No Tears for a Tyrant: The Fall of Nicolás Maduro

The dramatic kidnapping of Venezuela’s dictator-president Nicolás Maduro, along with his wife, on the orders of America’s own authoritarian strongman, Donald Trump, has produced a curious mix of outrage and relief. Outrage over U.S. overreach. Relief for a people long suffocated by one of Latin America’s cruellest regimes

Maduro, accused of running a narco-state and rigging Venezuela’s 2024 election, has ruled with an iron fist since 2013, when he inherited power after the death of his mentor Hugo Chávez, another strongman masquerading as a messiah, wrapped conveniently in the comforting shawl of “socialism” for the global left’s true believers.

So if Washington has finally engineered a regime change, it’s hard to summon tears for Maduro. Tyrants rarely earn sympathy; they exhaust it.

For months, the U.S. had been tightening the screws, and Maduro surely felt the pressure. But the real torment has been borne by ordinary Venezuelans—crushed by poverty, stripped of dignity, and denied even the fundamental freedom to protest their own misery.

Will American intervention cure Venezuela’s deep economic rot? That remains an open and troubling question. But one thing is undeniable: for millions ground down by Maduro’s misrule, the fall of the dictator, however dramatic or controversial, feels less like an abduction and more like a long-delayed exhale.

What is next, Mr. President, Cuba, Iran or North Korea!

-Promod Puri