Posting as someone with direct family ties to Venezuela.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Thank you, OP. I detest Trump and would probably be considered a paradigmatic woke liberal. But I too have family ties to Venezuela and agree that most who are commenting are missing the desperation with which most Venezuelans wanted relief from Maduro’s brutal regime. No matter how that relief was delivered.

Unfortunately, I think any relief and optimism will be short-lived because the administration is going to totally screw this up in every conceivable way.

We have seen this movie before in Iraq 🇮🇶.

And in Panama in ~1989. And... that worked.

I don’t recall any talk about running the place and taking their national resources nor a delegation of “business leaders” being organized by the admin to identify profit potential within hours though. Do you?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My wife is Venezuelan. She desperately wants to be able to go back someday—to visit safely, to see family, to recognize her own country again. Right now, that’s not possible. Much of her family is current or former military, and they want exactly what civilians want: freedom from an oppressive regime that destroyed their country from the inside.

She does not like Trump. Let’s get that out of the way. But let’s also stop pretending Venezuela is a Democrat vs. Republican issue. It’s not.

Under Maduro, people were run over by armored vehicles. Protesters were shot. Elections were a farce. The country became a narco-state while ordinary people starved or fled. That reality didn’t change depending on who was in the White House.

And for those suddenly clutching pearls about U.S. involvement—Biden continued dealings with Venezuelan oil despite repeated warnings from human-rights organizations. So please spare us the selective outrage.

China and Iran didn’t embed themselves in Venezuela out of goodwill. They wanted oil, minerals, leverage. Everyone knows this. Acting shocked now is disingenuous.

Here’s what’s missing from most of these takes: the majority of Venezuelans want the regime gone, even if that comes with hard compromises. They understand the cost because they’ve already paid it.

This isn’t about loving Trump.
It’s about wanting Venezuela back.

Nobody is disputing this, OP. There are international rules and US constitutional procedures that Trump violated, paving the way for other countries like Russia and China to do what they will to other smaller counties that have resources they want. Also, Trump has no plan of what our role will be in overseeing and funding this regime change. We all want the best for Venezuela’s people but this is not how we should achieve it. In the short term, people are cheering. But there are long term global consequences from what Trump has done.

The apprehension and arrest of Noriega in ~1989 was challenged in court and determined to be LEGAL. Like Maduro, he had been duly indicted for international drug crimes, was tried, and imprisoned. This is not different.

“This is going to make us so much money” and “we’re going to take back the oil and equipment they stole” seems a bit different, genius.

[Anonymous]

OP is a fake.

Otherwise, like someone already said, let’s root our own leader to be kidnapped so we can get out from under this oppressive regime.

Let’s just have total chaos and lawlessness everywhere all the time!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP, you are wasting your breath on DCUM’s rich white progressives.

Rich white progressives = people that understand things, I guess.

Rich white progressives love to tell brown people how to think.

[Anonymous]

10 bucks says Trump offers Venezuelan here on asylum to be able to stay if they join ICE

I think we’re within five months of having foreign foot soldiers on the streets of the US answering directly to this administration

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My wife is Venezuelan. She desperately wants to be able to go back someday—to visit safely, to see family, to recognize her own country again. Right now, that’s not possible. Much of her family is current or former military, and they want exactly what civilians want: freedom from an oppressive regime that destroyed their country from the inside.

She does not like Trump. Let’s get that out of the way. But let’s also stop pretending Venezuela is a Democrat vs. Republican issue. It’s not.

Under Maduro, people were run over by armored vehicles. Protesters were shot. Elections were a farce. The country became a narco-state while ordinary people starved or fled. That reality didn’t change depending on who was in the White House.

And for those suddenly clutching pearls about U.S. involvement—Biden continued dealings with Venezuelan oil despite repeated warnings from human-rights organizations. So please spare us the selective outrage.

China and Iran didn’t embed themselves in Venezuela out of goodwill. They wanted oil, minerals, leverage. Everyone knows this. Acting shocked now is disingenuous.

Here’s what’s missing from most of these takes: the majority of Venezuelans want the regime gone, even if that comes with hard compromises. They understand the cost because they’ve already paid it.

This isn’t about loving Trump.
It’s about wanting Venezuela back.

So she’s pretty upset that Trump has blessed Maduros corrupt VP as the new leader then, right?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:10 bucks says Trump offers Venezuelan here on asylum to be able to stay if they join ICE

I think we’re within five months of having foreign foot soldiers on the streets of the US answering directly to this administration

Don’t put this out there. Why would you?

[Anonymous]

Not reading 9 pages of this but OP, you’re a naive mark.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Nobody argues that Maduro is a good guy. That doesn't mean we should address his criminality in a criminal way ourselves.

You basically are, though. You’ve been advocating for propping him up and keeping him in office. What is that not but de facto arguing he is a good guy?

+1

[Anonymous]

Venezuela has been under occupation for years.

China, Russia , and Cuba have occupied and exploited Venezuela for quite some time.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Not reading 9 pages of this but OP, you’re a naive mark.

95% of Trump supporters are marks

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:What about my (fictional) wife from Greenland, op? Your wife has, possibly, some theoretical future increase in being able to visit home so we should all ignore the degree this insanity makes other international incursions more likely? What about my actual loved ones in the military?

ILY

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP, you are wasting your breath on DCUM’s rich white progressives.

Rich white progressives = people that understand things, I guess.

Rich white progressives love to tell brown people how to think.

This is true. I see this daily.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP here:

What’s honestly sickening to me is how tribal this has become.

So many people are reacting based on who they think they’re supposed to hate or defend, not on what Venezuelans have actually lived through. If your family had been there—if you’d watched them lose everything, if you’d worried daily about their safety, if you’d lived under that level of oppression—you would not be treating this like a thought experiment or a team sport.

For years, we’ve been sending remittances—boxes of food, medicine, money—just so family members could survive. Not thrive. Survive. That’s the reality people gloss over while posting hot takes from the comfort of their homes.

This outrage feels hollow when it ignores the human cost. When it erases the people who were beaten, silenced, imprisoned, or forced to flee. When it pretends moral purity matters more than ending suffering.

If this were about your parents, your siblings, your cousins living under that system, your tone would be very different.

This isn’t about left or right.
It’s about people who want their country—and their dignity—back.

Tribalism has rotted the conversation. And watching people minimize real pain because it doesn’t fit their politics is heartbreaking.

Many families and countries unfortunately live under oppressive regimes. You live in the US, and are writing as if no other country has these issues. They do. Why did Trump ‘help’ Venezuela? oil. Do I think you are going to stop needing to send remittance? Of course not. This was not for humanitarian reasons. Trump doesn’t care how the people of Venezuela have suffered.

Not OP, but I have family in Panama so have been hearing about the crisis for the past 10 years because when I visit there are so many Venezuelan refugees there. While it is true many families and countries live under oppressive regimes, the humanitarian disaster in Venezuela is on a whole other level.

7 MILLION people have fled- that is more than fled Syria. Over 20% of the population has had to flee Venezuela many because they couldn't even get one meal a day to eat. Kids have been starving in Venezuela. Venezuela’s bout with hunger is striking given that the nation had one of the highest standards of living in the region just a few decades ago thanks to its formerly abundant oil wealth.

There are plenty of people who hate Trump but are pleased something was finally done.

Can you give a timeline of the 7 million people who have fled Venezuela? Did most of them flee because of Chávez/Maduro or is it because of the US-led sanctions/embargo on Venezuela that caused the economy to collapse?

The purpose of sanctions is to agitate domestic discontent because everyone knows that sanctions only hurt the ordinary people. When people get restless, more draconian laws need to be enforced. Look at 2025 America to see exactly how this works. Obviously 2026 America is looking to be much worse with Chump starting fires in the rug all over the world for him to heroically put out.

People can debate all day about who is good and who is bad, but when outside states meddle in the domestic affairs of sovereign nations, the finger pointing is not just "you" and "me", but also "they".

Venezuela used to be the shining star of Latin America. In the 50's Venezuela had one of the highest GDPs per capita in the world, comparable to West Germany and Ireland. In the 70's following the oil embargo of 1973 Venezuela had the highest per capita GDP in Latin America and the lowest inequality in the region. Family in Panama said it was common to see so many Venezuelans flush with cash come to Panama because of banking secrecy laws combined with the fact Panama uses the US dollar as currency, so it was a stable place to put their "petrodollars". They also were known as "dame dos" [give me two} because they would go shopping and were so well off they would buy two of everything.

Things started going south in around 2000. There was a strike of oil worker and around 20,000 oil workers who knew how to run and maintain oil production were all fired.

In 2007 Chávez demanded that all foreign oil projects be converted into joint ventures where the state (PDVSA) held at least 60% control.   ExxonMobil and ConocoPhillips refused to sign the new terms. They walked away, leaving behind billions in assets AND cutting-edge technology. Venezuelan oil is extra-heavy" crude which is really thick and more challenging to process. So now with the oil workers fired and the engineers who knew how to use the technology to process this heavy crude leaving the country, the production of oil decreased. Exxon and Conoco sued Venezuela in international courts for billions of dollars which tied up money Venezuela could earn.

Year Production Context
(Million Barrels/Day)
1998 3.1 - 3.4 Peak production before the Chávez era.
2007 2.6 - 2.8 Nationalization Year: Exxon & Conoco exit; technical purges begin.
2012. 2.4 - 2.5 High oil prices hide the fact that production is slowly slipping.
2013 PRESIDENT MADURO TAKES OFFICE
2014. 2.3 - 2.4 The Crisis Starts: Global oil prices crash; PDVSA cannot afford repairs.
2017 1.9 U.S. sanctions begin; infrastructure starts failing rapidly.
2020 0.4 - 0.5 The Bottom: Production hits a 70-year low due to total neglect.
2024 0.8 - 0.9 Slight recovery due to Chevron's limited return and foreign help.

The Economy started tanking under Chavez who died in 2013. But when President Maduro took office there mass anti-government protests (known as La Salida) erupted due to high crime and inflation, leading to dozens of deaths and thousands of arrests, which prompting many to flee for safety.

2014 was really the tipping point because Venezuela has the "Dutch problem" of being hyper dependent on one resource which is oil. Venezuela’s economy was hyper-dependent on oil, which accounted for roughly 95% of its export earnings. In 2014, global oil prices plummeted from over $100 per barrel to less than $50. Then came economic mismanagement, a brutally oppressive and corrupt regime and hyperinflation.

In 2017 the US implemented sanctions.

Year Total People Outside Venezuela Key Driving Event
2014 ~700,000 Oil prices crash; first major anti-government protests against Maduro.
2015. ~1.2 Million Shortages of food and medicine become critical.
2016 ~1.6 Million Hyperinflation begins to take hold.
2017. ~2.3 Million Violent protests and "Constituent Assembly" crisis.
2018 ~3.4 Million Hyperinflation peaks; the "Humanitarian Corridor" opens.
2019 ~4.8 Million Presidential legitimacy crisis (Guaidó vs. Maduro).
2020. ~5.4 Million COVID-19 borders close, but migration some continues
2021 ~6.0 Million Mass displacement into Colombia and Peru stabilizes.
2022. ~7.1 Million Surge in migration toward the U.S. via the Darién Gap.
2023 ~7.7 Million Record crossings of the Darién Gap (over 320,000 Venezuelans).
2024. ~7.9 Million Post-election instability (July 2024) triggers new waves.
2025 ~8.2 Million Continued economic stagnation and political repression.

That is not a timeline for the 7 million people who have fled.

I am not a Venezuela expert but you obviously have a bias and are cherry picking dates. Just by reading a few journal articles, problems began way before Chávez. Here's the historical oil production for Venezuela from 1965-2024. Peak oil production was in the late 60s and early 70s. As you said, Venezuela's economy has also been heavily dependent on global oil prices way before Chávez. Chávez isn't blameless but lets not pretend that previous Venezuelan leaders' corruption and ineptitude didn't cause mass discontent among the poor and indigenous for him to get elected in the first place. In an alternate universe, what would the Venezuela situation have become? Another post-colonial narco-state full of corruption and abuses with a failing oil industry that would be having an emigration crisis regardless? The failures of Latin America are the failures of American hegemony preceded by European colonialism. Is it a coincidence that pretty much the only highly successful non-European countries in the world are those in Asia? Those leaders were able to tell the US to fk off (with their economies and domestic politics), and the Americans mostly did.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP, you are wasting your breath on DCUM’s rich white progressives.

Rich white progressives = people that understand things, I guess.

Rich white progressives love to tell brown people how to think.

Rich white conservatives love to tell brown people they don't belong here, that they are responsible for everything that's wrong with the country, that they are eating cats and dogs and other crazy shit.