Q&A With a Venezuelan Who Left
According to this interviewee, Venezuelans have many different opinions, but they're united in their collective hatred of Maduro.
If you have never lived in Venezuela, you don’t know what it’s like to live under Chávez or Maduro. For the rest of us, it’s second-hand, academic. It’s one thing to speak about the geopolitical ramifications of regime change in Venezuela, but it’s quite another to pretend you know what the Venezuelan people are experiencing. There’s a difference between speaking about them and speaking for them.
Below is a Q&A with Fantasma., a Venezuelan who left Venezuela in the late aughts and a fellow Substacker who writes about the Venezuelan diaspora. Subscribe to their Substack here:
The following is how they feel about Maduro, U.S. involvement, and the sudden “concern” for Venezuela—in their own words.
When did you leave Venezuela and why?
I left after high school, sometime in the late 2000s. I wanted to be a researcher, and going to the States facilitated that career. I had also lived through the beginning of the decline, before things got really bad in terms of the economy and the repression and the hunger. But things were still bad. I’d been the victim of violence, almost lost school years due to closures from everything from strikes to coups. I remember sitting in my living room with my sibling trying to call my parents on the phone on April 11, 2002, when the government started opening fire at protestors. No child should have to live with that fear. The short answer is I left because I could. I wanted to live somewhere where I was not beholden to the whims of an autocrat (joke’s on me, I guess). I was lucky enough to have the resources, and after school seemed like a natural branching point.
I want to add that I still have members of my nuclear family there, so it’s not like I left it all behind. It still very much affects me. For example, my online presence is anonymous out of concern for their safety.
How do you feel about Nicolás Maduro?
About as negatively as humanly possible. Delcy might beat my hatred for him, but time will tell.
What do you think about the United States ousting Maduro?
I have a lot of mixed feelings about the events of January 3rd. They change hour by hour these days.
On that day, at first, I just couldn’t believe it. He’s gone, he’s gone, he’s gone is all I could think. It reminded me of the day Chávez died. We spent the day glued to the TV and messaging family back home. Then Trump talked, and I felt a pit in my stomach. There was no detail on what it means to “run” Venezuela. Throwing Maria Corina Machado under the bus was a brutal blow, especially after she had prostrated herself to him. The tacit understanding that Delcy Rodriguez, the vice president, would remain in power, a sobering realization that this is not really the change some hoped it could be.
I reserve the right to change how I feel about it, because what matters is what happens next. Regardless, I am still content to see Maduro do a perp walk. I don’t think that will change.
What do your friends or family in Venezuela think about Maduro?
I have never met a Venezuelan, either in or out of Venezuela, who approves of him. I have never met someone who has lived in Venezuela at any point in his government that has a redeeming quality to mention. I think every person with intimate familiarity with Venezuela would tell me that his circle and he deserve to rot in hell.
What do they think about the U.S.’s recent actions, including the strikes against Venezuelan boats in the last couple of months?
I think it makes sense to look at surveys whenever possible to get a feel for what “everyone” feels, but surveys are few and far between, and so many things happen that it’s hard to keep up. I struggled with how to break up this answer, and perhaps the best way is to divide the diaspora vs Venezuelans in Venezuela.
I don’t want to speak for Venezuelans in Venezuela, but I will share my general impressions based on personal conversation and what reporting is available. It is also important to mention that the fear of repression is very real, so folks are very cautious about talking about their feelings. But someone needs to speak their truth to the world, that’s the calling many of us in the diaspora feel.
Venezuelans on the ground had more immediate and pressing issues than large geopolitical movements and actions. The economy is in shambles, inflation is through the roof, and it’s hard to live on a day-to-day basis with power and water cuts. They need jobs, money, and medicine. So, what was happening in the water or on boats off Güiria, or in tankers of a ghost fleet, was maybe not immediately top of mind. Obviously, that changes when they bomb your city. But if you’re still hungry and jobless and sick, it’s a hard thing to balance. I’d like to point to interviews of Venezuelans who feel brave enough to speak out, like this one.
Post January 3rd, pro-government militias have upped their oppression, so this is also part of their immediate concerns. Friends back home have requested that we not share news with them via text, out of the very real fear that they will be searched when they leave their house.
Venezuelans in the diaspora are a bit different. It’s hard to coalesce a group of eight million people into a single position: all of New York City doesn’t have the same POV on anything. Perhaps the thing that unites us the most is that we hate the regime.
I viewed the boat attacks with shock, concern, and I consider them a violation of any kind of due process (which even Maduro is getting because he is going to trial). It’s an atrocity. Some people I know viewed it as a step to cut off the regime from whatever money it gets from allowing drug trafficking through those waters. There is a lot to unpack about how Venezuelans were the first to cause harm to other Venezuelans and how that affects our perception of events like these.
Opinions are also shaped by whether you are in the States or not. I had spent months reading the rhetoric of Venezuela as an enemy of the States build up and felt this was part of that larger narrative. If you don’t have to live with Trump, you may not be as painfully aware of the attacks on immigrants in this country and how all of that coalesces.
Some Venezuelans in and out had an idea that the opposition, which most definitely won the presidential election in 2024 (Maduro did not win, I firmly believe that), was somehow aware or in the decision-making room of some of these American decisions. Personally, I was skeptical of that. I felt they were trying to put up a strong front, seeming to be in more control than they really were. Call it a gut feeling.
I personally did not like that they felt the need to align themselves with Trump and these escalations. They said very little when Trump deported the men to CECOT, and eliminated important immigration protection programs, and that is hard to forgive. But the truth is that there were few other alliances to make. They tried going to the negotiation table and always came out losing. The international left has always been cozy with the regime, and that position has not softened. Colombia abstained from voting in an Organization of American States (OEA) resolution demanding Maduro release the vote tallies of the 2024 presidential election. Mexico’s President wouldn’t even congratulate Maria Corina Machado on her heroic effort of peacefully organizing the 2024 elections (say what you will about her, that effort was heroic). So, who else should they have leaned on? I am uncomfortable to say no one else. And now even Trump has thrown them under the bus.
What do you think most people misunderstand about Venezuela? What do you wish more people knew about Venezuela?
I think when people hear, “Venezuela has been suffering for 25 years,” they can’t quite grasp the dimensions of what that means. Eight million people have left the country in the last about 10 years. Imagine the entire city of New York, all five boroughs, gone. People in the States are concerned about inflation, but have they lived through an inflation of thousands of percentage points? How do you build a career, savings, housing, when the prices change as you’re waiting in line?
This regime is made up of bad people. Evil people. Sadists. There have been so many well-documented reviews of the human rights abuses committed by them, it’s hard to write concretely. This regime has sequestered students and put them under Plaza Venezuela, in a prison with no windows and no air circulation. Minors, the elderly, journalists, they’ve all been taken. For things as dumb as a picture on their phone.
And there is no statistic or writing that will do justice to the years spent with separated families, the loss of young life and talent, and the elderly who will have to bury themselves. None of this is new, though. This has been happening for decades. And we have been protesting for that long. So, to Venezuelans, it feels very fresh that suddenly everyone is gravely concerned with our well-being because the U.S. attacked Caracas.
Where were they when we were hungry and brutalized? I was there in the rallies in my U.S. city during the crises of 2014, 2017, 2019, and 2024. I was pressed to find a single American who was in attendance with a Venezuelan. The concern for our sovereignty and our oil by people who never cared about us being tortured rings hollow. Our oil has been the property of other imperialist nations, Russia and China, and no one seemed to mind that we were being bled dry. Do the people at a Hands Off Venezuela march know how many political prisoners are currently being held? Are they asking for their release? Or are they just chanting “release Maduro?”
Venezuelans don’t feel heard. We’re dying (sometimes literally) to tell our side. We feel that this story has escaped our hands and is now owned by Americans. In liberal spaces, where my echo chamber lies, I’ve seen some pretty vile things… In many ways, I’ve never felt more alone.
Is there anything else you’d like to share?
I am deeply appreciative of all instances of people reaching out to me, asking questions, and demonstrating concern for my family and my well-being (like this one!). It is the opposite of dehumanizing. It is humanity-affirming.
I can’t speak to the right-leaning algorithms, because I exist in a left-of-center echo chamber. But I have to warn liberals that the messaging I’ve seen does not create a welcoming environment for Venezuelans. Can you imagine having to explain the main trauma of your life, and have someone tell you, “You’re wrong” or “You can’t see the whole picture?” It’s enraging. It’s hard to articulate how poorly these messages are left. I don’t think there’s any appreciation of that.
I think there’s also a lot of misinformation circling the algorithm. Venezuela is confusing; it’s something not even Venezuelans understand. But there have been a number of left-leaning websites posting essentially misinformation at worst or information without context at best. For example, there are videos of Venezuelans crying in Caracas for Maduro’s return. There is no acknowledgement that saying the contrary out loud is effectively a prison sentence. Or there are videos of Chavez talking about the “dangers of American imperialism,” and no acknowledgement that he behaved as an undemocratic leader and used that “threat of invasion” to consolidate power and lead us to this mess.
If you remember anything from this article, know that TeleSur and Venezuelanalysis are essentially the pro-Maduro versions of Fox News. And I’m sure many who repost those sources wouldn’t be caught dead reposting Fox News.