Dear Democratic Friends, Please Listen to Venezuelans

You Can Oppose Trump and Still Support Venezuela’s Liberation

Dear Democratic friends,

I am a registered Democrat. I vote Democrat. I donate Democrat. I supported Clinton, Biden, Harris. And yes, I oppose the current Trump administration. I think Trump has authoritarian instincts. I think he enriches his friends. I think he treats democracy like a prop, not a principle.

Now, to my point.

Over the last few days I have watched many of you protest the U.S. military action that led to Nicolás Maduro being captured. I have seen the slogans, “Hands off Venezuela,” “Stop the kidnapping”.

And I want to say this slowly, lovingly, and as clearly as I can, from one Democrat to another, and from one Venezuelan to anyone who cares about human beings.

There is not a single Venezuelan I know, not one, who was not overjoyed when Maduro was taken out of power and apprehended.

Not one.

Maduro is not some misunderstood anti imperialist icon. He is the head of a brutal dictatorship that has destroyed a nation. A dictatorship that has shut down television stations, jailed people for their opinions, tortured people, killed people, and crushed peaceful protest with extraordinary repression.

If you are Venezuelan, you do not need statistics. You have names. You have faces. You have that one friend who disappeared. That cousin who ended up in a prison. That neighbor who got beaten for carrying a flag. Every Venezuelan family has at least one story like that, usually more.

And then there is what they did to the country.

Venezuela was once one of the most prosperous, educated, optimistic countries in Latin America. We were not perfect, but we were functioning. We were building.

They broke it.

Millions have fled. The UN estimates it is nearly eight million Venezuelans now, a displacement crisis bigger than most people in the United States can even picture. Imagine the entire population of New York City and then some, leaving their homes, their parents, their food, their language, their memories, because staying became impossible.

Here is the part that I need my fellow Democrats to truly absorb.

The Venezuelan opposition, for years, has been an opposition of non violence. We marched. We voted. We organized. We pleaded. We did the thing we teach our children to do in a democracy.

And we won. Over and over.

And the regime did what dictators do. They ignored it. They twisted institutions. They disqualified candidates. They threatened voters. They announced whatever results they wanted. Then they put people in jail when they complained.

So when I see “Hands off Venezuela,” I want to gently ask, hands off what, exactly.

Hands off the dictatorship.

Hands off the prisons.

Hands off the torture chambers.

Hands off the stolen elections.

Hands off the machine that turned one of Latin America’s great countries into a refugee factory.

That is what that slogan lands like, from where we are standing.

Now, let me also be fair, because I am not asking you to become a cheerleader for the Trump White House.

You can oppose Trump and still applaud the removal of Nicolás Maduro. You can hold two thoughts in your head at the same time. Trump is not the moral compass of the universe, and Maduro still belongs in prison.

These things are not in conflict.

Some Democratic leaders I deeply admire, including Cory Booker, have described the military action in Venezuela as “unlawful and unjust,” an “extrajudicial assault on another nation’s sovereignty.” I understand that concern. Truly.

But here is the uncomfortable truth: Venezuelan sovereignty was compromised long ago.

Venezuela today is not a fully sovereign nation. It has become a client state of Russia, Iran, and Cuba. Even the security detail that failed to protect Maduro on January 3 was made up of Cuban nationals, not Venezuelans.

For years, the Venezuelan people have begged our neighbors and the democratic world to support a real transition to democracy. What we live under is not simply an authoritarian government. It is an occupation by proxy. In that sense, Venezuela today resembles countries like France or Belgium during World War II, whose futures would have looked very different without intervention from the United States and its allies.

I understand why U.S. military action triggers deep discomfort. Latin America carries the scars of failed interventions, and Iraq and Afghanistan are fresh reminders of how badly things can go. That history matters.

But Venezuela is closer to Panama than to Iraq.

In December of 1989, the United States intervened in Panama, without congressional approval, to remove Manuel Noriega, a despotic dictator who governed through violence and intimidation. Since then, Panama has become one of the most stable democracies in Latin America, with one of the highest GDPs per capita in the hemisphere.

No, it is not ideal that military force would be required to remove a regime. I understand that argument. But I also believe that when all other options have been exhausted, the world’s strongest democracy has a responsibility to act. Many of us rightly support Ukraine because we do not want it to become a Russian puppet state. Venezuela already is one.

I also want to be honest about something else. I do not believe Donald Trump is acting out of a principled commitment to spreading democracy. I am not naïve. Oil, power, and geopolitical leverage are clearly part of what motivates him. I wish that were not the case. But from where Venezuelans are standing, motives matter less than outcomes.

We have spent decades asking the world to help us restore democracy through peaceful means. We exhausted elections. We exhausted dialogue. We exhausted patience. If the choice is between waiting indefinitely for morally pure leadership while a dictatorship continues to torture, imprison, and exile its people, or accepting an imperfect intervention that opens a real path to democratic transition, I take that bargain without hesitation.

Not because it is ideal, but because the status quo is unbearable.

There is nuance here, and I think many Democrats are losing it because in the last few years we have trained ourselves to see the world only through one lens, oppressor and oppressed. Every conflict becomes a casting call, and we assign roles immediately, sometimes before we even read the script.

Please, do not do that to Venezuela.

Venezuela is not a TikTok explainer. It is not a poster. It is not a shortcut for your worldview. It is a real country, full of real people who have been trapped under a brutal dictatorship for a quarter of a century.

And also, to be clear, this story is not over.

Many Venezuelans went from pure joy when we heard Maduro was apprehended, to deep confusion and anxiety after Trump’s press conference and the messaging that followed. Because what we want is not just one man removed. What we want is a democratic transition that is legitimate, stable, and led by the people Venezuelans actually chose.

For the Venezuelan democratic movement, that leader is María Corina Machado. And the president elect, in the eyes of millions of Venezuelans, is Edmundo González Urrutia. The opposition won the July 28 election by a landslide, and the United States has recognized González as the winner and as the president elect. The European Parliament has recognized him as the legitimate, democratically elected president. All of this took place in the midst of one of the most unfair elections we have ever lived through.

So here is my ask, as a Venezuelan Democrat, to my fellow Democrats.

If you want to protest, protest for something real.

Do not chant “Hands off Venezuela” like Venezuela is a dictatorship you want to protect from consequences.

Instead, be champions of Venezuelan democracy.

Demand the release of political prisoners.

Demand an internationally recognized transition.

Demand that the United States, regardless of who is president, recognizes the legitimate democratic leadership of the Venezuelan people.

And please, I say this with love, do not have loud opinions about realities you have not taken the time to understand. If you want to stand with oppressed people, start by listening to them when they tell you who the oppressor is.

Do not erase Venezuelans with a slogan.

If you want a slogan that actually fits, try this:

Hands on democracy.