By Joshua Arnold

Political demonstrations in Venezuela turned violent this week, resulting in at least 16 deaths since Sunday’s presidential election. After the opposition candidate claimed a landslide victory, the National Electoral Council controlled by socialist dictator Nicolás Maduro declared Maduro the victor with 51% of the vote. When supporters of the opposition turned out in force to protest this decision, Maduro turned out the military to suppress them with force.

On the one hand, the anti-Maduro protests have not been entirely peaceful. Reports have emerged of protestors toppling a 12-foot, concrete statue of Maduro’s predecessor, Hugo Chavez, while shouting, “This government is going to fall.” Venezuelans attacked socialist statues in 2017 and 2019, but this time the protests are on a much larger scale; demonstrators pulled down five such statues in 24 hours. The demonstrators have also looted government warehouses, and one soldier is among the 16 dead. In other words, by the standards of the mainstream American media, these protests are “mostly peaceful.”

On the other hand, the election was not entirely honest. First, the government blocked opposition leader Maria Corina Machado from even running in the election. Next, they intimidated poll-goers with threats of armed violence. Then they claimed Maduro had beaten opposition candidate Edmundo Gonzalez by seven points, 51% to 44%, without producing the evidence. The Carter Center, a progressive American think tank observing the election, denounced a “complete lack of transparency,” including a “failure to announce disaggregated results by polling station,” and concluded that the election “cannot be considered democratic.”

Meanwhile, multiple types of evidence point to Gonzalez winning twice as many votes as Maduro. The U.S.-based Edison Research interviewed 6,846 voters at 100 locations in an exit poll; they found 65% for Gonzalez and 31% for Maduro. A random sample of 971 voting centers by Caracas, Venezuela-based research outfit estimated 66% for Gonzalez, compared to 31% for Maduro. And voting records collected by the opposition from more than 80% of precincts show Gonzalez leading 67% to Maduro’s 31%. These are remarkably consistent results from various sources, showing a picture of the election that contrasts starkly with the official numbers.

“On Sunday, Nicolás Maduro did what dictators do. He lied, cheated, and stole another election,” summarized the editors of National Review.

Hence, the massive demonstrations spilling over into violence. It’s one thing to embrace street violence in a stable democracy where legitimate grievances can be settled either in the courts or at the ballot box. But the calculation changes for subjects of an authoritarian regime that tortures detractors and routinely falsifies election results. That doesn’t necessarily make it right, but it’s much harder for free Americans to judge people who have endured so much oppression.

Only 30 years ago, Venezuela was one of the richest countries in Latin America after rich oil deposits were discovered. Then, in 1999, Venezuelans voted in a socialist government under Hugo Chavez, who passed the mantle to Maduro upon his death in 2013. Not only have Venezuelans never enjoyed another free election, but 25 years of socialist wealth redistribution have driven the once-thriving economy into the ground. As recently as 2017, the government seized bakeries to combat all-day “bread lines” among triple-digit inflation. As they watch neighboring countries all grow richer, impoverished Venezuelans have little love for the regime, which somehow always manages to win “elections.”

Venezuela “is ruled by a despotic regime so afraid of losing its grip on power that it oppresses, imprisons, and tortures those who dare speak out,” wrote Venezuelan exile Ana Leca. “Currently there are around 300 political prisoners, all subjects of psychological and/or of physical torture. The regime monitors and tracks their family, friends, and associates.” The Maduro regime maintains “the largest torture center in the Americas,” El Helicoide, described Leca, where inmates endure electric shock, asphyxiation, and beatings for sport.

Previous U.S. administrations have sanctioned the Venezuelan regime for its human rights abuses. However, when U.S. gas prices rose in 2022, the Biden administration loosened those sanctions in pursuit of Venezuelan oil. Specifically, it granted a sanction waiver for transactions involving Venezuela’s state-owned oil company, the regime’s breadwinner. All America received in exchange for waiving sanctions was a promise that Maduro’s regime would negotiate with the opposition.

“The United States did not demand the release of political prisoners,” wrote Elliott Abrams, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. “We did not demand any freedom of the press. We did not demand that the regime allow any exiled political leaders to return. We did not say we would lift sanctions only when a free election is held.”

In ways, the Biden administration’s Venezuela policy parallels its Iran policy. The administration inherited certain sanctions that had turned a notorious human rights abuser into an international pariah, and which had their economy on the ropes. The administration then lifted those sanctions and flooded those hostile regimes with a well-timed infusion of cash. The unexpected windfall enabled this hostile power to pursue its repressive agenda at America’s expense.

Perhaps the recent, unbelievable election outcome can jar the Biden administration out of its naivete. Secretary of State Antony Blinken did express “serious concern” about the results.

However, compared to responses from other governmental leaders in the Americas, that response qualifies as merely tepid. “DICTADOR MADURO, AFUERA [OUT]!!!” boomed Argentinian President Javier Milei. “They were going to ‘win’ regardless of the actual results,” mourned Uruguayan President Luis Lacalle Pou. “You cannot recognize a triumph if you can’t trust the forms and mechanisms used to achieve it.”

Even left-wing governments that are ideologically closer to Maduro expressed skepticism. “We receive the results announced by the CNE (electoral authority) with many doubts,” said Guatemalan President Bernardo Arevalo. Chile’s president, Gabriel Boric, spoke with considerable understatement, “Maduro’s regime must understand that the results are hard to believe. The international community and especially the Venezuelan people, including the millions of Venezuelans in exile, demand total transparency.”

Meanwhile, Maduro received congratulations from the leaders of Russia and Cuba, just in case any doubt remained about the legitimacy of the election or his posture toward the United States.

On Wednesday, a National Security Council spokesperson issued a moderately stronger statement in response to The Carter Center’s negative verdict. “Our patience, and that of the international community, is running out,” he said. “I’m waiting for the Venezuelan electoral [authority] to come clean and release the full detailed data on this election so that everyone can see the results.”

Meanwhile, America’s chief executive and diplomat, President Joe Biden, has yet to say anything publicly on the Venezuelan crisis. Biden made defending democracy a theme of his 2020 campaign and of his now-defunct 2024 campaign, and he has not hesitated to condemn what he perceives as attacks on democracy in the strongest language.

These facts present a question: why has President Biden not said anything publicly on the Venezuelan crisis? Here is an opportunity for America to reassert its leadership on the world stage by helping to resolve a foreign crisis and bolster the cause of democratic institutions and popular elections in our own backyard. Presidents may never know when such crises will arise, but they need a strong, steady hand of leadership when they do. At this moment of crisis, where is American leadership?

“This was a stolen election that merits an immediate, strong, and unequivocal response,” insisted the National Review editors. “Unfortunately, it does not look like one is on the way.”

Joshua Arnold is a senior writer at The Washington Stand.