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Venezuela without Venezuelans [1]

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Date: 2026-02 

The conversation was loud and relentless. On social media, debates exploded: outrage at Trump, questions about whether his actions are legal. Others asked whether this set a precedent for Putin and Ukraine. Oil markets have been analyzed, and strategic and economic interests mapped. There is even speculation about whether Marco Rubio’s performance in this chaos might help him become the next US president.

At some point, absurdly, I watched – with a mixture of astonishment and weariness – as the athleisure outfit Nicolás Maduro was wearing on the night of his fall started trending, as if the dictator were an unwitting influencer. As if that mattered.

You get my point. Very quickly, the conversation stopped being about Venezuelans and became a test case for other people’s political positions and impact.

While this unfolded, my WhatsApp chats looked very different.

A 46-year-old woman from Caracas, whom I met in July 2024, texted me to ask whether I thought this intervention might help secure the release of her 24-year-old son. He was arbitrarily detained for protesting the rigged presidential elections that year.

An hour later, I received a voice note from another friend, Leidy. She had left her children to care for one another in their home in the mountains of Mérida and traveled to the capital to be with her husband, who is undergoing cancer treatment. Her voice breaking, she described the morning of January 3rd, after the military attack: the fear, the chaos, the checkpoints, lack of transport and the hours it took to bring her husband to the hospital as he writhed in unbearable pain. She wonders if the hospital will finally provide the medications he requires. Questions that no geopolitical analysis seems prepared to address.

That gap – between what’s being debated abroad and what’s happening at home – has been constant. And it’s not new.

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[1] Url: https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/venezuela-without-venezuelans-maduro-trump-media-coverage/

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