With a Gun Pointed at her Head, What are Delcy Rodríguez’s Options, If Any?

Donald Trump’s success in wresting concessions from Venezuela’s interim President Delcy Rodríguez is a clear demonstration of what can be achieved through the barrel of a gun. Just hours after the military incursion that resulted in the kidnaping of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and First Lady Cilia Flores on January 3, Trump boasted “we’re going to run the country” and shortly thereafter called himself Venezuela’s “acting president.” He has also heaped praise on Rodríguez for serving both U.S. and Venezuelan interests, explaining "She's doing a great job because she's working with us.”

It’s not hard to understand why Rodríguez – whose father was a revolutionary martyr – has been so compliant. On January 3, just hours after the kidnapping of Maduro and Flores, Trump publicly threatened then vice-president Rodríguez and other Chavista leaders with what amounted to decapitation, along with a far larger military assault. According to Rodríguez, Rubio by phone gave her and the second-in-command Diosdado Cabello 15 minutes to acquiesce to Washington’s new terms or face death. As she put it, “the threats and the blackmail are constant.”

Some critics of the leftist government question the credibility of Rodríguez’s claim. Her version, however, makes perfect sense. Trump himself repeatedly made similar threats in public, though couched in more oblique language. And decapitation is exactly what Washington subsequently did to much of Iran’s leadership.

Washington’s toolkit of coercive measures against Rodríguez includes the use of blackmail. Reuters reported in March that federal prosecutors “put together possible corruption and money laundering charges, and have communicated to Rodríguez that she is at risk of prosecution unless she continues to comply with Trump’s demands.” The prosecutors’ money-laundering allegation in the Venezuelan oil industry is a code word for circumventing U.S.-imposed sanctions.

Trump touts the benefits the United States derives from the neocolonial relationship he has established with Venezuela. On August 28, he announced the reaching of “the biggest oil deal in world history” which gives the U.S. priority treatment for the sale of 65 billion barrels of proven reserves in their entirety, greater than those in the U.S. Other generous aspects of the deal include 20 percent of the oil production to be purchased at cost by the State Department and the Pentagon’s 35 percent ownership of the operating company.

The threat of military force is only part of the explanation for Rodríguez’s willingness to accept the deal. The devastating toll that a decade of severe U.S.-imposed sanctions has taken on Venezuela’s state-run basic industries such as oil, gas, electricity, and telecommunications has to be brought into the picture. The sanctions impaired the ability of the state oil company PDVSA to maintain, repair, replace and operate equipment, as has been recognized by the U.S. congress’ Congressional Research Service and nonpartisan research organizations.

In the latter years of his rule, Maduro acknowledged the deterioration and turned increasingly to private capital. Among those who benefited was Alejandro Betancourt who, unlike Venezuela’s traditional bourgeoisie, had developed close ties with the Chavista government. The new 65-billion-barrel deal under Rodríguez designates Betancourt as the key operator and in doing so recognizes that he is better positioned to attract vast sums of foreign capital than a highly deteriorated PDVSA. The system of sanctions intimidated everyone involved in Venezuela’s oil industry, forcing operations into secrecy and creating fertile ground for corruption. Betancourt himself was accused of illicit dealings. Despite these charges, Chavista leaders prefer dealing with businesspeople like Betancourt, rather than the traditional elite that spearheaded several attempts to topple Chávez. Most of the blame for the corruption rests with Washington.

For all Trump’s warm words about Rodríguez, the sanctions that have inflicted such damage on the Venezuelan economy remain in place. Trump has only selectively loosened them by issuing individual “licenses” in order to favor U.S. capital.

Navigating or Selling Out?

On several occasions, pressure and threats from Washington forced Rodríguez to swallow her nationalistic pride as a longtime leftist. One was Venezuela’s cooperation with the U.S. Southern Command in carrying out the air strike in June that killed Niño Guerrero, the top leader of the notorious gang Tren de Aragua. Compare that with Mexican president Claudia Sheinbaum’s repeated refusal to accept joint military operations on Mexican territory against drug cartels.

In addition, following Venezuela’s highly destructive dual earthquakes on June 24, Rodríguez met with an Israeli delegation that included military officers at the presidential palace and praised Israel’s role in the relief efforts. Chavista demonstrators protested the U.S. and Israeli military presence following the earthquake with the slogan “This Isn’t Aid, It’s Occupation.” President Chávez had broken relations with Israel in 2009.

The problem, of course, isn’t just foreign policy. The Rodríguez government has reformed Chávez’s flagship legislation the Organic Hydrocarbon Law (LOH), which had set off the abortive coup against him in April 2002. Rodríguez’s reform, which modified the LOH in fundamental ways, set the stage for Trump’s “biggest oil deal in history.”

In the early months of Rodríguez’s presidency, some on the left credited her ability to navigate such a precarious situation. Former Italian Red Brigades militant Geraldina Colotti called it “an act of political maturity in a context of unprecedented blackmail.” Now, however, her deference to Washington has divided the U.S. left, as it has in Venezuela.

Those who support the Rodríguez government run the risk of ultimately being viewed as lending support for an imperial project. Defending Trump’s “biggest oil deal in history” is particularly uncomfortable because leaders on the other side of the political spectrum are denouncing its lack of transparency. Amazingly, economist Ricardo Hausmann, one of the main architects of Venezuela’s neoliberal project of the 1990s, calls the deal “the most imperialistic thing the U.S. has ever done in its history.” 

Particularly worrisome is the prospect that the Trump administration abruptly changes course and opts for regime change, before Rodríguez’s strategy for economic recovery gets off the ground. Such a shift from transactional pragmatism – it’s all about the oil – to rabid anti-communism is in line with the position championed by Marco Rubio and other right-wing hawks. The break with Rodríguez is predictable, though not the timing. 

Thinking Strategically

Progressive activists have to place Trump’s imposition of the notorious Monroe Doctrine – now the Donroe Doctrine – at the forefront of all solidarity work. The pro-Venezuela and pro-Cuba solidarity movements have shown that the most committed activists are those who to varying degrees sympathize with those governments not the ones who demonize them.

It’s easy to say that Rodríguez, her brother Jorge, Cabello and the other top Chavista leaders should simply say no to Trump and walk away rather than negotiate in such an unequal relationship. That’s what some on the left advocate. But is abandoning power or inviting military retaliation at this moment an option?

Juan Carlos Monedero, a former leader of Spain’s Podemos party and advisor to Chávez, told me: “The Chavista leadership under Delcy should consider abandoning power since the relationship with Washington is just too asymmetrical. The Sandinistas did that in 1990 and then returned.”

Relinquishing power, however, would mean turning it over to the extreme right led by María Corina Machado, who has many powerful supporters in Washington. If you go back to the 48 hours during the 2002 coup when the right-wing opposition unleashed repression against the Chavistas – with dozens killed – or if you examine Machado’s vindictive rhetoric over the years you will know what is in store for the Chavistas and the social movements if she reaches power: repression Pinochet style. In addition, her slogan “popular capitalism” – which she borrowed from Margaret Thatcher and Pinochet – underscores the extreme neoliberal policies that she embraces. The burden is on those on the left who demonize Rodríguez to explain what realistic strategy they advocate.

Moreover, a Machado government would add to the growing number of far-right, pro-Trump governments belonging to the “Shield of the Americas,” an alliance committed to militarization under the banner of combating drugs, but with the real aim of driving China from the region. At the founding summit of the Shield in Doral, Florida in March, Trump reportedly phoned Machado, put the call on speaker, and told her “Everybody loves you here.” 

Chávez, Maduro and Rodríguez have drawn inspiration from the example of China. During one of her many official visits to China in 2025, Vice-President Rodríguez praised the Chinese economic model as “an example of dignity, resilience and economic growth.” A guiding principle of China’s foreign policy, dating from Mao’s death in 1976, was Deng Xiaoping’s dictum “hide your strength, bide your time.” The phrase basically means that when the correlation of forces is unfavorable, don’t antagonize or alarm your enemy. This is precisely what Rodríguez is doing. Objective conditions in Venezuela – the result of a veritable war waged from Washington – and subjective conditions – the resultant erosion of enthusiasm even among the Chavistas – are highly unfavorable. The strategy may invite criticism given the obvious differences between Communist China and capitalist Venezuela, but it is hardly far-fetched – and even less so counterrevolutionary.

Rodríguez’s pragmatic strategy is in line with the general mood of the country – cutting across the political spectrum. Venezuelans as a whole are exhausted from the devastating effects of Washington’s war on Venezuela which played a central role in driving the average workers’ income down by roughly 80 percent since the mid-2010s. The call by Machado’s followers grouped in the Vente Venezuela party for mass protests against Rodríguez has not materialized.

Agree to Disagree

One searches history in vain for a close parallel to what is unfolding in Venezuela. Consider: an imperial power kidnaps a country’s president, then reaches agreements and establishes friendly relations with his vice-president who remains committed to the ideals of the movement they both represent. For Rodríguez, the uniqueness presents a formidable challenge.

The Left must also recognize that, more than is usually the case, crucial pieces of the puzzle remain unclear. Most important, nothing is known about the negotiations between the Rodríguez government and the Trump administration. Time reports that “Rubio and Rodríguez are in nearly daily contact through phone calls and WhatsApp messages,” but without revealing the details. The key question is just how far Rodríguez can go in defending Venezuelan interests without triggering a turnaround on the part of the all-too-erratic Trump. At what point will Trump go from his transactional, pragmatic mode to his anti-Communist mode and promote regime change in Venezuela?

Critics of the Rodríguez government are right to warn that alliances with sectors of the bourgeoisie, as represented by Alejandro Betancourt, could open a Pandora’s box which ends up corrupting the broader project of change. But drawing clear lines between friends and foes from within may have to wait for better times, when real options are on the table.

Meanwhile, the solidarity movement needs to remain united, even with diametrically opposed viewpoints on the Rodríguez government. The starting point has to be an acknowledgment of the uniqueness of the moment and of how much remains unknown. Most important, the movement needs to stay focused on combating the atrocities committed by Washington: the liberation of Maduro and Flores, the lifting of all sanctions and the return of billions of dollars of Venezuelan assets seized abroad at the behest of Washington. There should be no doubt that the blame for Venezuela’s dire situation both before and after January 3 lies squarely with Washington. 

CounterPunch https://www.counterpunch.org/2026/09/11/delcy-rodriguez-has-a-gun-pointed-at-her-head-does-she-have-options/
 

Iran has Renounced any Intention of Developing Nuclear Weapons: You'd Never Know it from the Mainstream Media

 

Why doesn’t the corporate media clearly inform the public that Iran has renounced any intention of developing nuclear weapons? Whenever the New York Times, and its ilk, makes reference to Trump’s lies about electoral fraud in 2020, they clearly refer to it as a false statement. But not so when they refer to Trump’s repeated statement that Washington’s principal goal in attacking Iran is to assure that Iran doesn’t develop nuclear weapons. The issue of nuclear weapons and atomic energy gets conflated, undoubtedly intentionally so.

With War on Iran, Venezuela and Cuba, U.S. Imperialism Enters a New Stage

Donald Trump’s rhetoric and actions against Iran, Venezuela and Cuba over the last year have few parallels in modern history. They have to be seen as marking a new stage. As such they call for a reevaluation of analysis and strategy on the part of the Left. 

Trump’s repeated threat to bomb Iran “back to the Stone Ages where they belong” is unmatched by the rhetoric of even the most notorious and brutal heads of state over the recent past. Decapitating the entire leadership of a country to compel total submission, as Washington and Tel Aviv have done in Iran, is also a novelty in war strategy. The kidnapping of Venezuela’s president and First Lady as a first step in attempting to establish a colonial relationship by taking complete control of the country’s principal source of revenue, namely petroleum, represents a throwback to practices associated with centuries-old imperial rule

These are examples of “hyper-imperialism,” a concept theorized by Samir Amin to describe the United States “as the sole capitalist superpower.” More recently, the Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research has observed that U.S. hyper-imperialism persists despite a marked erosion of its economic and, though to a lesser extent, financial power. Its military supremacy is not only unrivaled, but is complemented by hybrid warfare, most notably “hyper-sanctions” and the use of lawfare.

What needs to be added to the concept of hyper-imperialism, particularly Trump’s version of it, is its sui generis nature. To find a parallel for the kind of hegemony the United States now exercises – highlighted by the continuous indiscriminate use of force and the threat of it – one would have to look back to the Roman empire or even earlier. One of Trump’s innovations is his deployment of the military to reinforce the system of economic sanctions, examples being the interdiction of oil tankers, the quarantine of Cuban oil, and full-scale war against Iran.

Trump II’s foreign policy hardly represents a complete break from the past. The groundwork was laid by past Democratic and Republican administrations. However, his actions force the Left not only to reformulate strategies, but to reconsider past evaluations and analyses of nations of the Global South subjected to extreme forms of imperialist aggression. The resistance to U.S. aggression must be given greater weight when evaluating governments. In addition, the popular desperation and exhaustion that erode revolutionary fervor and distance people from those same governments should be understood in light of the daily trauma people endure as a direct result of imperialist actions.

What Trump’s hyper-imperialism tells us

The starting point is to recognize that since Trump’s return to the White House, Iran, Venezuela and Cuba have been in a de facto state of war, which is an escalation of the multiple forms of hostility and aggression of past years. This is key to how all three nations should be judged. While the Left’s commitment to democracy needs to remain unquestionable and unwavering, in these cases primary responsibility for democracy’s somewhat uncertain prospects lies with the siege imposed by imperialist powers. No one other than James Madison said “Of all the enemies to public liberty, war is perhaps the most to be dreaded.”

The encirclement imposed by hyper-imperialism on Iran, Cuba, and Venezuela illuminates salient features of imperialism going back in time: first, Washington has honed the sanctions regime into a powerful tool, sometimes inflicting damage comparable to armed intervention; second, imperialism is the principal driver of the pressing economic problems facing the three nations; third, the justification for the actions taken against the three nations does not hold up under scrutiny; and fourth the brutality of the sanctions system underscores the need for its complete elimination. The discussion below looks at these points. 

Tehran’s response to Operation Epic Fury underscores the crushing impact of sanctions. The nation’s leaders have made clear that the lifting of sanctions – as well as “international guarantees of U.S. non-interference” in the nation’s internal affairs – is a non-negotiable condition for ending the current conflict. That is to say, the Iranian leaders place the destruction caused by the sanctions on a similar footing as the bombs.

In the case of Venezuela, the events leading up to the abduction of Nicolás Maduro and Cilia Flores on January 3, 2026 reveal the far-reaching and highly coordinated machinery underpinning the sanctions regime. The second Trump administration’s tracking of the “ghost fleet” carrying Venezuela’s sanctioned oil—and its interdiction of several of those vessels— underscores how far Washington has gone in perfecting sanctions enforcement since the early years of the Cuban Revolution.

The first Trump administration pioneered in promoting “overcompliance" in which Washington’s well-publicized monitoring was designed to assure that companies and financial institutions world-wide would shun all transactions with Venezuela, even ones not specifically targeted by the sanctions. The aim was to impose a veritable blockade. Mike Pompeyo and Elliot Abrams spearheaded a campaign – drawing on the FBI, the Treasury, U.S. embassies, and the intelligence community – to scrutinize the dealings of companies worldwide with Venezuela, in what amounted to a warning shot to companies throughout the world. Even firms that engaged in oil-for-food swaps, which were not proscribed by the sanction regime, were warned that they ran risks. Companies under investigation were likewise told that penalties could be suspended if they halted all dealings with Venezuela.

A retrospective look at the first Trump administration’s sweeping enforcement measures and their devastating impact reinforces the argument that the sanctions have been so harmful that they need to be dismantled unconditionally and entirely. This position contrasts with that of liberals such as the Washington Office on Latin America (WOLA), which criticized the sanctions against Venezuela yet called for using “negotiations to flexibilize financial and oil sanctions” as leverage to secure concessions. Indeed, power brokers in Washington also favored sanctions relief as a bargaining tool to push the Maduro government to enact market-oriented reforms to the benefit of U.S. capital.

A full grasp of the scale and severity of Washington’s “war” on Venezuela undercuts the notion upheld by some on the left who argue that the sanctions were no more to blame for the nation’s pressing problems than government mismanagement. An even harsher position on the left affirms that the sanctions “do not explain the root causes of the societal collapse we have lived through.” 

Likewise, the forcible removal of Maduro and Flores demonstrates that Washington was intent on dismantling a government whose example and policies ran counter to U.S. interests. Prior to the January 3 kidnapping, some on the left in Venezuela and elsewhere denied that Washington sought to remove Maduro from power because they were convinced that he had effectively sold out. But they were wrong insofar as Washington clearly wanted Maduro out. Pedro Eusse, a leading member of the Communist Party of Venezuela (PCV), which broke with the Maduro government in 2020, wrote in July 2025, “Everything indicates that the true intention of the US and its allies’ policy of aggression toward the Venezuelan government has not been its overthrow, but its subordination.”

In the case of Cuba, the extreme measures of the Trump II administration against the nation also shine light on the cruelty and effectiveness of the system of sanctions per se. Trump’s navy-enforced quarantine on oil shipments is a first for the nation since the October 1962 missile crisis. The result has been recurring 16-hour blackouts that have disrupted water delivery, hospital operations, food production, and garbage collection.

The quarantine spotlights Cuba’s near total dependence on oil, in contrast to nearby Jamaica and the Dominican Republic, which generate a significant share of their electricity from coal and natural gas. The dependence stems precisely from the sanctions, which impeded imports and pushed Cuba into relying almost entirely on Venezuelan oil—only for Trump to cut off that supply too.

Indeed, the quarantine underscores Cuba’s reliance on Venezuelan oil and the reciprocal solidarity that saw fuel exchanged for Cuban medical personnel. That’s a plus for Maduro. The program undercuts the claim of some on the left that Maduro’s foreign policy, in the words of the PCV, never moved beyond an “anti-imperialist rhetoric” without substance.

The Washington-crafted narrative on Cuba and the reaction to it by the mainstream media and the Left are curious. In contrast to the demonization directed at Venezuela and Iran, Washington’s condemnation of Cuba has been relatively hollow and has gained little traction in mainstream outlets or left-leaning circles. The anti-Cuba vilification—driven by hardline anti-Communism—remains largely confined to the far right, epicentered in Miami. The official rhetoric is a departure from the wording in 1982 when the State Department designated Cuba as a State Sponsor of Terrorism due to “its long history of providing advice, safe haven, communications, training, and financial support to guerrilla groups and individual terrorists.” Now the Trump administration’s justification for the same designation is that the Cuban government grants “safe harbor to terrorists” and refuses to extradite them.

As false as the narco-terrorism case against Maduro is, it nonetheless offered a rationale that undoubtedly resonated with at least a slice of public opinion. Compare that to Marco Rubio’s line on Cuba which flatly denies the catastrophic effects of the oil quarantine. Rubio claims “we’ve done nothing punitive against the Cuban regime” and adds, the blackouts “have nothing to do with us.” Instead Rubio faults the Cuban leadership on grounds that “they want to control everything.” A classic case of victim-blaming, but with few buying into it. A YouGov survey in March found that only 28 percent of U.S. adults support the U.S.’s blocking of oil shipments to Cuba, as opposed to 46 percent opposed.

In addition, Rubio’s assertion that the only novelty is that Cuba is “not getting free Venezuelan oil anymore” is blatantly fallacious. Rubio is well aware of Venezuela’s swap with Cuba involving the latter’s International Medical Brigades, which maintain a sizeable presence in Venezuela and elsewhere. This is precisely why Rubio has vigorously attempted to sabotage the program throughout the region, unfortunately with a degree of success.

If the oil quarantine demonstrates anything it’s that the hardships facing the Cuban people are rooted in Washington’s war on Cuba, now going on 65 years. Criticism of Cuban government policies, or of socialism itself, comes in a distant second place.

 

The Trump II disaster should be an eye opener

Trump’s bullying offensive abroad has fueled mounting opposition to interventionism and has even fostered anti-imperialist sentiment in the United States. Just one week into the 2026 Iranian bombings, 53 percent of the U.S. population opposed the strikes, in sharp contrast to U.S. military involvement in Vietnam, the Gulf War, Afghanistan, and Iraq, which enjoyed large majority support at the outset. That the former editor of The New Republic called the U.S. war on Iran imperialistic is telling. In a New York Times op-ed, Peter Beinart wrote “Donald Trump’s foreign policy vision is imperialism.”

One lesson of recent events is particularly relevant for the Left: the demonization of heads of state is a sine qua non for military intervention. In the case of Iran and Venezuela, the discrediting combines some fact with a large dosage of fake news. In the case of Maduro, the demonization which dates back to shortly after he assumed office in 2013, was taken to higher levels as a result of the controversial presidential election of July 28, 2024, which the opposition claimed was fraudulent. Subsequently the corporate media consistently tagged the word “autocrat” and “dictator” onto Maduro’s name. Six months later, Trump was in office and the vilification escalated to a new pitch. Indeed, the branding of Maduro as a narco-terrorist was an indispensable prelude to the bombing of boats in the Caribbean and the subsequent kidnappings – notwithstanding the doubts raised by some media outlets regarding the veracity of the claim.

The takeaway is that the Left needs to distinguish between criticism and demonization and take cognizance of the possible dire consequences of the latter.

The demonization of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and his inner circle also set the stage for imperialist actions, but, of course, his government could not be placed in the same category as those of Cuba and Venezuela. The Iranian government is theocratic, not leftist, and it actively defends patriarchal values. Furthermore, the level of lethal repression unleashed during the Woman, Life, Freedom protests in 2022—and in the demonstrations that erupted beginning late last year—has no parallel in Venezuela or Cuba.

Nevertheless, the U.S.-imposed stranglehold on Iran makes a peaceful path to democratization highly unlikely. Furthermore, as in Venezuela and Cuba, harsh sanctions have been conducive to shadow economies, clientelistic networks, and fraudulent dealings, patterns well documented in numerous studies on sanctions throughout the world.  

Eskandar Sadeghi-Boroujerdi, a prolific scholar on Iran who is highly critical of the government, told Jacobin “While the Islamic Republic is paranoid, it is also very much under siege from all sides.” He also notes the intrinsic relationship between the sanctions and the nation’s pressing problems: “Sanctions and structural weaknesses of the Iranian economy feed off one another — there’s a symbiotic relationship between them.”

In short, any serious reading of Iran must foreground the role of sanctions—an approach that inevitably tempers the tendency to cast its leadership in purely demonizing terms.

The lessons of July 28, 2024

The issue of the accurateness of the July 28, 2024 election tallies in Venezuela needs to be reframed. Those elections could not have been democratic, regardless of the announced results, because Venezuelan voters had a gun pointed at their heads: reelect Maduro and the sanctions continue; elect an opposition candidate and the sanctions will be lifted.

The overwhelming majority of Venezuelans knew full well what was at stake. Luis Vicente León – the nation’s leading pollster, himself a member of the opposition – reported that 92 percent of the population believed that the sanctions negatively impacted the economy, and most characterized the effect as “very negative.” (The poll puts the lie to the State Department’s repeated claim that the sanctions only harm government officials.)

A similar scenario played out in the Nicaraguan presidential elections of 1990 when opposition candidate Violeta Chamorro upset the Sandinistas in the midst of a devastating, U.S.-promoted civil war. But there was a fundamental difference. Far from demonizing the Sandinistas, Chamorro accepted a power-sharing transition agreement with them. In contrast, for over a decade prior to the July 28 elections the opposition’s main leader, María Corina Machado, had ruled out negotiations with those who had allegedly violated human rights. She never tired of voicing the slogans “no immunity,” ”no to amnesty,” “no agreements with criminals,” often with specific reference to the Chavistas and to Maduro himself. Maduro and his followers had every reason to fear the type of repression that the opposition initiated during the two-day abortive coup it staged in April 2002 against the Chavista government. Even opposition pollster León admitted that the fear was well-founded.     

Marta Harnecker, the renowned leftist theoretician, wrote that the Sandinistas erred in holding the 1990 elections amid U.S. promoted violence and sabotage. Harnecker labeled the decision to organize elections “on terrain shaped by the counterrevolution” a “strategic error.” 

A reevaluation and reinterpretation of the July 28 elections is instructive. The hard-core Chavistas accept the official results which showed Maduro winning with nearly 52 percent of the vote. The opposition refutes that claim. A third position is defended by supporters of Maduro who nevertheless express skepticism and point out that because of a massive hacking attack from outside the country, it may be impossible to ever know the true count.

The debate about the accuracy of the official results of July 28 sidesteps the overriding issue of whether the elections should have been held in the first place. Indeed, the idea of conditioning elections on the lifting of sanctions was not far-fetched. A year before the elections, Maduro, in a reference to the United States, declared: “If they want free elections, we want elections free of sanctions.” Subsequently, Elvis Amoroso, the Chavista head of the nation’s electoral council, tied the participation of European Union electoral observers to its lifting of sanctions. At the same time, the Biden administration indicated its willingness to bargain with the Venezuelan government along those lines.

Carlos Ron, a former vice-minister and currently an analyst for Tricontinental, told me that the Chavista leadership ruled out delaying the elections in order to demonstrate its democratic credentials in the face of the international smear campaign. Ron said “At that moment, greater importance was placed on the need to defend the democratic character of the Bolivarian political process and its continuity, and abide by the Constitution, in the face of imperialist pressures.”

Maduro’s intentions may have been commendable. But the decision overlooked one compelling reason to suspend the electoral process. Tying the holding of elections to the removal of the sanctions would have placed the entire blame for setbacks to democracy where it belonged: U.S. intervention in Venezuela’s internal affairs.

In defense of democracy

As a rule, the Left has always championed the defense of democracy. In this sense, the Left’s vision compares favorably with U.S.-style “liberal democracy,” shaped by the influence of big money and other inherently undemocratic practices such as gerrymandering, the Electoral College and voter suppression.

Historically, however, the Left has faced formidable obstacles on this front. For instance, it has come to power in countries like Russia, China and Cuba that were lacking in democratic tradition. That, however, was the least of the problem. Its main problem has been, and continues to be, imperialist hostility which limits options.

Precisely for that reason, the Left needs to tread cautiously in the way it frames the issue of democracy in nations that are in the crosshairs of imperialism. In the three countries discussed in this article, the Left can’t deny that democracy has been infringed upon. The Maduro government, for instance, stripped the PCV – the country’s oldest political party, forged in a history of militant struggle including two periods of clandestine resistance armed struggle in the 1950s and 1960s – of its legal status, transferring recognition to a marginal breakaway faction that appropriated its name and symbols.

Nor can it deny that discontent is currently widespread in the three nations, which became most evident in the Iranian “Woman, Life, Freedom” protests and those of the first days of this year. In Cuba and Venezuela, protests reflect widespread disillusionment, even while the mobilizations have been manipulated and financed from abroad.

One troubling sign in Venezuela is that the disturbances have spread out from upper-middle class neighborhoods where they were confined during the 4-month protests (the “guarimba”) of 2014 and, albeit less so, during those of 2017.  The two days following the July 28, 2024 elections, for instance, protests were registered in Caracas barrios such as Petare, the city’s largest. Reflecting on the protests, long-standing Caracas resident and international commentator Phil Gunson reported “Petare is a traditionally Chavista zone, but ever since a few years ago, people have been distancing themselves from the government.”

The Left can’t turn its back on this reality. But nor can it join mainstream voices that channel dissatisfaction into blanket vilification of governments under imperial siege. Rather its line has to be basically: “What do you expect!” In the face of hyper-imperialist aggression these countries are at war, figuratively and in some cases literally speaking. Criticism needs to be framed within this context.

Lenin’s concept of democratic centralism – the principle designed to guide the internal workings of his political party – is instructive. In his writing throughout his political career, party democracy remained a constant, but the degree of centralism depended on the political climate in the nation. Along similar lines, the Left’s adherence to democracy can never be minimized. However, valid criticism of undemocratic practices in countries like Venezuela and Cuba in which the Left is in power needs to be viewed as overreactions to imperialist aggression.

In this era of intensified hyper-imperialism, the Left is compelled to stand behind nations like Cuba and Venezuela, and recognize that the real blame for backsliding including violation of democratic norms lies with imperialism. The barbaric actions of Trump II are making this imperative clearer than ever.

 

 This article was originally posted in CounterPunch. https://www.counterpunch.org/author/steve-ellner/

 

 

 

 

 

The Racism and Class Prejudice of Maria Corina Machado’s Followers Fully Exposed

Actor and Singer Carlos Baute calls Venezuelan president Delcy Rodríguez a “Monkey.” It was at a rally in favor of María Corina Machado in Madrid. He later apologized, undoubtedly because campaign experts on the right confronted him with the fact that this was going to hurt Machado’s erroneous claim of representing a majority of Venezuelans. But the way he screamed out “Monkey” shows Baute’s true colors.

And not only Baute. Machado’s follows screamed out the words “MONEY GET OUT” in unison. This is Déjà vu. The Venezuelan opposition to Chávez used the same language and even worse in the first years of Chávez, clearly demonstrating their class and racial origins. Then U.S. publicity advisors told them to knock it off, knowing full well that they couldn’t use that kind of language and expect to win elections at the same time. History repeats itself. And it never hides the truth.

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/2be5FUmCVjY

Lady Liberty detained at the Los Angeles No Kings protest: A symbol of what is happening in USA

 

What ever happened to the "Cancel Culture" touted by MAGA right-wingers? The same thing that happened to the prudish Republicans who were horrified by the Monica Lewinsky scandal, and the QAnon people who warned about the Washington-based child sex ring, and now support the pedophile running the government. And the same thing as the far-right people who hated the federal government to the extent that they refused to investigate the blowing of the Federal Building in downtown Oklahoma City in 1995 (Yes, I’m talking about you Newt) and now support the centralization of power in the hands of the Executive. And how about the Republicans who in the name of fiscal conservativism supported the strategy of “starve the beast” in order to reduce government spending and now support a President who boosts the federal debt and boasts of a trillion-dollar military budget. The bottom line here is do and say anything to make the rich richer.

Third No Kings Protest in Washington DC, March 28 2026

 

Some media commentators state that Trump will not pay any attention to these protests because as a sitting duck president he has nothing to lose. This line of thinking is misleading. And we’ve seen this before. I remember the 1969 anti-Vietnam War March on Washington past the White House on Pennsylvania Avenue when President Nixon told the press that he wasn’t aware of it because he was watching a football game, which after all, was more important. Watergate demonstrated just how obsessed he was with the protests (the obsession is also depicted in Oliver Stone’s movie “Nixon”). The main danger now is that the protest movement gets absorbed into the campaigning for Democratic Party candidates in the midterms. Something similar happened with the Black Lives Matter protests leading into the Biden presidential campaign in 2020. The protest movement needs to be independent of, and on occasions critical of, the Democratic Party, if for no other reason because the Democratic Party establishment approximates the pro-war positions of the Republicans.  

Does the Trump Administration Really Believe People are so Brainless?

In the face of Trump’s steady decline in approval ratings, White House spokesman Davis Ingle claimed: “The ultimate poll was November 5th 2024 when nearly 80 million Americans overwhelmingly elected President Trump to deliver on his popular and commonsense agenda.” OVERWHELMINGLY? Trump received under 50% of the popular vote and only 1.5% more than Kamala Harris. Does that make his triumph “overwhelming?” Of course not, but that doesn’t deter Trump and his allies from constantly conflating the popular vote and the electoral college vote in order to claim that 2024 was a landslide victory.