Maduro’s capture exposes an ugly alignment between Democrats and dictators From Caracas to Beijing, shared power interests explain the outrage

 

Democrats radical liberal policies and the United States of America illustration by Alexander Hunter/The Washington Times

Maduro’s capture exposes an ugly alignment between Democrats and dictators

From Caracas to Beijing, shared power interests explain the outrage

https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2026/jan/11/maduros-capture-exposes-ugly-alignment-democrats-dictators/

By Edward Haugland - Sunday, January 11, 2026

OPINION:

Who would not applaud the capture of a narco-terrorist drug kingpin directly complicit 

in the murders of 400,000 Americans? Unfortunately, many. 

One would expect fellow dictators of the now-jailed Nicolas Maduro, such as Russia’s Vladimir Putin and China’s Xi Jinping, to condemn such action. After all, they have invested a lot of money in Venezuela and hate to see fellow dictators fall, as it could set off a domino effect. We also have seen Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Mexico, Spain and Uruguay (all of which are run by either socialists or narco leaders) issuing a joint statement condemning Mr. Maduro’s arrest. Birds of a feather?

Given the 27 years of dictators running Venezuela, one would not expect any U.S. elected official to condemn Mr. Maduro’s arrest. Yet Democrats and a few so-called Republicans did despite Mr. Maduro’s trafficking of drugs that were directly responsible for the murders of nearly half a million Americans and advancing the dominance of China and Russia in America’s backyard.

Democrats have a clear alignment of values, intent and objectives with the dystopian dictators: a quest for absolute power. Naive Republicans think the dissent is because of Trump derangement syndrome. No, it’s because of their like objective to obtain and maintain absolute power in an ongoing cognitive war, a set of battles we are losing to influence the human mind.

If we pay attention to history, the Democrats’ alignment with dictators has been obvious. Democratic presidents enabled not one but two Russian invasions of Ukraine. President Biden removed the heavy sanctions Mr. Trump had placed on the Maduro regime.

Mr. Biden and his son traded U.S. prestige and access with China, Russia and Ukraine for millions of dollars via autopen. Presidents Obama and Biden, via the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, removed massive sanctions on Iran placed by Mr. Trump and returned $100 billion to the terrorist regime that was used to fund Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, terrorist attacks on Israel.

Under the Green New Deal scam, Mr. Biden sent billions of taxpayer dollars to China for solar panels and wind farms while he, like Mr. Obama before him, destroyed U.S. energy independence.

Yes, the dictators in Iran, Russia, Venezuela and China benefited greatly with the Democrats in power. Under them, Americans lost civil and constitutional rights, were censored and canceled, debanked, imprisoned and illegally spied on. Democrats destroyed many innocent people via lawfare. They weaponized the government and national security elements to conduct a false Russian dossier coup and two impeachments while enabling more than 1 million people to illegally enter the U.S.

Democrats rolled out the red carpet for China, Russia, Iran, Venezuela and others to send us their illegals, drugs, felons, narco-terrorist gangs and radical Islamists. The dictators of the world could not have asked for a better partner than the Democratic Party.

The Democrats’ actions have a nexus and purpose that may not be readily apparent when viewed by event. When taken as a whole, however, their actions, policies and narratives tell an alarming story and show a pattern of alignment between Democrats and dictators. I have captured these patterns on these very pages in previous commentary pieces (“The Democrat’s blood revolution,” the “Radical left Democrats’ terror-influencing strategy revealed” and the “Radical left borrowed playbook from Soviet Union”).

The alignment of values, intent and objectives between Democrats and dictators is clear: It’s a quest for absolute power. It’s the reason we see a majority of Democrats objecting to the arrest of Mr. Maduro. These include the socialist new mayor of New York City, Zohran Mamdani, resident congressional Somali Rep. Ilhan Omar of Minnesota (by the way, why is she not in violation of the Foreign Agents Registration Act?), the champion of fraud himself, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, the illegal-constituent representatives of the year, Sen. Chris Van Hollen of Maryland and Sen. Ruben Gallego of Arizona.

How rich that they protest the arrest of Mr. Maduro as illegal when all helped enable the massive illegal invasion of this country and continue to turn a blind eye to felons and fraud.

Americans must understand that the path Democrats are taking this country down is the very same path Hugo Chavez and Nicolas Maduro took a once-prosperous country, destroying economic and independent freedom nearly three decades ago. No, this is not Trump derangement syndrome; this is a deliberate, well-thought-out strategy by Democrats using the same tactics of prior dictators over centuries.

Mr. Trump has said the U.S. will run Venezuela for the time being. He also said that if not for his election in 2024, America would have become another Venezuela. Given the Democrats’ past two decades of governance and the path to tyranny we were on, I don’t see how anyone could disagree.

Do we end up with one Venezuela or two? President Trump is fixing one, Democrats are creating another. Let’s make sure the latter do not succeed.

• Edward Haugland is the author of “The Cognitive War” and a leading national expert in this field. He is an award-winning CIA analyst and retired Defense Department intelligence executive, as well as a U.S. Air Force veteran, with more than four decades of service in national security across multiple executive branch departments and agencies.