Interesting Insight from a Venezuelan

I saw the following text across different parts of the Internet, apparently accredited to a displaced Venezuelan in America named Juan Pablo Sans.

Unless you are Venezuelan, you are missing almost everything that matters. I am Venezuelan. I left my country in 2013, when Hugo Chávez died and Nicolás Maduro took power. I didn’t leave because I wanted to “try life abroad.” I left because I could see what was coming, and staying meant watching my future shrink year after year. So when Americans ask, “What do Venezuelans think about Trump forcing Maduro out of the presidency?” Let me answer that question honestly, without slogans, without moral theater, and without pretending this is simple. Most Venezuelans feel relief. Not because we love Trump or because we believe the U.S. does things out of pure love for freedom. And not because we are naïve about geopolitics, oil, or power. We feel relief because we have lived through something Americans have never experienced: a country where nothing works, where elections don’t matter, where money stops being money, and where time itself feels broken.

Now, before someone jumps in to say “but not all Venezuelans agree,” let’s be precise. Yes, there is a minority that doesn’t agree. And that minority usually falls into one of three groups.

• Some were doing business with the regime.
• Some were personally comfortable inside the system and insulated from its worst consequences.
• And some were pushed into such extreme poverty that survival depended on obedience.

This last group matters, so let me explain it clearly. Millions of Venezuelans were reduced to depending on a government-issued food box. A box with rice, pasta, oil, sometimes expired food. A box that arrived irregularly. A box that was used as leverage. People were told, explicitly or implicitly: “If the government falls, this goes away.” That is hostage psychology! When misery reaches that level, people don’t defend the system because they believe in it. They defend it because they are afraid of losing the only thing standing between them and hunger. So yes, some people opposed change. But that opposition was not free, informed, or dignified. It was coerced by collapse. The rest of us lived something else entirely.

Since Maduro took power back in 2013, Venezuela lost roughly 80% of its economy. We lived through years of hyperinflation where prices didn’t rise monthly or yearly. They rose daily. Sometimes hourly. Salaries became meaningless. Pensions became symbolic. Entire professions disappeared. We protested. We marched. Thousands of people got killed and tens of thousands more were illegally incarcerated as political prisoners. Just because they didn’t like Chavez or Maduro.

We also voted because we believe in democracy. In 2015, the regime lost parliament by a massive margin. The result was ignored. We voted again. In 2024, the opposition won overwhelmingly, roughly 70% – 30%. The result was ignored. Imagine winning every swing state in the U.S. and then being told, “No.” That is not politics. And still, we didn’t rise in arms. We tried to stay constitutional. Peaceful. Legal.

During all this time, around a third of the country left. Families were torn apart. My own father died in exile. Children grew up without grandparents. Entire cities aged overnight. So when Americans say, “But foreign intervention is wrong”, understand this: from the inside, Venezuela is already occupied by Iran, China, Cuba, Russia, who are using our beloved country as shelter for terrorism, drug trafficking, and as a foothold in the American continent.

No Venezuelan I know is celebrating bombs, humiliation, or chaos. What we are reacting to is the possibility that the lock might finally open. We know the U.S. has interests. Oil. Minerals. Strategy. Power. We are not children. But we also remember a time when Venezuela was functional, prosperous, and connected to the world. When people came to our country instead of fleeing it. When a future didn’t feel irresponsible to imagine.

So if you are American and confused by Venezuelans celebrating, don’t ask whether they “support intervention.” Ask what kind of suffering makes people accept risk in exchange for hope. Because this reaction didn’t come from ideology but from exhaustion.

Viva Venezuela libre!

Related: This recent post from Argentine President Javier Milei gets right to the point about Leftist Hypocrisy.

Update: This post, written by Stephen Subero, is equally powerful.