Andrew Sage

Um, so a lot of left parties kind of reflexively defended Maduro, uh,

even as his repression and mismanagement just ramped up.

I will say that's fading.

You know, we were seeing this within Latin America.

First of all, there's kind of a generational divide, and some of the older generation of Latin American left, like Lula or like Petro, have not been overwhelmingly anti-Maduro, but have expressed skepticism about the electoral results.

But then there's a younger generation, such as Boric in Chile and Arevalo in Guatemala, who have been openly very critical.

Yeah.

And want to just not let him or his camp, so to speak, define what it means to be on the left.

And really the only countries that have unquestionably backed him at this point are Bolivia and Cuba, but also outside of the region, Russia, Iran, China.

So I think that...

we should ask ourselves, who do we think is a more credible arbiter of progressive values?

Is it Boric and Chile, or is it Putin?

Even the Communist Party of Venezuela no longer backs Maduro.

That's one of my favorite facts.

He has had their militants killed, allegedly as well.

It's not helpful to view the world in this

campus lens.

I think that if people, whether they identify as on the left or whatever, want to show solidarity, I think it should be with the Venezuelan people, which means listening to voices within civil society in Venezuela.

There are a lot of NGOs, there are a lot of labor unions, there are a lot of human rights advocates that are not opposition parties, that are not running for office, they're not necessarily calling for regime change, many of them very critical of sanctions, but they have...

tried to push for better changes, you know, quality of life, you know, reforms that might lead to less repression, open up more space for civil society.