward.” – Geoff Shullenberger [08:18]
• Compromise between Factions:
  • Some want regime overhaul (neocon vision).
  • Others (ex: Trump, Richard Grenell) prefer a transactional, pragmatic approach—“thuggish regimes that are happy to cut deals.”
• Fantasy of Simple Resource Extraction:
  • “The idea that you can just go in and bully people… and nakedly plunder them forever… is far more delusional than anything the neocons said.” – Geoff Shullenberger [13:28]
  • The belief that “just take the oil” is as much fantasy as democratization dreams in Iraq.

Philosophical & Moral Frame

• [14:42] Matthew Schmitz brings up St. Augustine's warning about the moral temptations and self-destruction of empires driven by libido dominandi (lust for domination).

2. Legitimacy, Capitalism, and the Veneer of Law

Framing the Extraction as Law Enforcement

• [15:31] Ashley Frawley points out:
  • U.S. frames the operation as "law enforcement" rather than invasion by classifying the state as "criminal"—so leaders are "extraditable" instead of sovereign.
• Old Imperial Practice, New Capitalist Logic:
  • “There's at least that kind of like attempt to put this sort of thin veneer of legitimacy over it.”
  • The logic is less about punishing socialism and more about failed capitalist integration:
    • “Capitalism can tolerate a certain amount of inefficiency. But if you’re sitting on all these resources and you’re not using them to accumulate... there will be an assertion of force and discipline.”

Capitalism Without Incorporation

• Abandonment Over Integration:
  • No plan for state rebuilding, no promise of development, and populations are treated as surplus—contrary to earlier imperialism, which promised administration and order.
  • “You can just go in and take out a leader and extract its resources, treat that population as surplus and move on. So we have capitalism without incorporation… the promise of past imperialism, the US doesn’t want to do that.”
• [21:31] Geoff Shullenberger adds:
  • Venezuela’s oil infrastructure is highly degraded.
  • U.S. oil companies were not necessarily pushing for the operation; many lobbied for lifting sanctions instead.
  • “Can you have extraction without social reproduction?... The model would be some sort of special economic zone dedicated to oil, where you just have mercenary forces guarding installations… circumvent politics altogether.”

Competing Logics: Capital vs. Geopolitics

• [26:38] Matthew Schmitz suggests that geostrategic interests (blocking China) may drive U.S. action more than pure profit motive.
  • “In terms of this logic of capitalism, it seems more like the logic of great power politics simply to secure Venezuela and its vast energy resources within the American orbit rather than the Chinese orbit.”

The Role of State Power

• [28:18] Ashley Frawley (on Trump):
  • “Trump is stepping in where capital won’t... What's the point of having this great power if we don't use it?”

3. Minnesota: Tim Walz’s Unexpected Political Downfall

The Scandal & Its Roots

• [29:00] Matthew Schmitz introduces the fall of Governor Tim Walz, tied to a large-scale fraud scandal in Somali-run daycare centers.
  • “It's a very Democratic state and evidently his party doesn't think he'll necessarily be able to win… can you give us an elegy for our fallen king, Tim Walz?”

From Populist Hope to Scandal

• [30:33] Geoff Shullenberger:
  • Walz was meant to bridge rural white voters and the Democratic Party with a “MAGA”-aesthetic populism—think camo hats and hunting imagery.
  • Ironically, he’s brought down by “classic sort of urban graft scandal... this sort of, you know, it feels almost like something you would have heard about in the old days of machine politics.”

Corruption in Social Services

• The problem is deeper than one man:
  • The corruption stems from the system’s reliance on intermediaries (NGOs, subcontractors) to deliver public services rather than restoring state capacity.
    • “A great deal of corruption that exists, I'd say particularly in, in blue states… has to do with this intermediation public services where you have these vast kind of blobs of NGOs and other sorts of… subtly public services.” – Geoff Shullenberger [34:37]
• Mexican Parallel: Herman Diaz del Castillo’s Compact piece on Mexico describes how cutting out intermediaries (paying childcare subsidies directly to families) reduces corruption without sacrificing progressive goals.

Administrative State vs. Real State Capacity

• [37:34] Ashley Frawley:
  • Outsourcing to NGOs allows the government to hide the hollowness of the “administrative state.”
    • “The state isn't… what you want a state to do. It becomes an administrative state… It offloads risk onto NGOs, but… still holds the burden of outcomes.”
  • The "shield of good intentions" protects NGOs—questioning their efficiency risks social censure.
• NGOs as Tools for Agenda Setting:
  • NGOs are used to bypass subsidiarity (local decision-making) and push national agendas (e.g., education/values campaigns) through backdoor channels.

The Lost Promise of Populism

• [43:00] Matthew Schmitz:
  • Walz’s downfall undermines the vision that he could revive a tradition of “functional… progressive economic vision” in the Midwest.
    • “It’s not state owned and operated provision of public goods… Instead, you have this kind of weird NGO system interacting in seemingly perverse ways with issues of immigration and diversity.”

4. A Twitter Run-In with Bukele: Narratives and Power in Social Media

The Story

• [47:10] Geoff Shullenberger recounts how he tweeted a chart showing that much of El Salvador’s crime reduction predated President Bukele.
  • “My crime was tweeting… a chart that showed… crime reduction… occurred before Nayib Bukele was president... I was critiquing the American right's superhero narrative about Bukele.”
• Bukele’s Response: President Bukele retweeted Shullenberger’s chart and called him an “armchair pundit.”
  • “It's a state of exception, so anything goes…” – Shullenberger [48:54]
• Reflections:
  • It’s a “reminder you can actually get the attention of a leader of a sovereign nation.”
  • Shullenberger’s original intent was nuance, not denunciation—Bukele is a “very skilled PR man,” so prefers the superhero narrative.

The Value of Complicated, Nuanced Reporting

• [50:46] Matthew Schmitz:
  • “It’s great because it complicates the narrative… Something they really don’t get elsewhere… subtle, sophisticated, but willing to draw surprising conclusions.”

Notable Quotes & Key Moments

• Operational success vs. regime change ([03:14] Shullenberger):
  “It can be compared to the killing of bin Laden in terms of just sheer operational cleanness and success… I think it should be contrasted to the completely disastrous operation against Gaddafi…”
• Fantasy of resource extraction ([13:28] Shullenberger):
  “The world is going to be our slaves. I mean, this is far more delusional than anything the neocons said. It’s just completely fantastical and nonsensical.”
• Capitalism without incorporation ([17:49] Frawley):
  “You can just go in and like take out a leader and extract its resources, treat that population as surplus and move on. We have capitalism without incorporation…”
• Administrative state and corruption ([37:34] Frawley):
  “The failure of the regulatory state, the failure of the administrative state, which... simply provides these checklists that NGOs fill out and say, yes, I've done a wonderful job, thank you for the money. And so the state winds up holding all the risk, actually.”
• Old hopes for progressive populism ([43:00] Schmitz):
  “Walz was supposed to bring a little prairie populism, sewer socialism into the coalition. That never happened.”
• Social media and power ([47:10] Shullenberger):
  “It was an interesting reminder of... when people were first using Twitter... you can like tweet at some celebrity or politician, and they'll actually reply to you… I can actually get the attention of a leader of a sovereign nation.”

Timestamps for Key Segments

• [01:55] – Introduction to the episode's topics (Venezuela, Minnesota, El Salvador)
• [03:14] – Discussion of operational success/vs regime change in Venezuela
• [14:42] – Augustine, empire, and the libido dominandi
• [15:31] – The “law enforcement” frame and capitalism’s new face (Frawley)
• [21:31] – Oil infrastructure and industry motivations (Shullenberger)
• [26:38] – Great power vs. capitalist logic (Schmitz)
• [29:00] – Tim Walz’s political fall in Minnesota
• [30:33] – Corruption in social service delivery, restated (Shullenberger)
• [37:34] – The role and problems of NGOs (Frawley)
• [43:00] – Lost hopes for prairie progressivism (Schmitz)
• [47:10] – Shullenberger’s Twitter run-in with Bukele
• [50:42] – The value of nuanced journalism (Schmitz, Shullenberger)

Summary

"Waltzing Away" offers a nuanced take on the shifting logic of American power: pragmatic, transactional, not truly committed to democratic transformation, and often seeking quick victories or media wins more than lasting change. From Venezuela to Minnesota and El Salvador, themes of regime durability, administrative hollowing out, the limits of extractive logics (both oil and political legitimacy), and the unexpected twists in how power gets challenged and re-affirmed—from coups to tweets—dominate the conversation.

The episode deconstructs simplistic narratives, calling out both the left’s and right’s fantasies about how the world works, and instead foregrounds the messier, contingent, and often unresolved realities beneath the headlines.