Tin Can Economy | Apparently some definitions mean little
- Published: January 31, 2026
What does sovereignty mean in 2026?
Earlier this month, convicted felon, renowned sex pest and real estate huckster President Donald Trump gave us a pretty clear answer when he committed his latest act of war. Perhaps by press time, he’ll have committed another.
On Jan. 3, Trump ordered the U.S. military to invade Venezuela’s sovereign territory and bomb several buildings in downtown Caracas, killing at least 40 in the process. The operation du jour: Kidnap Venezuela’s constitutional President Nicolas Maduro and ship him to New York to subject him to a show trial on imaginary charges of narcoterrorism.
In a press conference after the attack, Trump stated that the U.S. government is now primed to “run the country” in Maduro’s stead, and said, “We’re in the oil business. We’re going to be taking a tremendous amount of wealth out of the ground.”
Same as it ever was, Trump proudly boasts.
By his own admission, Trump and his team of ghouls have been rummaging more fervently through the ol’ imperial handbag and have dusted off the Monroe Doctrine, a wieldy colonial tool that has allowed the U.S. to run wild in the so-called “backyard” of Central and South America for the last two centuries.
It’s the very doctrine that has justified heinous and blood-soaked operations to stymie the spread of red and pink tides in Latin America — with results varying from nuclear near misses to death squads to genocidal vassals. But who knows, maybe this regime change will wind up better than the last few dozen.
Though Trump has rebranded the nineteenth-century policy, dubbing his approach as the “Donroe Doctrine” — gag me forever with a rusty spoon — the playbook remains unchanged: Expand the sphere of influence before other hegemons (in this case China and Russia) do, and stamp out state-ownership of a resource that an American dollar can’t buy. Surely God didn’t intend for the world’s largest oil reserve to sit below the Communists!
So, in the eyes of Washington, sovereignty means nothing for Latin America. Got it.
What does sovereignty mean for Greenland?
Evidently, it’s something that can be whisked out from the 57,000 residents “the easy way” or “the hard way,” as Trump puts it. Self-determination means nothing for those Greenlanders when billionaire oligarchs like Jeff Bezos, Bill Gates, Michael Bloomberg and Sam Altman have investments in the semiautonomous country’s rare earth minerals.
The polls that indicate that 85% of Greenland’s citizens do not want to be a part of the U.S. empire can line birdcages for all Trump cares. After all, the island is “strategic,” Trump said, and perhaps increasingly so as the world warms, ice shelves melt and Arctic trade passages open up. Finally, climate change is good for business!
What does sovereignty mean for Minnesota?
Ostensibly, that answer is found in the 10th Amendment, which enshrines the principle that individual states hold inherent powers not given to the federal government — that self-governance and local laws can exist, provided they are subordinate to the Constitution.
But that’s a load of hooey for the federal agents indiscriminately killing people in the streets of Minneapolis, acting in blatant defiance to state and municipal law enforcement agencies, mayors and the governor, all of whom have uniformly said, “Get out and don’t come back.”
But they haven’t left. They’ve fanned out. This modern slave patrol is barging into homes, busting out windows, kidnapping workers from restaurants, barging into private spaces with all the violence they can muster, with bad tempers and prejudices holstered in their belts.
What does sovereignty mean for Yellow Springs?
In 2024, the Bureau of Criminal Investigations brought its so-called “marijuana eradication initiative” to the village by way of a Butler County helicopter and nearly two dozen armed agents to conduct a bogus raid on a Wright Street home. After a reportedly traumatizing standoff, everyone flew home empty handed. Not only was this drug bust itself a bust, but Yellow Springs Police were left in the dark — after the event, Chief Burge told the News that the raid occurred without her knowing!
Or how about the various occasions Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose has gone out of the way to put the kibosh on our local rule — to enact stricter regulations on Airbnbs, to amend the charter to grant noncitizens the right to vote on local matters.
How astounding it is that these very legislators and lawmakers who worship at the altar of Small Government™ are the first in line to cross every physical and political line to impede any effort that undermines their profit motives or doesn’t square with their perverse cosmology.
So, what does sovereignty mean in 2026?
I hope we can soon agree upon some pro-social definition before the waves of fascism and nihilism erode all memory of democratic, self-determined governance — here in the village, Venezuela and beyond.
*Tin Can Economy is an occasional column that reflects on object, form and scale. It considers the places and spaces we inhabit, their constituent materials and our relationship to it all. Its author, Reilly Dixon, works in production and as a reporter for the News.
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