Caracas Chronicles

Venezuela, a country of strategic importance, has found itself embroiled in the same geopolitical storm as Ukraine, Iran, and Israel.

The MAGA movement began as a populist rebellion fueled by confidence—the belief that America could focus inward without abandoning greatness. But that movement has split. On one side stands the traditional right: pro-Western, skeptical of foreign entanglements, but still loyal to the idea that freedom and strength aren’t contradictions. On the other is something stranger, darker, and newer. What critics call the woke right.

The woke right mimics the emotional style of the woke left: moral outrage, purity tests, and identity performance. They don’t debate; they accuse. They don’t persuade; they police. 

In a near-perfect case of horseshoe theory, this faction views the world through the same oppressor-versus-victim lens as the left, only reversed. The woke right now casts America, the West, and often white conservatives as the “oppressed,” noble victims besieged by shadowy elites. It’s grievance politics — a movement that turned skepticism into nihilism.

After the assassination of Charlie Kirk—who, for all his controversies, served as a stabilizing bridge of the broad coalition—the guardrails came off. His death left a vacuum, and two versions of MAGA are colliding: one that still believes in Western strength, and another that doubts everything, even freedom itself. The rupture shows in every debate, from Ukraine and Iran to Israel and now Venezuela. Where Republicans once picked sides confidently, today certain characters tangle with conspiracies, anti-Semitism, and ideological purity tests that reward outrage over principle.

In his latest video on Venezuela, Tucker Carlson said the Machado-led opposition wasn’t conservative enough as opposed to Maduro’s bans on gay marriage, abortion and trans rights.

That divide now runs straight through the topic of Venezuela. For mainstream figures like Marco Rubio, the crisis tests America’s hemispheric resolve. Rubio views Venezuela as the head of the snake—a narco-dictatorship poisoning the region, funnelling drugs north, and serving as a proxy hub for China, Russia, and Iran. His doctrine isn’t about conquest but about deterrence—defending the hemisphere while helping a people who still believe in democracy. In his view, true America First means cutting off the cartels at the source, not pretending they don’t exist.

The woke right rejects all of it, for them Venezuela is just another “neocon scam,” proof that Washington can’t be trusted and that every action hides an oil contract, rhetoric indistinguishable from Code Pink. They mock the Venezuelan opposition as “globalist puppets,” accuse María Corina Machado of being a Western asset, and sneer at anyone who still uses words like freedom or democracy without irony. It’s imported cynicism, a recycled leftist narrative repackaged in conservative language, amplified by influencers who confuse suspicion for sophistication.

Tucker Carlson embodies that worldview. Once one of MAGA’s most influential voices, he’s become an oracle of resentment—praising Moscow, defending autocrats, blaming Israel, and mocking America’s institutions as if describing a foreign enemy. His message about Venezuela is middling: don’t believe it, don’t trust it. Whether ideology, ego, or foreign influence drives him, it is paralysis disguised as wisdom. And it wouldn’t be out of character if some of these “woke right” figures parroting what Maduro and Jorge Rodríguez routinely suggest—Laura Loomer or even Carlson— were being nudged, flattered, or even quietly encouraged by the very regime they excuse.

But Carlson goes beyond parroting chavista talking points. His framing of the Venezuela situation in his latest video on the subject included saying that the Venezuelan opposition—represented by Machado—wasn’t conservative enough, as opposed to Maduro, who’s against gay marriage, abortion, and trans rights. Of Machado’s support of gay marriage, he said it was not crazy to view this whole project as “globohomo.” Wow, comrade Carlson.

And man, the lines are blurry. The contradictions run so deep that even conspiratorial Alex Jones, once one of the loudest critics of the Iraq War from the right, now calls to “remove the Venezuelan dictatorship.” Up is down.

And while America’s right argues with itself, Venezuelans have done everything the Free World ever asked of them. María Corina Machado has built coalitions, won elections in impossible contexts, documented fraud and repression, and demanded change through civic courage, not violence. Her movement chose ballots over bullets, as the Norwegian Nobel Committee pointed out, and documentation over despair. That conviction earned her the Nobel Prize. Even when disqualified and threatened, she refused to abandon the democratic path. She’s done everything right. Not just politically, but morally.

Meanwhile, the U.S. military buildup near Venezuela continues. Special operations helicopters, carrier groups, and B-52s patrol the Caribbean. Washington insists the focus is narcotrafficking, but the pattern suggests something broader. If decisive action comes, MAGA will face its reckoning.

Venezuela’s best chance for freedom also happens to be in America’s best economic interest, but that doesn’t make it any less the correct thing to do. For nearly thirty years, Venezuela’s struggle has exposed the worst identitarian instincts of the global left. Let’s hope the right still stays true to itself—against identity politics, and the unshakable belief in the right of free people to govern themselves.