 The Wall Street Journal, founded in 1889, is the largest newspaper in the United States with respect to print circulation, and the second largest (after The New York Times) in digital circulation, with 4.15 million digital subscribers. It is considered a “newspaper of record,” defined in Wikipedia as “a major national newspaper with large circulation whose editorial and news-gathering functions are considered authoritative and independent.”  Front page of the first issue of The Wall Street Journal on July 8, 1889. Source: Wikipedia. In “The High Stakes in Venezuela: Trump chose this showdown with Maduro, and only one will win,” published by The Editorial Board on December 1, 2025, the newspaper of record reveals a win-lose mentality in international relations which is out of sync with the demands of the current historic moment. It begins with the assertion, “President Trump is in a high-stakes showdown with Venezuela’s Nicolás Maduro. . .. One of the two presidents is going to lose, and it will be Mr. Trump if Mr. Maduro isn’t ousted one way or another.” Warming to the task at hand, the editorial further asserts, “If Mr. Trump withdraws his Caribbean flotilla with Mr. Maduro still in power, the Venezuelan strongman will have won. The world will see that he was able to stand up to American power in the Yankee’s backyard.” The editorial acknowledges that the Trump administration has maintained that its assembling of naval forces in the Caribbean has the purpose of fighting drug cartels, but the editorial considers this claim to be nothing more than “political cover.” It maintains that you do not need a large military mobilization “to blow up drug boats,” thus not anticipating the national security strategy released by the administration on December 3, which emphasized a reorientation of US national security policy toward the Western Hemisphere. The editorial notes that if Maduro refuses to step down and find refuge in another country, “The President may have to take direct military action to oust the dictator” [sic]. It argues that, despite domestic political risks, “deposing Mr. Maduro is in the U.S. national interest given how he has spread refugees and mayhem in the region” [sic]. It maintains that deposing Maduro should not be considered an American coup, because “Venezuelans voted overwhelmingly to elect the opposition in the 2024 presidential race, but Mr. Maduro refused to cede power. Deposing him in favor of the elected president would restore democracy” [double sic]. For the esteemed members of The Editorial Board of the newspaper of record, the US government must not let Maduro win. “If Mr. Maduro refuses to leave, and Mr. Trump shrinks from acting to depose him, Mr. Trump and the credibility of the U.S. will be the losers. Mr. Trump chose this showdown, and it will cost America and the region dearly if Mr. Maduro emerges triumphant.” § Considerations on democracy in Venezuela As the reader will discern, the premise of the WSJ Editorial is that Maduro is a dictator maintained in power through fraudulent means. Let us look at the facts. Nicolás Maduro was re-elected President of Venezuela on July 28, 2024, receiving 51.2% of the vote, defeating the far-right candidate Edmundo González, who received 44.2%. Maduro was the candidate of a coalition of thirteen political organizations known as the Simón Bolívar Great Patriotic Pole as well as the leader of the United Socialist Party of Venezuela. Eight other candidates—including candidates of the right, center-right, and center-left—received 4.6% of the votes cast. A total of 21,620,705 citizens voted—a voter participation rate of 59%—in more than fifteen thousand voting districts distributed throughout the country. In total, ten presidential candidates, thirty political parties, and 1300 international and national observers participated in the 2024 presidential elections, according to the president of the National Electoral Council. Maduro was born on November 23, 1962, in Caracas, Venezuela, and he was politically active in the 1980s in the Socialist League. From 1991 to 1998, he worked as a bus driver, and he founded the Caracas Metro Union. During that period, he met and became a fervent supporter of Hugo Chávez, and he became active in the Bolivarian Revolutionary Movement. He was among the new deputies elected in the electoral triumph of the Bolivarian Revolution in 1998. He held various positions in the National Assembly between 2000 and 2006. In 2006, he was named Minister of Foreign Affairs, and in that capacity, he became known in the international arena for his excellent discourses in defense of the Bolivarian Revolution. He was named Vice-President in 2012, and he was publicly named by Chávez to be his successor shortly prior to his death in 2013. Maduro subsequently won presidential elections in 2013, with 50.61% of the vote; and in 2018, with 78.84%. Elections in Venezuela are managed by the National Electoral Council, an independent branch of government established by the Bolivarian Revolution. The electoral system is characterized by a high-level of citizen access to voting booths and clear identification of voters, in which voters cast both an electronic vote and a printed paper ballot, enabling cross-checking of the vote count. Verification of the electoral total is conducted automatically in 54% of the voting locations, which are chosen at random. The latest of several US plans for the destabilization of the Venezuelan political system came to light two days before the 2024 elections, when suggestions were put forth of alleged fraud, preparing the terrain for the non-recognition of the results and for violence by fascist gangs, financed by Venezuelans from Miami and Spain, according to Granma journalist Francisco Arias Fernández. The plan included the non-recognition of the electoral results following the announcement of Maduro’s victory, with the complicity of the US-controlled Organization of American States and US allies in the region. The far-right leader, María Corina Machado, who benefits from foreign media coverage and foreign financial support, planned to relocate to Argentina, where she was to set up a command post as the coup d’état was unfolding, seeking political-diplomatic support with telephone calls to different countries. The plan anticipated the support of the major media, and Arias Fernández specifically mentions The New York Times, CNN, AP, Voice of America, Euronews, BBC, the German DW and the Spanish newspapers El País and El Mundo. True to the plan, the opposition claimed electoral fraud on July 29. Marina Corina Machado announced that she had in her possession electoral records that showed that González had received 70% of the vote, but she did not release the information she claimed to have. In this unsubstantiated claim of electoral fraud, the opposition in Venezuela had the backing of the Western media, as the plan anticipated. The Washington Post, for example, published on July 30 a one-sided article giving credence to the opposition claims of fraud, citing protestors on the streets on July 29. It made no mention of the reports of international observers. Similarly, an article in The New York Times, “Venezuela’s Election Was Deeply Flawed,” was written with the prevailing Western ethnocentric narrative which assumes that nations seeking independence from US direction are authoritarian, ignoring the historical struggles of said nations against US imperialism and US control of the natural resources and the economies of their countries. On Monday, July 29, protests expressing dissatisfaction with the results were held. The opposition claimed that they were spontaneous demonstrations by the people in protest of supposed electoral fraud. However, the Venezuelan news outlet Telesur reported that some demonstrators, many with criminal antecedents, had been paid $150. There were reports of violence, including setting fire to hospitals, pharmacies and radio stations, blocking roads, and derailing buses carrying international election observers. Telesur reported, with videos provided by on-the-scene reporters, that the streets where the demonstrations had been held were calm and normal by midnight. Beginning on Tuesday, July 30, crowds began to appear in support of Maduro and the electoral process. Venezuelan analyst Luigino Bracci explained that elections in Venezuela are automated. When a citizen casts a vote in a voting machine, the machine prints a receipt, which the voter places in a box. Thus, there is a double system of counting, in which the machine keeps track of each vote and prints a tally of the votes, and at the same time, polling station members and political party observers verify that the machine report of the vote tally is consistent with the tally of the printed receipts. The machine reports the results to one of two tallying centers of the National Electoral Council (CNE for its initials in Spanish). Bracci noted that for the last twenty years, CNE has been publishing the results of each polling station on its website, making the votes transparent, and enabling observers representing the political parties to verify the results with their polling station observations. This publication of results usually occurs a few hours after the first electoral bulletin is released. However, the results could not be verified in this way with respect to the July 28 presidential elections, because there had been a cyberattack against the data transmission system of CNE, a fact that was announced by the president of CNE, Elvis Amoroso, when he announced the election results at 12:13 a.m. on July 29. He noted that the cyberattack was slowing down the transfer of information to the tallying centers. After the CNE announcement, President Maduro went to the Electoral Chamber of the Supreme Court of Justice to request an investigation and to request that all candidates and the National Electoral Council be summoned and be requested to submit all necessary records and documents. Maduro also promised that the tally sheets of his party’s witnesses would be presented. Maduro declared that he was seeking the protection of the Supreme Court from false accusations of electoral fraud by the extreme Right opposition, which had contracted fascist and criminal gangs to engage in violent actions in a destabilization strategy supported by the US government. In accordance with the request of the President, the Electoral Chamber of the Supreme Court, authorized by the Constitution to rule on such questions, summoned the ten candidates to appear, and nine of them did so on August 2. Edmundo González, on whose behalf accusations of fraud had been made beginning on July 29, was the only one of the ten candidates who did not appear before the Court. The opposition claim of fraud raised the possibility of someone secretly manipulating the machines to reprint tally sheets with numbers favorable to the government. Víctor Theoktisto, a computer science professor at Simón Bolívar University who had served as an advisor in the development of the nation’s automated electoral system, noted that the automated electoral system is designed with numerous security checks, such that any manipulated or modified tally sheet would have a QR code or “hash” different from the unique code of the original, which could be discerned through investigation. For this reason, the question of fraud ought to be resolved through the Supreme Court, with all parties presenting what they have, as the CNE was doing in accordance with Maduro’s request. The opposition ought to present their evidence and their case to the Court, Theoktisto asserted. “The fact that González did not appear before the Electoral Chamber last Friday raises many questions. If they have the evidence, why not challenge the elections before the appropriate body? Are they willing to have their election evidence verified? . . . The opposition must challenge the results before the [Supreme Court], not in public opinion or international media.” Theoktisto further noted that hacking technologies exist that could slow down the CNE process by disrupting connections, although they could not change the actual tallies. He further observed that the attacks on the CNE Website were so numerous that they likely involved hacking sources outside the country, with some level of support from local actors. He noted that “a governmental actor is indispensable” for an attack of this scale, and he believed that a hostile government was involved. But all such questions need to be investigated, he stressed. After July 30, the Western media withdrew from the terrain, posting few articles after that date. And the Biden administration began making contradictory statements, retreating from recognition of the opposition candidate as the winner of the elections and as the true head of state in Venezuela. Meanwhile, the Maduro government was in full control in Venezuela, with the National Electoral Commission proceeding with a full review of the ballots, in accordance with the Venezuelan constitution and the request of the Maduro government; with successful and peaceful public events in support of the government; and with the attorney general’s office proceeding with legal action against those who violated laws in seeking to promote destabilization, some of whom are in hiding. On August 22, 2024, the Electoral Chamber of the Venezuelan Supreme Tribunal of Justice, designed by the Constitution to adjudicate electoral questions, ratified Nicolas Maduro as the winner of the July 28 presidential elections. In a press conference attended by government officials, diplomatic representatives, and members of the press, Supreme Court magistrate Caryslia Rodríguez began by reaffirming the jurisdiction of the Electoral Chamber of the Supreme Court on the question, noting that recent electoral processes in Brazil, Mexico, and the United States were ultimately settled by judicial rulings. Rodríguez proceeded at the press conference to read the verdict of the Court. It stated that a team of national and international experts had conducted a review, with the highest technical standards, of the voting records that had been submitted by the electoral parties and candidates. The verdict asserted that the investigation found that the voting records fully coincided with the data of the tallying centers of the National Electoral Council, which had declared Maduro the winner with fifty-two percent of the vote, as against forty-three percent for Edmundo González. The verdict further mandated the National Electoral Council to publish the final results in the National Gazette before the August 28 deadline established by Venezuelan electoral procedures. Magistrate Rodríguez also asserted that opposition candidate Edmundo González was in contempt of court for not appearing in response to the Court’s summons and for not submitting requested evidence. She also called upon Attorney General Tarek William Saab to launch investigations for possible criminal conduct, including the usurpation of state functions, forging documents, and instigating violence. The Bolivarian Revolution was convoked by Hugo Chávez on February 4, 1992, when he led approximately 100 military officers in an attempted coup d´état, with the intention of overthrowing the government and convening a constituent assembly. The coup failed, and he was imprisoned. Upon his release in 1994, he resigned from the military and formed the Bolivarian Fifth Republic Movement, again with the intention of convening a constitutional assembly, but now seeking to attain power through the electoral process. Traveling throughout the country and meeting with the people during the presidential electoral campaign, he was elected President of Venezuela in 1998, and he assumed the presidency on February 2, 1999. He immediately issued a decree convoking a Constitutional Assembly. Elections for a new constitution were held, and a new Constitution was approved, establishing the Fifth Republic. Chávez was elected to two six-year terms as president under the new Constitution. He died of cancer in 2013, before completing his second term. Hugo Rafael Chávez Frías was born in Sabaneta, a rural village of Venezuela, on July 28, 1954. His father was a schoolteacher who earned his teaching diploma by studying part-time. Although his mother and father lived nearby, he was principally reared by his grandmother, a peasant woman who was half indigenous. In 1971, at the age of 17, Chávez entered the Military Academy of Venezuela, and he earned a commission as a Second Lieutenant in 1975. His study during his years in the military academy established the foundation for his revolutionary formation. He read the writings of Simón Bolívar, Mao Zedong, and Che Guevara, and he developed a perspective that he described as a synthesis of Bolivarianism and Maoism. He investigated these themes further in a master´s program in political science at Simón Bolívar University. He continuously read books of historical, political, social, and literary significance during his military and political careers. Central to Chávez’s political rise was his call for effective state control of the state-owned petroleum company (Petróleos de Venezuela, Sociedad Anónima, or PDVSA). The company had been nationalized in 1976 during the era of “petroleum nationalism” in Venezuela, but the nationalization did not have the results that its advocates had hoped. Prior to the nationalization, foreign companies had appointed Venezuelans as managers, seeking to ensure political stability. Since the Venezuelan managers previously had been socialized into the norms and values of the international petroleum companies, the transition to Venezuelan state ownership had little effect on the dynamics of the nation’s petroleum industry. PDVSA adapted to the neocolonial world-system, exploiting petroleum in accordance with the norms and interests of the international petroleum industry. Like the foreign-owned oil companies in other neocolonized countries, PDVSA sought to reduce payments to the Venezuelan state. Accordingly, PDVSA adopted a strategy of channeling surpluses to investments in production and sales, including the purchase of refineries and distributorships in other countries. By transferring surpluses out of the country, the PDVSA evaded payments to the Venezuelan state. The government of Hugo Chávez sought to reduce the autonomy of PDVSA and to incorporate its resources into a project of national development. The Chávez government appointed new directors of PDVSA, replacing the directors appointed by previous governments, provoking a great conflict with the established order. But the conflict had favorable results for Venezuela. With the new leadership of PDVSA, the state income from petroleum increased significantly, and the new funds were directed toward various social projects in education, health, and housing as well as to wage increases, financial assistance to those in need, and the elimination of foreign debt. The governments of Chávez and Maduro have conducted more than thirty national elections, either nationwide referendums, presidential elections, or elections to the national legislature, and the Chavistas have won all but two of them. This impressive process prompted former President Jimmy Carter to declare that Venezuela has one of the best elections in the world. However, the numerous elections have been conducted in accordance with the rules and procedures of representative democracy, in which success depends on the mobilization of resources, especially financial resources. Therefore, the United Socialist Party of Venezuela has sought to supplement elections developed according to the norms of representative democracy with the creation of Communal Councils throughout the country. Communal Councils are formed by the people through open assemblies, encompassing approximately 100 families in urban areas and thirty families in rural areas. The communal councils seek to identify and implement local priorities and projects with respect to housing, health, water, or electricity, with the full and equal participation of all citizens over the age of fifteen, and with the support of a financial unit and an oversight unit. The long-term goal is the integration of the Communal Councils with the structures of representative democracy, thus establishing “true participatory democracy” based on the concept of people’s power from the grassroots. § Further considerations on The Wall Street Journal As is evident, the Editorial Board of The Wall Street Journal accepts as Truth what is merely one side of a political conflict in Venezuela. If that side had any validity, we would have seen beginning in August the taking of the streets by the people in opposition to the Maduro government, providing internal support to the aggressive actions of the USA toward the government of Venezuela. But exactly the opposite has occurred. The government of Maduro since August has been able to mobilize the people in a great national exercise of self-defense, preparing the nation and the people for what is perceived as a pending military invasion. The Editorial Board of The Wall Street Journal appears to know little of political processes in Venezuela. If it does know, it chooses not to report. So, the esteemed members of the Editorial Board are guilty of either ethnocentrism or corruption. In addition, in taking as given a paradigm of win-lose competition in international affairs, the members of the Editorial Board either do not know of, or decide not to report on, the alternative paradigm of win-win cooperation, which has emerged from the Global South during the first quarter of the twenty-first century, and which points to a possible resolution of the structural contradictions of the world-system. This constitutes a profound failure in moral duty, unworthy of the high office which they hold and the sacred duty to the people which it implies. § Further considerations on Venezuela and Cuba Venezuela and Cuba have both committed the crime of breaking with the structures of the neocolonial world order, Cuba with its agrarian reform of 1959 and nationalizations of 1960, and Venezuela with its effective control under Chávez of the state-owned petroleum company. As punishment, Cuba and Venezuela are accused of being authoritarian, when in fact they have developed structures of people’s democracy that are more advanced than the structures of representative democracy. Neither Cuba nor Venezuela should be sanctioned for seeking transformations of the national manifestations of the structures of the neocolonial world-system, because it is their right as sovereign nations to choose their own road to economic development. § No to regime-change war in Venezuela It can be argued that the United Sates of America, as the regional power of the Western Hemisphere, has the right to control the seas of the region, in order to fight back against criminal cartels invading its national territory; and it has the right to impose tariffs or refuse trade with any nations in the region that align with a non-Hemispheric power, enabling its control of strategic assets that are vital to US national security, such as key sea lanes. But the United States does not have the right to decide who the leaders of Venezuela will be. Only the people of Venezuela have that right. This principle of the sovereignty of the people was proclaimed by the American Declaration of Independence. And the people of the United Sates, through an anti-establishment people’s movement called into being by Donald Trump in 2016, has risen—in response to the betrayal of the nation by the elite and the political establishment and the post-modern confusion of the professional class—to reaffirm the principles of the American Republic and to declare the rejection by the people of regime-change wars. Originally published on charlesmckelvey.substack.com Author Charles McKelvey is influenced by black nationalism, the Catholic philosopher Lonergan, Marx, Wallerstein, anti-imperialism, and the Cuban Revolution. Since his retirement from college teaching in 2011, he has devoted himself to reading and writing on world affairs. Archives December 2025
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