Don’t Expect Student Protesters to Embrace Oppressed Venezuelans

Selective compassion seeks the “correct” kind of marginalized people

American college students brim with compassion for the oppressed people of the world.

Witness the protests and encampments in support of the Palestinian people. And the more expensive and elite the campus, the greater the compassion.

You’ll find a lot more protesting at Columbia, Brown, and Harvard than at their less prestigious counterparts.

Protests at high-profile universities can focus the world on the plight of marginalized people who might otherwise be ignored. They can generate political and financial support. 

And now, with a new school year upon us, all those middle and working class students at state schools and junior colleges have another opportunity to be tutored in compassion by our nation’s future senators and hedge funders. It’s time for Ivy League and Ivy-adjacent students to bust out their Sharpies and poster board and start cooking up some catchy new chants. That’s because a new humanitarian crisis demands their compassion. 

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The crisis affects a nation of about 30 million people as well as another 8 million who have fled their homeland in recent years. 

And the crisis features issues that animate America’s student protesters. 

Marginalized people

The citizens of this once prosperous Latin American nation have seen their economy shrivel by 80%, and hyperinflation has devoured workers’ paychecks. Last year nearly seven million people reported that they had run out of food. In recent years, desperate people have even resorted to eating zoo animals.

Citizens endure chronic shortages of food and other basic necessities while often facing waves of violent crime. Many of the most marginalized people come from indigenous and LGBTQ communities. 

Patriarchy

The nation had long been ruled by a male autocrat, who then handpicked his successor—another man—named Nicolás Maduro. The people rose up and backed a woman leader named María Corina Machado, but Maduro banned her from holding public office. Machado remains the leader of the opposition, and backed her ally Edmundo González to run for president. If González were to win, Machado would likely become the de facto leader of the nation.

Democracy

Recently, the nation held an election. Although exit polls show the opposition winning by a landslide, Maduro declared victory and moved to punish his political rivals. The attorney general recently announced he is investigating Machado and González for alleged “incitement to insurrection.” 

Fascism

Maduro controls the media, imprisons dissenters, and sics his gangs of thugs on anyone who dares to cross him. Today, Machado and González remain in hiding.

You might think the Venezuelan people’s struggle against Nicolás Maduro would be an easy sell at American universities. You might think the cause would transform campuses into seas of red, blue, and yellow. Unfortunately, we can be pretty sure that very little Sharpie ink will be spilled for these oppressed people. 

Here’s why.

The “Wrong” Kind of Oppressed People

Just like the previous tyrant (Hugo Chavez), the fascist dictator Nicolás Maduro actually happens to be a socialist. Yes, the differences between fascism and socialism remain vastly overblown, and Maduro blaming “international Zionism” for his nation’s unrest should bolster his fascist credentials. But in America these days the definition of facism doesn’t come with many specifics. It mainly refers to whatever the far left hates today.

Their professors have programmed college students to loathe fascism and explain away the human misery produced by socialism. And there’s just no getting around Maduro’s socialism: Repression. Price controls. Nationalizing industries. Playing Santa with printed money. He delivered the usual package. 

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But Maduro’s socialism isn’t the only reason why Venezuelans represent the “wrong” kind of oppressed people. 

Their leader, Maria Corina Machado, doesn’t get identity points for being a strong female leader or a woman in STEM (she’s an engineer). None of that matters because Machado is a dirty capitalist. Students might diagnose her with false consciousness or internalized misogyny, but the fact remains Machado isn’t down with their revolution. 

Finally, Maduro provided America’s college activists with yet another reason to sit out this protest. 

In the midst of the chaos of stealing an election, he found the time to call out the monoculture’s most hated billionaire—Elon Musk. During a televised speech, Maduro shot back at Musk who had accused the strongman of stealing the election. Maduro even challenged Musk to a fight, and of course Elon accepted.

“If I win, he resigns as dictator of Venezuela,” Musk said. “If he wins, I give him a free ride to Mars.”

Good luck getting Ivy League students to protest a Musk-hating anti-Zionist socialist who's fighting for his political life against a capitalist woman. 

So many of the world’s eight billion people are oppressed, yet student protesters’ compassion extends to only some of them. If the marginalized people of the world want the benefits that come from being a campus cause celebre, they need to understand that they have to be oppressed in a very specific way. 

Ted Balaker is a filmmaker, and former network newser and think tanker. His written work has appeared in many publications including The New York Times, USA Today, Reason, and The Washington Post. His recent film work includes Little Pink House starring Catherine Keener and Jeanne Tripplehorn, Can We Take a Joke? featuring Gilbert Gottfried and Penn Jillette, and the new feature documentary based on the bestselling book, The Coddling of the American Mind, by Greg Lukianoff and Jonathan Haidt. Stream the very first “Substack Presents” feature documentary here.