If you look what happened since 2013 when he took over. He is a dictator though. Trump is actually following his playbook, but in a lighter since. Some examples…
Electoral Fraud and Illegitimate Power
Maduro’s grip on power relies fundamentally on electoral manipulation. In the July 28, 2024 presidential election, Venezuela’s National Electoral Council (CNE)—controlled by Maduro loyalists—declared he won with 51.2% of the vote despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary. The opposition collected 83.5% of voting tally sheets showing their candidate, Edmundo González Urrutia, actually won with approximately 67% of votes compared to Maduro’s 30%. The CNE refused to release disaggregated results or conduct post-election audits, and its website remains inactive. International observers, including the Carter Center and Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, documented widespread fraud throughout the electoral process. The government disqualified opposition candidate María Corina Machado, obstructed voter registration for millions, imposed restrictions on opposition poll watchers, and used state resources during campaigns. The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights concluded it cannot recognize Maduro’s re-election as democratically legitimate due to the “severe disruption to Venezuela’s constitutional order”.
Following the contested 2024 election, Maduro launched “Operation Tun Tun” (Operación Tun Tun), a brutal crackdown described by experts as “state terrorism”. Authorities conducted door-to-door raids to detain anyone with suspected opposition ties, creating what human rights groups call a “climate of terror” intended to terrify Venezuelans into submission.According to official figures, over 2,000 people were arrested in the first month after the election, including at least 129 children. As of July 2025, 853 political prisoners remain behind bars. These detentions are characterized by systematic torture, enforced disappearances, and arbitrary detention without warrants. Victims reported beatings, electric shocks, suffocation, and confinement in dark, overcrowded cells. Amnesty International documented that at least 198 children have been subjected to unfair detention, torture, and abuse, with four months passing before many saw their families.A 2024 UN fact-finding mission report concluded there are “reasonable grounds to believe that the crime of persecution on political grounds has been committed”. Between 2015 and 2017 alone, Venezuelan security forces carried out 8,292 extrajudicial executions, with 22% of all homicides in one year committed by state forces. The UN mission has documented that Venezuela’s intelligence agencies have used sexual and gender-based violence to torture detainees since at least 2014.
Maduro is a popularly supported leftist president that was elected democratically. Machado is a fascist that directly asked the US Empire to invade, she’s supported by the wealthy compradors in Venezuela while Maduro is supported by the working classes. The odds appear to be pretty damn high that Machado would have lost against Maduro, because in general she’s a deeply unpopular fascist.
It’s interesting that I agree with you, here. A major difference I see between Venezuela and the USSR is that the USSR generally tried to assimilate, arrest or murder the resistant capitalist classes (ie dekulakization), while Venezuela seems to be generally exiling or marginalizing them.
It’s my understanding that Venezuela has kept its political assassinations and imprisonments low and targeted, which was not the case in the USSR.
Venezuela is legitimately closer to what reformist socialists want than any other nation in the world, and the self-described demsocs still hate them for it. Venezuela carries on the legacy of the Bolivar revolution, but in general has been far more reformist in practice, and this is proving to be an angle the US Empire is taking advantage of to destabilize Venezuela. Venezuela’s destiny should be decided by Venezuelans, not the US Empire. The lesson here is that westerners typically do not care how procedural your approach to establishing socialism is, the US Empire will kill you regardless.
It should be obvious to far more people that this country should get to decide it’s own destiny. We have no idea what a Chavismo…or even Castro Cuba would have looked like unmolested. It should also be obvious that what’s feared most in the west is the success of those systems.
The thing that absolutely floors me is that Trump had a Bay of Pigs…and nobody (in the mainstream) talks about it.
They’re valid sources and work well. Your sources are overwhelmingly from the US Empire and NGOs they set up or otherwise have strong connections to, like Directorio Legislativo:
Geographical area in which it works: DL has offices in Buenos Aires, Argentina and in
Washington DC, USA. We are a regional organization with projects both in Argentina and
other Latin American countries. We capture and share regulatory news and information from
the governments and legislatures 19 countries (Argentina, Belize, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile,
Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, Mexico,
Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Dominican Republic, Uruguay and Venezuela)
Popular polling does support Maduro. I wouldn’t trust those that claimed the US 2020 election was fraudulent, yet these same people are also saying Maduro was fraudulent.
Netanyahu congratulated Machado on her Nobel win and commended her efforts to promote democracy and peace.
Machado has previously pledged to move Venezuela’s embassy in Israel to Jerusalem if her movement comes to power, aligning her with other Latin American leaders who have taken pro-Israel stances, including Argentina’s President Javier Milei and former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro.
Geographical area in which it works: DL has offices in Buenos Aires, Argentina and in
Washington DC, USA. We are a regional organization with projects both in Argentina and
other Latin American countries. We capture and share regulatory news and information from
the governments and legislatures 19 countries (Argentina, Belize, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile,
Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, Mexico,
Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Dominican Republic, Uruguay and Venezuela)
Dude the source is fine. It has one arm in the United States. Runs as a non-profit and only takes 30% of funding from any one source. Are you saying anything that touches the US isn’t legitimate?
In 1991, one of the founders of NED, Allen Weinstein, stated that much of NED’s work involves doing what the CIA used to do. Some, in fact, refer to NED as the “second CIA.”
Just have to scratch the surface a little bit to see the imperialist connection here. I’d implore you to not just take the surface-level info from NGOs without understanding the interests they serve.
I’m saying that the US Empire has a long history of trying to manufacture consent to overturn governments in Latin America by funding NGOs and setting them up, training them, etc. It doesn’t matter if they only take 30% funding from any one source, that has no bearing on their purpose as an org, which is to “ensure democracy” by concocting a narrative that fits alongside the US Empire “bringing democracy” to any country that dares to nationalize its resources or otherwise go against US Imperialism.
Check the sources in this thread. It’s not. Listen, I dont want Trump and his bullshit in that country. But just looking at the facts here, dude is a dictator. The country has suffered for it. It won’t improve with a Trump puppet regime, that’s for sure.
The problem is thinking you can have fair elections under extreme duress from sanctions. The whole purpose of those sanctions is to destroy as much as possible the democratic aspect, as the US itself admits.
The majority of Cubans support Castro (the lowest estimate I have seen is 50 percent). […]
Communist influence is pervading the Government and the body politic at an amazingly fast rate.
Militant opposition to Castro from without Cuba would only serve his and the communist cause.
The only foreseeable means of alienating internal support is through disenchantment and disaffection based on economic dissatisfaction and hardship.
If the above are accepted or cannot be successfully countered, it follows that every possible means should be undertaken promptly to weaken the economic life of Cuba. If such a policy is adopted, it should be the result of a positive decision which would call forth a line of action which, while as adroit and inconspicuous as possible, makes the greatest inroads in denying money and supplies to Cuba, to decrease monetary and real wages, to bring about hunger, desperation and overthrow of government.
The entire point of the blockade in Cuba, and by extension Venezuela, is that the people DO support their government, and the ONLY way to make them waver in their support is to make them literally starve.
These agree with you? Funny because they came from my OG post. Are you saying you agree Maduro is a dictator now? Lol. Regardless, you can have a position against Trump going into the country ( I do) but still realize that the dude is dogshit for the country.
Maduro’s grip on power relies fundamentally on electoral manipulation.
All the “Maduro cheated to win the election” stuff comes from the same people insisting Biden cheated to win in 2020 and Obama cheated in 2008.
Following the contested 2024 election, Maduro launched “Operation Tun Tun” (Operación Tun Tun), a brutal crackdown described by experts as “state terrorism”.
Yeah obviously the elections were not fair, that is not what I disagree upon, just that the main US backed opposition candidate Machado will sell off Venezuela to the US empire and be quite a lot worse than Maduro.
Calling Maduro a dictator that needs to be overthrown directly benefits the US in the current tense climate, something needs to be done but Machado is certainly not the way out, just even deeper into the ground.
I feel like a lot of people are missing the obvious conclusion that everyone involved here is awful.
Maduro? Brutal dictator.
His domestic opposition? Violent fascists.
His international opposition? Absolute war criminals.
It’s really sad. My primary opinion is that the US needs to leave Venezuela the fuck alone. If you want democracy in Venezuela, you can’t get it through sanctioning the population into starvation if they don’t vote the way Chevron tells them to. Did Maduro steal an election? Yes! But his opposition at home and abroad isn’t mad that it wasn’t fair: they’re mad because they think it’s bullshit for him to steal it after they stole it first!
Get the fuck out and let them actually decide what they want. The US is the clearly the greatest villain in a story with no obvious good guys.
The problem is that all of the “evidence” for Maduro cheating comes from the same people that said the US 2020 election was rigged, and are using it as ammo for regime change. Machado and the like are fascists that are trying to topple a democratically elected socialist, just like Pinochet with Allende.
Maduro cheating comes from the same people that said the US 2020 election was rigged
Do you have a source for that? Because from what I can tell, the exact opposite is true, and the sources for these two claims are generally opposed to each other.
Trump’s entire imperialist cabinet roughly orbit around the idea of the election being stolen, and are the biggest pushers of claims of fraud. The reasoning for the former was to try to overturn turn the US election, the reasoning is the same for the Venezuelan election, they would rather have the fascist opposition win. It’s another Allende situation.
All sources are biased, but leftist sources portray a working class perspective and this are more to be trusted on the enemies of Empire than the Empire itself.
That about sums up the extent of your ability to counter what I said. Complain about leftist sources supporting leftist presidents, then you just jump to mockery.
Liberal ideology is very good at coming up with thought-terminating epithets that allow the user to avoid thinking about what other people have to say. After all, a religious devotion to avoiding non-sanctioned narratives is the only way it can protect itself. It sure as hell can’t compete in the “marketplace of ideas”.
You’re citing biased imperial sources. An unbiased source is a myth, because everyone has some kind of agenda. Show me someone who needs to eat food to survive and I’ll show you someone with a bias. What matters is understanding the biases and motives of each player to put together a full picture, like a detective cross-referencing statements. Of course I’m going to believe sources that have been truthful in service of a humanitarian agenda over sources that have been Iying nonstop in service of rich pedophiles for as long as I’ve been alive.
Edit: Lmao, you made a post on the cryptofash circlejerk about this, calling it “open fascism” to support a socialist leader against imperialist aggression. Do your buddies know that you defend slur usage, or is that something they agree with?
If you look what happened since 2013 when he took over. He is a dictator though. Trump is actually following his playbook, but in a lighter since. Some examples…
Electoral Fraud and Illegitimate Power
Maduro’s grip on power relies fundamentally on electoral manipulation. In the July 28, 2024 presidential election, Venezuela’s National Electoral Council (CNE)—controlled by Maduro loyalists—declared he won with 51.2% of the vote despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary. The opposition collected 83.5% of voting tally sheets showing their candidate, Edmundo González Urrutia, actually won with approximately 67% of votes compared to Maduro’s 30%. The CNE refused to release disaggregated results or conduct post-election audits, and its website remains inactive. International observers, including the Carter Center and Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, documented widespread fraud throughout the electoral process. The government disqualified opposition candidate María Corina Machado, obstructed voter registration for millions, imposed restrictions on opposition poll watchers, and used state resources during campaigns. The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights concluded it cannot recognize Maduro’s re-election as democratically legitimate due to the “severe disruption to Venezuela’s constitutional order”.
Following the contested 2024 election, Maduro launched “Operation Tun Tun” (Operación Tun Tun), a brutal crackdown described by experts as “state terrorism”. Authorities conducted door-to-door raids to detain anyone with suspected opposition ties, creating what human rights groups call a “climate of terror” intended to terrify Venezuelans into submission.According to official figures, over 2,000 people were arrested in the first month after the election, including at least 129 children. As of July 2025, 853 political prisoners remain behind bars. These detentions are characterized by systematic torture, enforced disappearances, and arbitrary detention without warrants. Victims reported beatings, electric shocks, suffocation, and confinement in dark, overcrowded cells. Amnesty International documented that at least 198 children have been subjected to unfair detention, torture, and abuse, with four months passing before many saw their families.A 2024 UN fact-finding mission report concluded there are “reasonable grounds to believe that the crime of persecution on political grounds has been committed”. Between 2015 and 2017 alone, Venezuelan security forces carried out 8,292 extrajudicial executions, with 22% of all homicides in one year committed by state forces. The UN mission has documented that Venezuela’s intelligence agencies have used sexual and gender-based violence to torture detainees since at least 2014.
“Experts” from the imperial core.
Imperial core human rights groups. “Always the same map” human rights groups. Citations Needed podcast: The Human Rights Concern Troll Industrial Complex
Which Venezuelans? The poor or the wealthy? The working class or the capitalist class?
Maduro is a popularly supported leftist president that was elected democratically. Machado is a fascist that directly asked the US Empire to invade, she’s supported by the wealthy compradors in Venezuela while Maduro is supported by the working classes. The odds appear to be pretty damn high that Machado would have lost against Maduro, because in general she’s a deeply unpopular fascist.
Under Maduro, Venezuelan communes and participatory democracy is flourishing. In addition, massive social programs have been implemented, focusing on housing, food security, and poverty eradication. I’m not sure on what basis you distrust him so much, Venezuela is building socialism under Maduro from the bottom-up, and Maduro is doing his part from the top.
It’s incredibly unsurprising that the US Empire is manufacturing consent to invade Venezuela, and overturn their anti-imperialist president. Outside election monitors back up the results, and indicate that the Venezuelan electoral system is far more advanced than the US. I’d trust evidence more if it came from Cuba or Nicaragua than the heart of the empire. This is on top of your vague claims of Maduro being a “monstrous dictator.”
Edit: Lmao the cryptofash on MeanwhileOnGrad got upset at this
It’s interesting that I agree with you, here. A major difference I see between Venezuela and the USSR is that the USSR generally tried to assimilate, arrest or murder the resistant capitalist classes (ie dekulakization), while Venezuela seems to be generally exiling or marginalizing them.
It’s my understanding that Venezuela has kept its political assassinations and imprisonments low and targeted, which was not the case in the USSR.
Venezuela is legitimately closer to what reformist socialists want than any other nation in the world, and the self-described demsocs still hate them for it. Venezuela carries on the legacy of the Bolivar revolution, but in general has been far more reformist in practice, and this is proving to be an angle the US Empire is taking advantage of to destabilize Venezuela. Venezuela’s destiny should be decided by Venezuelans, not the US Empire. The lesson here is that westerners typically do not care how procedural your approach to establishing socialism is, the US Empire will kill you regardless.
Agree wholeheartedly.
It should be obvious to far more people that this country should get to decide it’s own destiny. We have no idea what a Chavismo…or even Castro Cuba would have looked like unmolested. It should also be obvious that what’s feared most in the west is the success of those systems.
The thing that absolutely floors me is that Trump had a Bay of Pigs…and nobody (in the mainstream) talks about it.
Bay of Piglets, more like, haha. No one talks about it because it’s unsavory for the imperialist saber rattling going on right now.
Bay of Piss lmao (because that one guy pissed himself)
One of your sources work for Maduro and the last one is an opinion piece by one man lol.
They’re valid sources and work well. Your sources are overwhelmingly from the US Empire and NGOs they set up or otherwise have strong connections to, like Directorio Legislativo:
Popular polling does support Maduro. I wouldn’t trust those that claimed the US 2020 election was fraudulent, yet these same people are also saying Maduro was fraudulent.
https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/israel-says-venezuelas-machado-voices-support-call-netanyahu-2025-10-17/
Source: The CIA
https://directoriolegislativo.org/en/maduro-began-his-third-term-amid-fraud-allegations/
https://www.oas.org/en/IACHR/jsForm/?File=%2Fen%2Fiachr%2Fmedia_center%2FPReleases%2F2025%2F007.asp
https://www.humanrightsresearch.org/post/venezuela-s-2024-election-crisis-unveiling-electoral-fraud-repression-and-the-erosion-of-civil-li
https://latinoamerica21.com/en/venezuela-from-fraudulent-elections-to-clandestine-elections/
https://www.wlrn.org/americas/2025-07-28/human-rights-watch-venezuelas-maduro-regime-employs-systematic-repression-against-critics
https://www.amnesty.org/en/location/americas/south-america/venezuela/report-venezuela/
https://democratic-erosion.org/2025/04/17/populism-and-authoritarianism-in-venezuela/
You’re proving OP correct by responding with orgs like Directorio Legislativo:
Dude the source is fine. It has one arm in the United States. Runs as a non-profit and only takes 30% of funding from any one source. Are you saying anything that touches the US isn’t legitimate?
https://directoriolegislativo.org/en/who-we-are/
https://www.ned.org/fellowships/reagan-fascell-democracy-fellows-program/
https://countercurrents.org/2022/05/the-national-endowment-for-democracy-a-second-cia/
Just have to scratch the surface a little bit to see the imperialist connection here. I’d implore you to not just take the surface-level info from NGOs without understanding the interests they serve.
I’m saying that the US Empire has a long history of trying to manufacture consent to overturn governments in Latin America by funding NGOs and setting them up, training them, etc. It doesn’t matter if they only take 30% funding from any one source, that has no bearing on their purpose as an org, which is to “ensure democracy” by concocting a narrative that fits alongside the US Empire “bringing democracy” to any country that dares to nationalize its resources or otherwise go against US Imperialism.
Yeah so American Imperial fronts like OAS and Directorio Legislativo and US Imperial non profits, got it
https://files.libcom.org/files/incite-the-revolution-will-not-be-funded-beyond-the-nonprofit-industrial-complex-2.pdf
Cool story, too bad it’s bullshit
Check the sources in this thread. It’s not. Listen, I dont want Trump and his bullshit in that country. But just looking at the facts here, dude is a dictator. The country has suffered for it. It won’t improve with a Trump puppet regime, that’s for sure.
The problem is thinking you can have fair elections under extreme duress from sanctions. The whole purpose of those sanctions is to destroy as much as possible the democratic aspect, as the US itself admits.
From the official Office of the Historian US Gvt website, a key document regarding the logic behind the embargo in Cuba:
The entire point of the blockade in Cuba, and by extension Venezuela, is that the people DO support their government, and the ONLY way to make them waver in their support is to make them literally starve.
I checked, the sources on this post all either agree with me or are dogshit
These agree with you? Funny because they came from my OG post. Are you saying you agree Maduro is a dictator now? Lol. Regardless, you can have a position against Trump going into the country ( I do) but still realize that the dude is dogshit for the country.
https://directoriolegislativo.org/en/maduro-began-his-third-term-amid-fraud-allegations/
https://www.oas.org/en/IACHR/jsForm/?File=%2Fen%2Fiachr%2Fmedia_center%2FPReleases%2F2025%2F007.asp
https://www.humanrightsresearch.org/post/venezuela-s-2024-election-crisis-unveiling-electoral-fraud-repression-and-the-erosion-of-civil-li
https://latinoamerica21.com/en/venezuela-from-fraudulent-elections-to-clandestine-elections/
https://www.wlrn.org/americas/2025-07-28/human-rights-watch-venezuelas-maduro-regime-employs-systematic-repression-against-critics
https://www.amnesty.org/en/location/americas/south-america/venezuela/report-venezuela/
https://democratic-erosion.org/2025/04/17/populism-and-authoritarianism-in-venezuela/
All the “Maduro cheated to win the election” stuff comes from the same people insisting Biden cheated to win in 2020 and Obama cheated in 2008.
Were these experts affiliated with Elliot Abrams?
Yeah obviously the elections were not fair, that is not what I disagree upon, just that the main US backed opposition candidate Machado will sell off Venezuela to the US empire and be quite a lot worse than Maduro.
Calling Maduro a dictator that needs to be overthrown directly benefits the US in the current tense climate, something needs to be done but Machado is certainly not the way out, just even deeper into the ground.
I feel like a lot of people are missing the obvious conclusion that everyone involved here is awful.
Maduro? Brutal dictator. His domestic opposition? Violent fascists. His international opposition? Absolute war criminals.
It’s really sad. My primary opinion is that the US needs to leave Venezuela the fuck alone. If you want democracy in Venezuela, you can’t get it through sanctioning the population into starvation if they don’t vote the way Chevron tells them to. Did Maduro steal an election? Yes! But his opposition at home and abroad isn’t mad that it wasn’t fair: they’re mad because they think it’s bullshit for him to steal it after they stole it first!
Get the fuck out and let them actually decide what they want. The US is the clearly the greatest villain in a story with no obvious good guys.
The problem is that all of the “evidence” for Maduro cheating comes from the same people that said the US 2020 election was rigged, and are using it as ammo for regime change. Machado and the like are fascists that are trying to topple a democratically elected socialist, just like Pinochet with Allende.
Under Maduro, Venezuelan communes and participatory democracy is flourishing. In addition, massive social programs have been implemented, focusing on housing, food security, and poverty eradication. I’m not sure on what basis you distrust him so much, Venezuela is building socialism under Maduro from the bottom-up, and Maduro is doing his part from the top.
Maduro is no dictator just like Allende wasn’t.
Do you have a source for that? Because from what I can tell, the exact opposite is true, and the sources for these two claims are generally opposed to each other.
Trump’s entire imperialist cabinet roughly orbit around the idea of the election being stolen, and are the biggest pushers of claims of fraud. The reasoning for the former was to try to overturn turn the US election, the reasoning is the same for the Venezuelan election, they would rather have the fascist opposition win. It’s another Allende situation.
Cites biased leftist sources for info:
All sources are biased, but leftist sources portray a working class perspective and this are more to be trusted on the enemies of Empire than the Empire itself.
Removed by mod
That about sums up the extent of your ability to counter what I said. Complain about leftist sources supporting leftist presidents, then you just jump to mockery.
I don’t feed trolls
I’m not a troll, though, and you know that. You’re just lazily dismissing me as such because you’ve been caught out.
Troll, bot, russian, terrorist
Liberal ideology is very good at coming up with thought-terminating epithets that allow the user to avoid thinking about what other people have to say. After all, a religious devotion to avoiding non-sanctioned narratives is the only way it can protect itself. It sure as hell can’t compete in the “marketplace of ideas”.
You’re citing biased imperial sources. An unbiased source is a myth, because everyone has some kind of agenda. Show me someone who needs to eat food to survive and I’ll show you someone with a bias. What matters is understanding the biases and motives of each player to put together a full picture, like a detective cross-referencing statements. Of course I’m going to believe sources that have been truthful in service of a humanitarian agenda over sources that have been Iying nonstop in service of rich pedophiles for as long as I’ve been alive.
Ahh yes, the famous humanitarian Nicolas Maduro
Yes. Under Maduro, Venezuelan communes and participatory democracy is flourishing. In addition, massive social programs have been implemented, focusing on housing, food security, and poverty eradication. I’m not sure on what basis you distrust him so much, Venezuela is building socialism under Maduro from the bottom-up, and Maduro is doing his part from the top.
Edit: Lmao, you made a post on the cryptofash circlejerk about this, calling it “open fascism” to support a socialist leader against imperialist aggression. Do your buddies know that you defend slur usage, or is that something they agree with?
Correct