Pro-Hamas to Pro-Maduro: When Activism Becomes Cover for Tyranny
I am a liberal human-rights advocate who has spent my career opposing state terror, whether wrapped in the totalitarianism of the radical left or the authoritarianism of the radical right. Except for President Trump’s support of Israel and his commitment to fighting Antisemitism — issues that matter deeply to me as a Zionist and a civil rights leader — I have opposed the rest of Trump’s agenda.
Yet I support the U.S. arrest of Nicolás Maduro, and I would support it just as firmly had it occurred under a Democratic president. Principles, not party labels, guide me. That consistency makes it all the more sickening to watch far-left activists wave signs reading “Free Venezuela” while demanding the freedom of Maduro, a murderous autocrat responsible for the terror and collapse of an entire nation.
“Free Venezuela” has become a slogan easy to chant and easier to misuse. It is invoked by American radicals of privilege who have never met a Venezuelan refugee, never watched a family flee starvation, and never had to explain to a child why food, medicine, or electricity suddenly disappeared.
Ironically, many of these same activists bemoan income inequality in the United States — a concern I share — while giving Maduro a pass for widening inequality in Venezuela by plundering the country for his own gain.
That contradiction is exactly why this critique matters, and why it cannot be dismissed by caricature. I am not a conservative or a neoconservative. I am a mainstream liberal saying something the far left does not want to hear.
There is nothing liberating about applauding a dictator. And calling tyranny “resistance” does not make it any less tyrannical.
Make no mistake: We are witnessing a recurring pattern in which the language of liberation is repurposed to sanitize evil.
The same radicals of privilege glorified Hamas after October 7 — yes, Hamas, which terrorized both Palestinians and Israelis, violated international law by embedding hostages and military operations in homes and hospitals, and then blamed Israel for the devastation Hamas itself caused.
From the mouths of privilege, the phrases “Free Gaza” and “Free Venezuela” have been emptied of their meaning and refilled with ideological convenience.
Freeing Venezuela does not mean freeing Nicolás Maduro. It means freeing Venezuelans from him.
And praising him while claiming concern for Venezuelans is like praising the arsonist while lamenting the ashes he created.
President Trump made clear after U.S. forces captured Maduro that Venezuela’s oil was part of his thinking. I oppose that motive. My support for Maduro’s arrest rests on human rights alone. I also recoil at the idea, raised by Trump as well, that the United States should “run” Venezuela for any purpose beyond the limited period necessary to restore Venezuelan-led democratic governance.
None of this requires glorifying Maduro or making simplistic legal arguments. Whatever Trump’s motives, I believe Maduro’s apprehension was consistent with U.S. law, including the President’s authority to conduct limited military operations under the War Powers Resolution and longstanding authority to apprehend individuals accused of serious federal crimes.
I respect those who recognize Maduro’s tyranny yet reach different legal conclusions. That is a serious and legitimate debate.
But I reject turning legitimate debate into moral confusion — invoking the law not to clarify the truth, but to blur who Nicolás Maduro is and what he did to his own people.
I reject the misuse of the language of liberation to excuse tyranny — the hijacking of slogans to treat the suffering of 30 million Venezuelans as an asterisk.
And I reject claims of sovereignty delivered from elite campuses and plush enclaves by people who presume to know better than Venezuelans who actually lived under dictatorship.
“Free Venezuela” should mean standing with Venezuelans, and not with the man who crushed them.
