For over two decades, Venezuela has been trapped in a slow-motion collapse — economic, social and democratic.

Nicolás Maduro’s regime is a totalitarian criminal enterprise wrapped in the tattered veil of electoral legitimacy. It steals elections, jails opponents and siphons national wealth while leaving millions to scavenge for food, medicine, and basic dignity.

Like a narcissistic child clinging to lies, it blames everyone else for the disasters it alone has caused. There is no pretense left: The regime neither respects the will of the people nor fears it.

Yet what makes the Venezuelan tragedy more painful is the long, failed experiment of peaceful opposition. For 20 years, exiled and domestic leaders urged their people to trust the vote, to queue at polling stations despite knowing the outcome was predetermined.

Their insistence on a democratic solution, in theory noble, became an alibi for paralysis. They had no Plan B. No contingency. No strategy beyond hoping the regime would one day crumble under its own weight, or the United States would intervene.

Last July, that illusion died. The farce of free elections was exposed again, and this time the population responded with resignation, not outrage.

The opposition fractured even further. Some dropped out of the fight altogether; others slipped into a dangerous neutrality. A few even found accommodation with the regime,........

© The Hill