It used to be generally frowned upon to openly call for military coups and US intervention in Latin America. Not anymore. At least not when it comes to Venezuela, a country where — according to the prevailing narrative — a brutal dictator is starving the population and quashing all opposition.

Last August, President Trump casually mentioned a “military option” for Venezuela from his golf course in New Jersey, provoking an uproar in Latin America but barely a peep in Washington. Similarly, Rex Tillerson, then-secretary of state, spoke favorably about a possible military ouster of Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro.

In recent months, opinion pieces suggesting that a coup or a foreign military intervention in Venezuela might be a good thing have dotted the US media landscape: from the Washington Post to Project Syndicate to the New York Times. Occasionally a pundit argues that a coup d’état could have undesirable consequences, for instance if a hypothetical coup regime should decide to deepen relations with Russia or China.