Gee, I Wonder Why Venezuela Is Authoritarian!

When faced with extinction, societies close ranks. Left-wing governments are no different.

On a spring day in 1954, the people of Guatemala awoke to a surprise: they were at war. Armed rebels had crossed the border from neighboring El Salvador and Honduras, blowing up bridges and firing on Guatemalan soldiers. Overhead, P-47 planes roared low, dropping bombs on undefended civilians across the country. Within two weeks, the democratically elected president, Jacobo Arbenz, was forced into exile. The officer who had led the rebellion, Carlos Castillo Armas, sat in the presidential office. Under Armas’ government, unions were suppressed, prisoners were executed, and civil liberties were squashed. After Armas was assassinated in 1957, Guatemala fell into a cycle of coups, revolutions, and military dictatorships lasting forty years. Over 200,000 people were killed or disappeared during the Guatemalan Civil War. Four out of five victims were indigenous Maya. The campaign against them is now considered a genocide.¹

Two architects bear responsibility for destabilizing the Central American nation. The first will be no surprise, the second, a bit of a shocker.

An indigenous woman marches with pictures of relatives killed during the U.S.-caused genocide.

Under the direction of President Truman and later Eisenhower, the Central Intelligence Agency orchestrated the coup, codename: Operation PBSuccess. Prior to the invasion, Agency radio stations propagandized Guatemalans with false stories of communist barbarity and Arbenz’s corruption in hopes they’d join the plot. Meanwhile, the five hundred rebels who ended Guatemalan democracy were trained and armed at CIA outposts and American military bases. Though Uncle Sam has never needed much pushing to coup a Latin American government, in this case, there was another motivating force: the United Fruit Company, now known as Dole. The UFC had valuable holdings in Guatemala, which were threatened by Jacobo Arbenz’s land reform program. No communist, Arbenz aimed to turn Guatemala into a modern capitalist nation. As that came at the expense of the UFC’s vast land holdings, the company successfully lobbied the administrations of both parties to intervene on its behalf and install a ruler who would return their “property.” Despite the hundreds killed during the Guatemalan Coup and the genocide that followed, from the CIA’s perspective, Operation PBSuccess lived up to its name. However, the Agency created a nemesis that would hinder American imperialism to this day.

Drawn to Arbenz’s project, Ernesto “Che” Guevara had travelled to Guatemala during his famous motorcycle trip across Latin America. On the morning of the attack, he tried to organize workers into civil defense groups, but it was too little too late. After the government fell, Che fled to Mexico City, where he met the brothers Castro. Having seen how far the Yankee government would go to stop a capitalist project that threatened American profits, he realized a socialist project would bring the full might of the American government down on it. If his next attempt at Latin American sovereignty were to have any chance of survival, it would have to protect itself from American influence, subversion, and invasion. After the Cuban Revolution succeeded, Fidel Castro tried to make friends with the United States. He toured the U.S. and laid a wreath at George Washington’s grave. But Eisenhower rejected him, and soon, as Che predicted, American-armed rebels were on the beach at the Bay of Pigs. Following the invasion, Cuba closed ranks and became more authoritarian. Fidel Castro pivoted heavily towards the U.S.S.R., adopting its Marxist-Leninist ideology. Domestic surveillance was increased, political dissent was repressed, and the country was heavily militarized. By 1965, the island was an explicitly one-party state, as it is today. Single-party control is often cited as the reason the United States embargoes Cuba and still calls for the overthrow of the government. But that misses the point that the authoritarian turn came after the United States tried to kill Cubans and turn their country into another Guatemala. From this perspective, honest critics and supporters of the contemporary Cuban socialist project can agree that, while the closed nature of their society isn’t ideal, it is rational. When the CIA is trying to propagandize a population to destabilize the nation and put it on track for genocide, repeat coups, and inter-generational violence, it’s difficult to argue that the Cuban government should lift restrictions and allow them to do it. No government, regardless of ideology, would permit a breach of sovereignty and allow its constituents to be colonized — left-wing government included.

A Maya woman kisses the remains of an unknown person found in an unmarked mass grave. Such murders were common in 20th-century Guatemala.

While Cuba’s situation is not a direct match, a similar dynamic explains the authoritarian strain in Venezuelan politics. Over the last six months, the second Trump administration has speed-ran the regime-change playbook in pursuit of Venezuela’s oil reserves, the largest in the world. Just like the Bush administration did before Iraq, Trump has uplifted an opposition leader, María Corina Machado, who has not attempted to hide her far-right politics. Machado spoke alongside Marine Le Pen at the fascist Patriots of Europe conference earlier this year, which called for a second “Reconquista” against Islam. She is also a staunch ally of the Israeli Likud Party, whose leader, Benjamin Netanyahu, is a fugitive in hiding from the International Criminal Court.² In 2002, Ahmed Chalabi helped convince the American public that Iraq was a threat to Americans, and the Iraqi people prayed for our soldiers to liberate them. Two decades later, the Nobel Peace Prize recipient (lol) is doing the same. Inciting Trump to invade her own country, Machado has pushed debunked claims that Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro is a drug trafficker, and that toppling him would be a walk in the park.³ She’s even gone as far as to say there’s “no doubt” the Venezuelan government stole the 2020 election for Joe Biden.

Like Iraq, the White House is promoting a nonsensical justification for the invasion. While Dick Cheney’s case that Saddam Hussein supported the 9/11 hijackers and was trying to do 9/11 Two was always bogus, it makes Trump’s claim that Maduro is sending fentanyl into the U.S. look like the evidence against Jeffrey Epstein. Labelling any and every boat near Venezuela as “narco-terrorists,” the administration has bombed over 21 ships, killing at least 83.⁴ (Video of one of the strikes is below.) Putting aside that this would be illegal and immoral, even if these boats were carrying drugs, the justification is nonsense. Most fentanyl imported to the United States comes from Mexico. Cocaine is Venezuela’s product of choice, and very little of it is sent to the United States, where it is exclusively consumed by Donald Trump Jr.’s left nostril.⁵ The Administration has charged Maduro’s government with drug smuggling through the Cartel de los Soles, a scary-sounding name for a non-existent organization.⁶ Cartel of the Suns was the name Venezuelan journalists used to describe corruption in the military, whose army uniforms display suns. The term dates to 1993, long before leftists were running Venezuela.⁷ The espoused purpose of stopping drug trafficking is even more ridiculous, given that Trump recently pardoned former Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernández, who is — sorry — was serving a 45-year prison sentence for trafficking cocaine through an actual drug cartel, the Sinaloa Cartel.⁸

Looking past the smokescreens, the motivation for America’s aggression towards the Caribbean nation is clear as day: oil. ExxonMobil dreams of accessing Venezuela’s oil reserves, but Trump has concerns beyond others’ profits. The majority of Venezuelan oil is currently sold to China, and Maduro also provides oil to Cuba in defiance of the American embargo. Eliminating the left-wing president would be a threefold victory for America’s imperialist government: it would enrich their business allies, restrict Chinese development, and further destabilize Cuba, which already struggles with rolling blackouts due to the embargo. This last point is the driving motivation for Marco Rubio, who has repeatedly been pushing for an invasion behind the scenes.⁹ Rubio, who has long hoped to invade Cuba, has never forgiven the Cuban communists for forcing his grandparents to immigrate to America (even though they left two years before Fidel Castro took power).¹⁰

American sanctions on Venezuelan oil keep exports low, forcing poverty on the Venezuelan people.

Rubio and Trump hoped to enact regime change by baiting Maduro into attacking the Navy vessels that are serially killing Venezuelan nationals. If Maduro struck back, it would give the President an excuse to invade, topple the leftist government, and install María Corina Machado. According to The New York Times, Maduro offered American businesses preferential access to Venezuela’s gold and oil in exchange for ceasing hostilities. Trump denied the offer, in part because Machado promised a higher return to American capitalists: $1.7 trillion in under 15 years.¹¹ (Both the U.S. and Venezuelan governments dispute this report.)

---

---

As Maduro has not taken the bait and tried to make peace with Washington, The White House has had to rely on media allies to sell the invasion to the American people, who want another foreign war as much as they want more inflation. Alongside the disproven claims of stopping drug trafficking, much of this media focus has criticized Nicolas Maduro’s government as authoritarian. While many of these critiques are valid, just like with Cuba, Americans misunderstand the order of events that created this authoritarianism.

In 2002, the Bush Administration supported a coup attempt against Hugo Chavez, the leftwing president who planned to nationalize the oil industry. Washington denied any involvement, but subsequent declassified documents show the administration had prior knowledge of the attempt and met with its leaders weeks before the attack.¹² Given that the same Administration committed the most nefarious regime change operation in modern history just a year later, the preponderance of evidence implies the United States has been trying to seize Venezuelan oil by force for over two decades. While Maduro’s most recent election is disputed by international observers, there’s no doubt Chavez was democratically-elected — and the Americans still tried to overthrow him.

Unclassified documents dated weeks before the 2002 Venezuelan coup attempt.

In the spring of 2020, there was another coup attempt led by a former Green Beret with loose ties to the U.S.-backed opposition of Juan Guaido. It failed hilariously, with the saboteurs immediately captured carrying their American passports.¹³ A few months after the operation, Connecticut Senator Chris Murphy posted a bizarre admission on Twitter/X that the U.S. tried to organize a coup a year earlier, in April of 2019. Details of that attempt remain unknown, but it’s not outlandish to think the 2020 attackers were carrying out the scuttled 2019 plan. At the very least, the Connecticut Senator admitted the first Trump Administration tried to overthrow the Venezuelan government, with Democrats being eager accomplices.

Chris Murphy admits to plotting a coup against Maduro.

Since returning to office, Trump has accelerated the acceleration towards war with Venezuela. Not long after Trump bragged about deploying the CIA to conduct covert operations (which makes them not covert), a single explosion triggered a fire at a Venezuelan oil refinery.¹⁴ Incidentally, I stumbled across this declassified 1948 CIA report on how to sabotage Venezuelan oil refineries.

Most vulnerable are the pumping stations, each of which could be destroyed by a single explosive charge and would then require about 18 months for replacement. — VULNERABILITY TO SABOTAGE OF PETROLEUM INSTALLATIONS IN VENEZUELA, ARUBA, AND CURACO (1948)

What a weird coincidence!

In preparation for American airstrikes, Trump recently announced that Venezuela’s airspace is closed. Whether this was Trump posting off the cuff or an official declaration of a U.S.-police no fly zone remains unclear. But to Venezuelans, that’s a distinction without a difference. From their perspective, the Americans are coming to kill them. And they’re not wrong.

American military build up around Venezuela.

The United States has a blood-soaked history in Latin America, of which the Guatemalan genocide is only the tip of the iceberg. During the Cold War, Operation Condor overthrew at least eight democracies and replaced them with vicious dictators. Hundreds of thousands were killed or disappeared, with up to millions imprisoned and tortured. Today, the Trump Administration is murdering Venezuelans with impunity, including ordering the illegal killing of shipwreck survivors.¹⁵ Even the liberal world has celebrated the hope of regime change. Michael McFaul, Obama’s ambassador to Russia, who has been outspoken in Russia’s violation of Ukrainian sovereignty, openly supports the coup. Like Trump, the former ambassador justifies this imperialist venture by pointing to the Venezuelan President, Nicolas Maduro. Maduro is a controversial figure on the left. The Communist Party of Venezuela (PCV) backed him in the 2018 elections but split over whether to support him in 2023. The supporters argue it’s more important to stand with the disputed Venezuelan president than side with American imperialism, while the dissenters argue he has overstepped with state power and has embraced neoliberalism. For all the U.S.’s condemnation of Maduro, they have been willing to work with him. After the Biden Administration turned to Venezuela for oil supply following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Maduro allowed Chevron to resume activities within Venezuela.¹⁶ The agreement also set up U.N.-managed social funds and established “special economic zones” that exempted companies from labor regulations, taxes, and other requirements, similar to China’s situation.¹⁷ Much like the 2003 discussions of the Iraq War were flattened to “Do you like Saddam Hussein?” I find the fixation on Maduro to be misplaced. I don’t believe you can attribute the authoritarianism of the Venezuelan government solely to Maduro. As American pressure rises, once fierce critics have joined forces with the government. Opposition leader Henrique Capriles accepted a seat in the Venezuelan Assembly and has resumed talks with the Maduro government in hopes of avoiding a U.S. invasion.¹⁸ Other opposition leaders, Stalin Gonzalez and Jose Brito, neither fans of Maduro, have gone further, labelling Trump’s charge of drug trafficking as “psycho terrorism.” Gonzalez argues against invasion, saying “Venezuelan sovereignty with democracy is the way forward,” while Brito called for national unity, saying “In the face of intervention, there are no political colors that divide us—Venezuela comes first.”¹⁹

Venezuelans train with the army as part of a militia. Grassroots civil defense groups have sprung up across Venezuela in face of the American threat.

For Americans, I see very little value in declaring whether Maduro is a Bad Guy Who Must Leave or a Good Guy Who Should Remain. I’m more interested on the question of how Venezuela came to be authoritarian. And to be clear, it is an authoritarian state. It’s illegal to criticize the government, media is approved by the executive, and surveillance is prevalent.²⁰²¹ As someone who wants to maximize democracy and promote civil liberties as much as possible, I despise these policies. However, I cannot pretend they only exist because Maduro is a villain. Without this censorship, Venezuela’s government would have been overthrown by the CIA long ago: either in 2002, or in 2019. While coup plotters always promise democracy and liberty for the populations they attack, South Americans know better than anyone that is not true. The legacy of American imperialism still looms over the continent. Mayans still dig endlessly in search of loved ones killed during the U.S.-caused genocide. Chileans are still haunted by the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet, who killed thousands after the CIA helped him coup the democratic socialist president, Salvador Allende. I find it difficult to sit in the comfort of the American Empire and chastise others for stopping my Empire from obliterating everyone they know. When attacking fishermen, Pete Hegseth ordered the U.S. Navy to “kill them all.” What orders do we think he’ll give to Marines occupying Caracas? Is it fair to say the Venezuelan government should lift restrictions on media and allow CIA outlets to spread propaganda that expands Hegseth’s killing spree a thousand times over? Maduro received much criticism for barring Maria Corina Machado from running in the 2024 election on grounds she supported American imperialism. Yet, just a year later, she’s working hand-in-glove with Trump and the CIA to invade Venezuela and turn its natural resources over to American capitalists. We can criticize Maduro’s decision on principle, but we must also grapple with the fact that she has proven Maduro correct.²² There are numerous opposition figures in Venezuelan politics. Only Machado is eagerly calling for the U.S. Navy to bomb her own people.

---

---

When discussing the tradeoff between liberty and security, authoritarianism and openness, it’s also important to remember that America and its allies make these decisions all the time. Since being invaded by Russia, Ukraine has been under martial law. President Zelensky has suspended elections and banned pro-Russian political parties, similar to Maduro’s ban of Machado.²³ Civil liberties are also restricted, with strikes, protests, and free speech banned. Many, including Donald Trump, have criticized these decisions as authoritarian and cast Zelensky as a dictator.²⁴ But what is the alternative? Try to mail ballots to every Ukrainian living in trenches and bunkers, and cross his fingers Putin won’t manipulate it to help the pro-Russia candidates win? That would be national suicide and irresponsible of any leader. And while the lack of due process in Venezuela makes my skin crawl, it would be hypocritical of me to criticize it given I believe Abraham Lincoln’s suspension of habeas corpus was necessary to win the Civil War. With riots slowing troop deployments, spies passing secrets to the Confederacy, and saboteurs occupying Union forts, the sacrifice of civil liberties was worth it to defeat the slavers and emancipate Black Americans. Given that the United States has been attacking Venezuela since 2002, is outright murdering civilians today, and is trying to turn the country into another Iraq, or Afghanistan, or Guatemala, or Chile, or Indonesia, or Palestine, or [insert any of the other nations the United States has terrorized in the name of “freedom”], I can understand why the Venezuelan government recognizes it’s situation for what it is — war — and responds accordingly.

It should be noted that Maduro’s government has been accused of crimes which can never be justified, namely torture and even killings by security forces. The most prominent reports on this matter come from Human Rights Watch, which is known for having a revolving door between its leadership and the U.S. government, so it’s fair to take these with a grain of salt.²⁵ Still, I don’t believe they can be dismissed outright. Given such inexcusable behavior is all too common in states with conflict and authoritarian control, I find this to be another reason why Americans should campaign, organize, and vote for anti-imperialist candidates and movements that remove the pressure that forces societies to turn inward and restrict its citizenry. Because, if Americans hate authoritarianism as much as they claim, that’s the conversation we need to have. Our government has killed. so. many. people. South America, Southeast Asia, Eastern Europe, Palestine. Genocide after genocide, coup after coup, death after death. When contemplating our critiques of a state such as Venezuela, we must recognize that we are the reason so many Latin Americans prefer a strict central government that can protect them to a decentralized one that cannot. It’s perfectly fine to criticize Nicolas Maduro, or any leader for that matter. And we shouldn’t shy away because they claim to be our political allies. There’s no shortage of things I would do differently if I were the president of Venezuela. But when contemplating these matters, we must remember the context that created these conditions, and that starts right here in the United States of America. When a figure like Maduro or Che Guevara says to their nations, “It’s either my way or death by America,” they’re not lying. That’s the problem we Americans need to solve. War with Venezuela won’t end authoritarianism — it will only make it necessary, more than Washington D.C. already has.

---

As you can tell, this was a difficult article for me to write. There are no good answers to the question, “What is the correct balance between liberty and security?” Many political philosophers and thinkers, more adept than I, have struggled with this issue. I don’t expect it to be solved today, but I do want us to consider it given the likelihood we are about to invade Venezuela. Hopefully, recognizing America’s driving role in this matter can help us build a freer, more democratic world.

Before you go, please click the ❤️ and subscribe to support my work. Conversations such as this are difficult and nuanced, and I’m proud that we’ve built a community that can discuss and debate serious topics respectfully. Supporting subscriptions are the backbone of this project. So if you can swing it, consider upgrading to a premium subscription to ensure I can keep creating thoughtful content that advances that political discourse. (Or, I can try to at least.) Thanks in advance.

In Solidarity — Joe

1. https://cja.org/where-we-work/guatemala/

2. https://www.aa.com.tr/en/opinion/opinion-why-the-nobel-committee-must-reconsider-its-award-to-maria-corina-machado/3718801

3. https://www.nytimes.com/2025/11/26/world/americas/maria-machado-maduro-venezuela.html

4. https://www.nytimes.com/2025/11/16/us/politics/strike-boat-pacific-caribbean.html

5. https://www.nytimes.com/2025/11/19/us/politics/trump-venezuela-fentanyl.html

6. https://www.state.gov/releases/office-of-the-spokesperson/2025/11/terrorist-designations-of-cartel-de-los-soles

7. https://insightcrime.org/venezuela-organized-crime-news/cartel-de-los-soles-profile/

8. https://www.cnn.com/2025/11/28/politics/trump-honduran-president-juan-orlando-hernandez-pardon

9. https://prospect.org/2025/12/01/marco-rubios-sales-pitch-war-in-venezuela/

10. https://www.jacksonville.com/story/news/2011/10/21/rubio-family-saga-apparently-not-dramatic-pitched/15886376007/

11. https://www.nytimes.com/2025/10/10/world/americas/maduro-venezuela-us-oil.html

12. https://www.archives.gov/files/declassification/iscap/pdf/2007-044-doc1.pdf

13. https://apnews.com/article/miami-us-news-ap-top-news-venezuela-south-america-79346b4e428676424c0e5669c80fc310

14. https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/fire-erupts-petrocedeno-crude-upgrader-venezuela-source-media-2025-11-19/

15. https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2025/11/28/hegseth-kill-them-all-survivors-boat-strike/

16. https://www.pbs.org/newshour/world/biden-eases-oil-sanctions-on-venezuela-as-opposition-talks-resume

17. https://investmentpolicy.unctad.org/investment-policy-monitor/measures/4002/venezuela-bolivarian-republic-of-enacts-new-legal-framework-and-new-investment-incentives-for-special-economic-zones

18. https://www.investing.com/news/world-news/venezuela-opposition-split-over-possible-us-action-4324814

19. https://www.telesurenglish.net/capriles-and-brito-reject-u-s-interference-in-venezuela-and-call-for-internal-peace/

20. https://democratic-erosion.org/2025/04/17/populism-and-authoritarianism-in-venezuela/

21. https://www.hrw.org/world-report/2020/country-chapters/venezuela

22. https://www.dw.com/en/venezuela-bars-opposition-leader-machado-from-public-office/a-66088550

23. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/mar/20/ukraine-suspends-11-political-parties-with-links-to-russia

24. https://www.foxnews.com/politics/trump-calls-ukraines-zelenskyy-dictator-without-elections-rift-widens

25. https://truthout.org/articles/nobel-peace-laureates-slam-human-rights-watchs-refusal-to-cut-ties-to-us-government-2/