Three Cheers for Donald Trump’s Monumental, Moral Achievement in Venezuela

President Donald Trump, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Dan Caine listen as Secretary of State Marco Rubio speaks during a news conference at Mar-a-Lago, Saturday, Jan. 3, 2026, in Palm Beach, Fla. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

President Donald Trump’s stunning takedown of Venezuelan dictator Nicolás Maduro over the weekend was not just a geopolitical achievement, but a moral one, too.

The decades since Maduro’s predecessor, Hugo Chávez, first rose to power have been dark ones for the Venezuelan people. On the United Socialist Party of Venezuela’s watch, the country has transformed into a belligerent, oil-fueled kleptocracy in which its communist leaders have prospered and the people they claim to speak for have been subjected to indescribable misery. The European Union reports that nearly 80% of the population lives in poverty, with over half persevering through “extreme poverty.”

The Maduro regime’s crimes didn’t end at the bank. It also robbed the Venezuelan people of their sovereignty by rigging the 2018 and 2024 presidential elections, and engaging in a campaign of brutal repression after the latter contest. Amnesty International, a left-wing human rights watchdog, found that “Protests following the announcement of the results of the presidential election in July were violently repressed with excessive use of force and possible extrajudicial executions.”

“Thousands of arbitrary arrests were carried out against political opponents, human rights defenders and journalists; hundreds of children were among those detained. Detainees including women and children were allegedly tortured. Detention conditions continued to deteriorate. Impunity prevailed for human rights violations,” read Amnesty’s 2024 report on the dismal treatment of Venezuela’s citizenry by its government.

So it is, so it always has been, and so it always will be wherever communists take control.

Still, the usual suspects are howling.

In a few representative examples of the progressive reaction to Operation Absolute Resolve, Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass (D) decried Trump’s “reckless” decision and declared that her city would “continue to stand for peace, democracy, and diplomacy”; her newly-minted Big Apple counterpart Zohran Mamdani (D) submitted that “unilaterally attacking a sovereign nation is an act of war and a violation of federal and international law”; and The Young Turks’ Cenk Uygur, as is his wont, perceived the Maduro operation as a nefarious Zionist plot.

What painful distortions of the facts these are.

There will be no explanation of what was “reckless” about the operation overseen by Trump because “reckless” it was not. The death count was minimal on the Venezuelan side and nil on the American one. The Delta Force team responsible for capturing Maduro accomplished their goal during an assault on his compound that last fewer than 30 minutes.

Neither will there be an articulation of how Bass’s support for Maduro’s continued leadership was a stand for “democracy,” or how the apprehension of Maduro constituted an attack on Venezuelan sovereignty. Maduro had destroyed Venezuela’s democracy and crowned himself sovereign. The successful ejection of him represents an attempt to revive a dead republic and return power to its people.

Uygur’s observation that Maduro’s downfall has larger implications, meanwhile, is obviously correct. The erstwhile autocrat has long counted himself as an ally of Vladimir Putin’s oligarchy, Ali Khamenei’s terror-supporting theocracy, and Xi Jinping’s genocidal politburo. Indeed, Absolute Resolve took place shortly after a meeting between Maduro and a Chinese special envoy. The rub for Uygur is that his sympathies lie with this destructive axis of evil, rather than the United States and its democratic allies around the world — including Israel.

For both those invested in the world order underwritten by America, the relegation of Maduro from axis henchman to New York City inmate is a monumental victory notable for both its strategic and principled significance. His boot has been removed from the throat of his people, and the axis has been stripped of a foothold in the Western Hemisphere.

Absolute Resolve wasn’t a mistake borne of might-makes-right thinking, but a masterstroke in which might was exercised in service of right. Three cheers for its clear-eyed architects and the brave men and women who carried it out.

This is an opinion piece. The views expressed in this article are those of just the author.