After a typically contentious election, the overthrow of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro appears nowhere in sight. Now that the electoral audit is in the hands of the nation’s Supreme Court, it seems the Biden Administration is softening its language regarding the recognition of Edmundo Gonzales as the winner of the July 28 election.

Regardless of how one feels about the current government of Venezuela, it does not appear to be going anywhere anytime soon. However, it is important to recognize and examine the grievances of the opposition to Maduro’s administration since the Venezuelan diaspora and certain classes within the country itself so heavily and universally revile him.

Maduro is a left-wing communist dictator. He consistently rigs and steals the election. The administration is completely and hopelessly corrupt, rife with cronyism, nepotism and backroom deals. There is a crackdown on non-state-sponsored media, and dissidents are sent to reeducation centers (torture camps). While U.S. sanctions and interventionism are making things worse for Venezuelans, the buck stops with Maduro and his Chavista supporters.

This is the story told by the Western media and many Venezuelans, but what about the other half of this polarized population? The Chavistas and the political left? To answer this question, we are joined by Alan MacLeod – senior staff writer and podcast producer for MintPress News, who recently returned from covering the Venezuelan elections.

Is there any truth to these claims? It is an open secret that the United States has been trying to implement regime change in Venezuela for the two decades following the Bolivarian revolution and the election of the socialist President Hugo Chavez. Traditionally, U.S. interference in Venezuela has been attributed to the vast oil reserves that the Chavismo movement nationalized, thereby denying American and European energy corporations unfettered access to the country’s most important and exploitable resource. Installing a right-wing, neo-liberal government would undoubtedly fix that problem, of course.

However, this reason alone is too superficial. Chavez, and to a lesser extent his successor Maduro, was seen as a leader of the “pink tide,” a turn towards left-wing governments in Latin American Democracies that was seen as anti-American, populist, and in opposition to liberalization reforms – particularly those of the IMF and World Bank. Therefore, Venezuela has been a direct challenge to U.S. hegemony over the American continent, and solving the abiding Venezuela problem is a foundational geopolitical objective for the United States.

Tonight, we examine the grievances against the Chavismo government, whether or not it stole the election, the damage of U.S. sanctions against the Venezuelan people, and why the United States will have to wait some time before trying to install a more right-wing and compliant government in this critical geostrategic American country. Regardless of how one feels about President Maduro, we can all agree that countries deserve the right to self-determine without rapacious imperial interference.

Greg Stoker is a former US Army Ranger with a human intelligence collection and analysis background. After serving four combat deployments in Afghanistan, he studied anthropology and International Relations at Columbia University. He is currently a military and geopolitical analyst and a social media “influencer,” though he hates the term.

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