CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) — English expressions once bothered Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro so much that he asked his State of the Union audience to phase out words like skatepark and fashion.
But as the White House now considers whether the US military should strike Venezuela, Maduro is embracing the English language, singing John Lennon’s Image, pleading for peace and dancing to a remix of the latest English slogan, “No War, Yes Peace.”
While his return is seen as a sign of desperation by supporters of Venezuela’s political opposition, whose leaders have repeatedly told their backers in Washington that the threat of military action would crack Maduro’s inner circle, months of pressure have yet to produce defections or a government transition.
Loyalty vs punishment
Behind this knack for staying in power is a system that harshly punishes disloyal associates and allows ministers, judges, military leaders and other loyal officials to enrich themselves.
“The Bolivarian revolution has a remarkable ability: the capacity for cohesion in the face of external pressure,” said Ronal Rodríguez, a researcher at the Venezuela Observatory at Colombia’s Universidad del Rosario, referring to the political movement, also known as Chavismo, that Maduro inherited from late President Hugo Chávez. “When pressure comes from abroad, they manage to band together, defend and protect themselves.”
At the heart of the principle of loyalty or punishment are the networks of corruption blessed by Chávez and Maduro, which give permission to the loyal to enrich themselves. The policy has bedeviled previous efforts to oust Maduro and helped him and his cronies avoid economic sanctions, win a US presidential pardon and claim an electoral victory they lost by a landslide.
Rodríguez explained that imprisonment and torture can be part of the punishment, which is usually harsher for those accused of military-related wrongdoing. The strategy has been crucial for an authoritarian Maduro to retain control of the military, which he allows to traffic in drugs, oil, wildlife and countless goods in exchange for coup-proof barracks.
“This has been a very effective tool because Chavismo has always been able to eliminate those actors who at some point try to rise up and has been able to expose corrupt practices from all kinds of actors,” Rodríguez said.
The military supports Maduro
Venezuela’s political opposition, led by Nobel Peace Prize winner María Corina Machado, relied on the military’s support to oust Maduro after credible evidence showed he had lost the 2024 presidential election. But Defense Minister Vladimir Padrino López and other military leaders supported Maduro, as they did in 2019 during a barracks uprising by a group of soldiers who they pledged allegiance to Juan Guaidó, the opposition leader recognized at the time by the first Trump administration as Venezuela’s rightful leader.
Since returning to office, US President Donald Trump has increased pressure on Maduro and his allies, including doubling to $50 million the reward for information leading to his arrest on narco-terrorism charges. A 2020 indictment accused Maduro of running the de los Soles cartel, which the US State Department designated as a foreign terrorist organization on Monday.
Maduro denies the allegations.
On Saturday, Trump said the airspace “over and around” the South American country should be considered “completely closed.” Maduro’s government responded by accusing Trump of making a “colonial threat,” rallying supporters behind what it called an attack on national sovereignty.
Suspected drug boats bombed
In early September, the US military began blowing up boats the Trump administration accused of carrying drugs in the Caribbean Sea and eastern Pacific Ocean, killing more than 80 people.
Many, including Maduro himself, see the US military moves as an effort to end Chavismo’s grip on power. The opposition has only added to this perception by rekindling its promise to remove Maduro from office.
Two weeks after the first boat strike, Chavismo’s loyalty was directly tested when Maduro’s pilot rejected US efforts to join a plot to capture the Venezuelan leader and arrest him to face charges.
“We Venezuelans are cut from a different cloth,” Bitner Villegas, a member of the elite presidential honor guard, wrote to a retired American officer who was trying to recruit him. “The last thing we are are traitors.”
On Tuesday, supporters of the ruling party marched in Caracas to demonstrate what they described as the “anti-imperialist spirit” of Chavismo. The march ended with a ceremony in which Maduro held up a jeweled sword that belonged to South American independence hero Simón Bolívar and directed participants, including Cabinet ministers, to swear in the name of God to defend peace and freedom.
Susan Shirk, a research professor at the University of California, San Diego, said authoritarian leaders have a “fetish for unity” and like public displays of loyalty to prevent leadership divisions and social unrest. She explained that division can lead people to believe that the risk of protest has decreased.
“We must stick together”
US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said the Cartel de los Soles designation gives Trump additional options for dealing with Maduro. Hegseth did not elaborate on those options, but administration officials have signaled that they have trouble seeing a situation in which Maduro is still in power as an acceptable end.
David Smilde, a Tulane University professor who has studied Venezuela for more than three decades, said only people who don’t understand Chavismo would think a show of force would bring about a change of government.
“This is exactly the kind of thing that unifies them,” Smilde said of the deployment of U.S. military forces. “They also talk about the $50 million reward, but what sane military officer would trust the US government? And more broadly, if the whole premise of the operation is that the Venezuelan military is a drug cartel, what motivation could they have to turn against Maduro and participate in regime change?”
Maduro’s entire presidency has been marked by a political, social and economic crisis that has pushed millions into poverty and forced more than 7.7 million people to migrate. The crisis has also caused support for the ruling party to drop across the country.
With the loyalty of his circle intact despite mounting pressure from the US, Maduro has also sought to keep his base thinned out through longstanding practices that include holding marches in the capital.
Zenaida Quintero, a school janitor, has seen the country destroyed under Maduro’s watch, with vivid memories of the severe food shortages Venezuelans experienced in the late 2010s. Her support for Maduro, however, has not weakened, and her commitment boils down to one fact: he was chosen by Chávez to lead the Bolivarian Revolution.
Quintero, 60, said Maduro, like Chávez, would not abandon his supporters.
“I trust him,” Quintero said of Maduro. “We have to stick together. We have to defend ourselves.”