• Monthly Review
  • Monthly Review Press
  • Climate & Capitalism
  • Money on the Left
  • Twitter
  • Instagram
  • YouTube
  • Mastadon
MR Online
  • Home
  • About
  • Contact/Submission
  • Browse
    • Recent Articles Archive
    • by Subject
      • Ecology
      • Education
      • Imperialism
      • Inequality
      • Labor
      • Literature
      • Marxism
      • Movements
      • Philosophy
      • Political Economy
    • by Region
      • Africa
      • Americas
      • Asia
      • Australasia
      • Europe
      • Global
      • Middle East
    • by Category
      • Art
      • Commentary
      • Interview
      • Letter
      • News
      • Newswire
  • Monthly Review Essays
 | Madhuri Shukla USA Wring 2020 | MR Online

We don’t listen to the dying Government of Donald Trump: The Fiftieth Newsletter (2020)

By Vijay Prashad (Posted Dec 11, 2020)

Originally published: Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research on December 10, 2020 (more by Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research)  |
Culture, Movements, Socialism, StrategyVenezuelaNewswireNational Assembly, President Nicolas Maduro, Tricontinental Newsletter

Dear friends,

Greetings from the desk of the Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research.

Daniela Ruggeri  Tricontinental Institute for Social Research Argentina Hybrid Wars 2020

Daniela Ruggeri / Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research (Argentina), Hybrid Wars, 2020

The night before the National Assembly elections in Venezuela, President Nicolás Maduro spoke to a group of visitors at Miraflores Palace in Caracas. He recounted how he had been a member of the Constituent Assembly, which was formed in 1999 and set up the legal framework for Venezuela’s political system. Maduro told the visitors that he had been a member of the National Assembly during its first and second terms (2000-2005 and 2005-2010 respectively), and he was the president of the National Assembly during its second term before being asked to take on the post of foreign minister. During the election of the National Assembly’s fourth term (2015-2020), the Socialist Unity Party of Venezuela (PSUV), which he leads, lost the majority in the National Assembly ‘because we made mistakes’, he told me. ‘Let’s be clear’.

When the fourth National Assembly took its seat in Caracas, it was used by the United States government and a section of the Venezuelan right wing in their attempt to overthrow the government of Maduro and the Bolivarian Revolution. From within the National Assembly, the U.S. government and the most extreme elements of the Venezuelan opposition plucked out an obscure politician, Juan Guaidó, and selected him as their instrument to delegitimise the politics of Venezuela. The U.S. State Department bizarrely appointed Guaidó as the president of Venezuela, his authority almost entirely derived from the pronouncements of U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. All attempts to overthrow the government of President Maduro failed, although the U.S. escalation of sanctions and the forced seizure of more Venezuelan assets outside the country have taken a severe toll on the people of Venezuela and on the country’s ability to fully exercise its sovereignty.

César Mosquera  Utopix Venezuela War Media 2020

César Mosquera / Utopix (Venezuela), War Media, 2020

According to the Venezuelan Constitution, the fourth National Assembly’s term lapsed in December 2020, which means an election had to be held to seat the fifth National Assembly. This election was held on 6 December. Shortly before the election, I met with a series of political leaders in Caracas who oppose the government of President Maduro and contested the National Assembly election against the PSUV candidates. ‘We are the invisible opposition’, said Pedro José Rojas, a leader of Acción Democrática (AD), which, alongside the Comité de Organización Política Electoral Independiente (COPEI), form the partidocracia or the old political establishment. These parties are against the government, but not against the political system and are not in favour of the extreme opposition of Guaidó or the U.S. attempt at regime change.

The U.S. unilateral sanctions, Rojas said, ‘have had a devastating impact for the Venezuelan people. They have not fulfilled what they are supposed to do’; namely to conduct regime change by the range of hybrid war techniques employed by the U.S. government against Venezuela since the election of Hugo Chávez in 1998. Juan Carlos Alvarado, a leader of COPEI, said that ‘the blockade has had a terrible impact on the country’. In fact, the entirety of the opposition that is participating in the elections and that believes that the democratic way is the only way forward say that in 2021 they would like to work with the President to set up a commission to investigate the harsh impact of these U.S. sanctions on all Venezuelan people.

Anonymous Hong Kong China Foreign Interference in Hong Kong 2020

Anonymous (Hong Kong, China), Foreign Interference in Hong Kong, 2020

Guaidó and the extreme, undemocratic opposition–alongside the U.S. government and the European Union–had argued long before the election that the 6 December election was fraudulent; after the election, both the US and the European Union offered stale statements of condemnation. The U.S. State Department has on several occasions interfered in the election by sanctioning the officials in the National Electoral Council (CNE), including its president, by sanctioning opposition candidates, and by shaping a storyline that focused on unproven allegations of fraud. Opposition politicians such as Bruno Gallo (Avanzada Progresista) and Timoteo Zambrano (Cambiemos) told me that there is no fraud in this election, but only the normal irregularities (such as, they said, that the state media favours the incumbent; although private media favours the opposition). Gallo told me that he had spent ten years looking closely at the CNE for fraud, with the intent to undermine it, but could not find any evidence of sustained fraud. This is a fair election, they said, as far as elections go.

The result came in by nightfall: the PSUV won a majority of the seats, although both the right-wing and left-wing opposition earned a third of the votes. On a lovely December day in Caracas, more than five million people came to polling centres across the country to cast their ballots. The turnout–near 32%–is about average for a non-presidential election, particularly due to the pandemic, the shortages of fuel (which hamper transportation), and the atmosphere of fear created by the extreme right-wing calls for boycotts. In comparison, an election in Romania on the same day saw a turnout of 30% and the municipal election in Costa Rica in February this year saw 34% of the electorate come to vote. There was no violence in the country, nor were there any serious complaints of fraud to the CNE. The morning after the election, Venezuela’s foreign minister Jorge Arreaza said of the election campaign and voting that Venezuela has completed a ‘peaceful journey where democracy triumphed and where the Venezuelan people triumphed’.

Gabriel Martínez and Sonia Díaz  Un Mundo Feliz Spain Hybrid War Economy 2020

Gabriel Martínez and Sonia Díaz / Un Mundo Feliz (Spain), Hybrid War Economy, 2020

Since the election campaign run by a popular movement led by Hugo Chávez in 1998, the United States and its allies have waged a hybrid war against the possibility of a different future for Venezuela and for Latin America. The term ‘hybrid war’ is a key concept of our work at Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research, since it has helped focus our attention on the many new forms of warfare used by the United States and its allies against anyone who challenges U.S. authority. Our Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research dossier for January 2021 will provide a conjunctural analysis of the world situation and properly develop the concept of hybrid war.

Rather than conduct a frontal military attack against its adversaries, the U.S. has gone to war along axes such as diplomacy, communications, trade, and commerce. For instance, the control of U.S. media organisations to shape the narrative of world affairs has been used as a weapon against U.S. adversaries such as Venezuela, whose government is described by this media as a ‘regime’ and not a ‘government’, and whose struggles in a complex world are blamed entirely on government policy or ‘corruption’ rather than on the impact of colonialism, the intensification of inequalities by the capitalist world system, and the harsh attack by the imperialist powers–including the sanctions regime.

As part of this information war, a front of the hybrid war, it is important for the U.S. and the European Union to delegitimise Venezuela’s political culture and to therefore reject this election; the statements released by the European Union and the U.S. were probably written days before the actual election, because they do not reflect at all the events that took place on 6 December. The European Union did not send observers to Venezuela, and therefore based their own statement on their prejudices rather than on credible reports from the ground. I was an electoral observer for the CNE and would like to say–in my personal and professional opinion–that I saw no evidence of fraud in the election; this was also the view of the opposition leaders who told me categorically that they did not believe that there was any fraud in the election.

Jorge Luis Rodríguez Aguilar Cuba Hybrid War 2020

Jorge Luis Rodríguez-Aguilar (Cuba), Hybrid War, 2020

Hybrid war takes on many forms, and none of them are easy to visualise. In this fourth and final Anti-Imperialist Poster Exhibition: Hybrid War, 39 artists from 18 countries contributed posters that help give visual expression to this defining concept of our times. This exhibition was launched on 3 December in solidarity with the people of Venezuela in the lead up to the National Assembly election. It looks at how the U.S.-led hybrid war manifests itself from Venezuela to India, from Cuba to China to Brazil and beyond. These posters are a living testimony to people’s struggles against imperialism.

On the night before the election, President Maduro said that the Venezuelan people expected that the U.S. would deny the validity of the election and prevent the Venezuelan political representatives from forwarding an agenda needed to solve the grave problems that the Venezuelan people face. ‘The U.S. said that they do not accept the results of the elections a long time before the elections took place’, Maduro told me at Miraflores. ‘We don’t listen to the dying government of Donald Trump’.

The new National Assembly will take its seat on 5 January, fifteen days before the transfer of power in the United States (where Trump also alleged fraud). The US, Maduro said, ‘does not decide what we do in Venezuela’. This is true politically, but because of the U.S. control over information and economic activity through control over parts of the financial system and through payment reconciliation systems, the U.S. does constrain the possibility of Venezuela to act on behalf of its people. Hugo Chávez used to say ‘viviremos y venceremos’–we will live, and we will overcome. That is the sentiment inside Venezuela across the various political lines; it is what gives hope to people.

Warmly,

Vijay.

Monthly Review does not necessarily adhere to all of the views conveyed in articles republished at MR Online. Our goal is to share a variety of left perspectives that we think our readers will find interesting or useful. —Eds.

About Vijay Prashad

Vijay Prashad is an Indian historian, editor, and journalist. He is a writing fellow and chief correspondent at Globetrotter. He is an editor of LeftWord Books and the director of Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research. He is a senior non-resident fellow at Chongyang Institute for Financial Studies, Renmin University of China. He has written more than 20 books, including The Darker Nations and The Poorer Nations. His latest books are Struggle Makes Us Human: Learning from Movements for Socialism and (with Noam Chomsky) The Withdrawal: Iraq, Libya, Afghanistan, and the Fragility of U.S. Power.
National Assembly President Nicolas Maduro Tricontinental Newsletter
Silencing Black radicalism since the Cold War
Marx didn’t invent socialism, nor did he discover it
  • Also by Vijay Prashad

    • A language of blood has gripped our world: The Twentieth Newsletter (2025) by Vijay Prashad May 16, 2025
    • Vietnam celebrates 50 years of the end of its colonial period by Vijay Prashad May 15, 2025
    • They are making Venezuela’s economy scream: The Eighteenth Newsletter (2025) by Vijay Prashad May 02, 2025
    • Two hundred years ago, France strangled the Haitian Revolution with an inhumane debt: The Seventeenth Newsletter (2025) by Vijay Prashad April 28, 2025
  • Also By Vijay Prashad in Monthly Review Magazine

    • The Actuality of Red Africa June 01, 2024
    • Africa Is on the Move May 01, 2022
    • Preface January 01, 2022
    • Introduction January 01, 2022
    • Quid Pro Quo? October 01, 2011
    • Reclaim the Neighborhood, Change the World December 01, 2007
    • Kathy Kelly’s Chispa December 01, 2005

    Books By Vijay Prashad

    • Washington’s New Cold War: A Socialist Perspective November 15, 2022
    • Washington Bullets: A History of the CIA, Coups, and Assassinations September 16, 2020

    Monthly Review Essays

    • US Imperialism in Crisis: Opportunities and Challenges to a Global Community with a Shared Future
      Sam-Kee Cheng  | A late 1940s Soviet poster showing a US military service member lounging on top of a German factory smoking a cigar The text beneath reads DER DOLLARIMPERIALISMUS dollar imperialism | MR Online

      1. Introduction The predominance of US economic, political and military power in the world was established at the end of the Second World War.1 With just 6.3 percent of global population, the United States held about 50 percent of the world wealth in 1948. As the only power which had used nuclear weapons on civilian […]

    Lost & Found

    • Journalism, democracy, … and class struggle
      Robert W. McChesney  | Bob McChesney on Saving Journalism | MR Online

      Our job is to make media reform part of our broader struggle for democracy, social justice, and, dare we say it, socialism.

    Trending

    • Wood gavel and open handcuffs symbolizing freeing judge decisions
      High Court opens door to police accountability
    • President Maduro was unscathed from the attack (Hugoshi)
      ‘Neoliberal and authoritarian’? A simplistic analysis of the Maduro government that leaves much unsaid
    • Boat house on Cameron Island on Lake Joseph in Muskoka
      The supply and demand myth of housing
    • South African President Cyril Ramaphosa / French President Emmanuel Macron
      The Colonial past haunts French Military operations in Africa
    • This series of photos was shared on the official Instagram account of the U.S. government-operated Voice of America - Africa radio network on Feb. 15, 2025, with the caption: "White South Africans gathered outside the U.S. embassy in Pretoria...to show their support for U.S. President Donald Trump after he criticized what he terms 'unjust' treatment of White South Africans." | Photos via @voaafrica on Instagram
      Afrikaner ‘refugee’ arrival is latest tactic in Trump’s South Africa destabilization campaign
    • Floyd
      People get ready: Protest on the anniversary of George Floyd’s murder
    • Aerial view of Santa Rita strip copper mine near Silver City, NM
      Donald Trump’s feverish lust for green energy resources
    • Secretary Marco Rubio departs Instanbul, Türkiye May 16, 2025. (Official State Department photo by Freddie Everett)
      Under Trump, NED to continue weaponizing “democracy” in Venezuela, Nicaragua and Cuba
    • Dahlia Abdelilah Baasher (Sudan), Untitled, n.d.
      A language of blood has gripped our world: The Twentieth Newsletter (2025)
    • Speaker of the House Mike Johnson (Republican-Louisiana) speaking as President Trump listens. [AP Photo/Wilfredo Lee]
      Republicans move forward with plan to cut an estimated $715 billion in Medicaid funding

    Popular (last 30 days)

    • Langley/Burkina Faso
      The U.S./EU/NATO’s Regime change playbook for Burkina Faso and Captain Ibrahim Traoré
    • Cpt. Ibrahim Traoré
      The rising star of Cpt. Ibrahim Traore – Burkina Faso’s spirit of Sankara
    • Tump and Putin
      Russia rejects Trump’s freeze of the war in Ukraine
    • Trump's Tariffs: Economic Warfare or Winning Strategy?
      The Trump Tariffs and the U.S. Labor Movement
    • Why does the US support Israel?
      Why does the U.S. support Israel? A geopolitical analysis with economist Michael Hudson
    • Wood gavel and open handcuffs symbolizing freeing judge decisions
      High Court opens door to police accountability
    • BAP demonstration in Washington DC gathered outside the Embassy of Burkina Faso, in defense of the Alliance for Sahel States, October 2024.
      Now is the time for all anti-imperialists and all justice loving people to stand unequivocally in defense of Burkina Faso
    • Karl Marx
      Marx’s ontology: A clarification
    • Karl Marx
      150 years since the Critique of the Gotha Programme
    • President Maduro was unscathed from the attack (Hugoshi)
      ‘Neoliberal and authoritarian’? A simplistic analysis of the Maduro government that leaves much unsaid

    RSS MR Press News

    • EXCERPT: Colonial dreams, racist nightmares, liberated futures (from the introduction to A Land With A People) May 19, 2025
    • LISTEN: Erald Kolasi on the podcast ‘Real Progressives’ (The Physics of Capitalism) May 19, 2025
    • On the brilliant Bob McChesney April 21, 2025
    • Andy Merrifield, author of Roses for Gramsci, at The Marxist Education Project April 20, 2025
    • NEW! ROSES FOR GRAMSCI by Andy Merrifield (EXCERPT) April 7, 2025

    RSS Climate & Capitalism

    • Ecosocialist Bookshelf, May 2025 May 19, 2025
    • Humans have observed less than 0.001% of the deep seafloor May 8, 2025
    • Ecosocialist Bookshelf, April 2025 April 10, 2025
    • Against the Crisis: Economy and Ecology in a Burning World April 2, 2025
    • Will Mpox be the next global threat to human health? April 2, 2025

     

    RSS Monthly Review

    • May 2025 (Volume 77, Number 1) May 1, 2025 The Editors
    • The MAGA Ideology and the Trump Regime May 1, 2025 John Bellamy Foster
    • Neoliberalism and Neofascism May 1, 2025 Robert W. McChesney
    • Decolonization and Its Discontents May 1, 2025 Pranay Somayajula
    • China’s “Triple Revolution Theory” and Marxist Analysis May 1, 2025 Cheng Enfu

    This work is licensed under a Creative Commons
    Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

    Creative Commons License

    Monthly Review Foundation
    134 W 29TH ST STE 706
    New York NY 10001-5304

    Tel: 212-691-2555