Join
us for the Corner Protest happening every Tuesday and Thursday from
3:15 to 5:15 PM at the southwest corner of Drake and College. We engage
positively and advocate for democracy, with the upcoming event on
January 8, 2026.
Join
us in Olympia with your protest signs and flags to participate in an
Overpass Bannering event aimed at making a visible statement. We'll
gather at Boulevard Rd SE / I-5 to stand up against political issues.
Olympia Indivisible, BackboneCampaign.org, TheBLOP.org
Monday, January 12, 2026
Olympia Visibility Brigade Overpass Bannering: Dark Mode
Tumwater, WA
Join
us for an overpass bannering event with the Olympia Visibility Brigade.
Bring warm clothing and a good mood as we gather on the Pedestrian
Bridge over I-5 in Tumwater to make good trouble.
We
invite everyone to join us with high-visibility protest signs and flags
to stand on the bridge and make a strong statement against attacks on
democracy.
Join
us for high-visibility protest signs and flags to make good trouble on
Chehalis Western Trail / I-5 in Lacey. Olympia Indivisible invites
participants to gather in support of democracy.
Join
us in Loveland for the Free America Walkout. We're gathering on January
20th to make our voices heard. Line up on Highway 34 going East and
West of Highway 287.
Overnight
on Friday, the US carried out airstrikes across Venezuela, with
explosions rocking the capital, Caracas, before dawn. Shortly
afterwards, Donald Trump announced that US forces had captured the
Venezuelan president, Nicolás Maduro, and his wife, Cilia Flores, and flown them out of the country.
The
US attorney general, Pam Bondi, said they would face trial in New York
on charges of involvement in narco-terrorism. A fresh indictment was
issued on Saturday.
Trump later posted a picture
on his Truth Social platform with the caption “Nicolas Maduro on board
the USS Iwo Jima”. Early on Sunday morning EST, a video posted on social
media by the White House appeared to show Maduro handcuffed and
escorted by agents at the US Drug Enforcement Administration offices.
Trump on Truth Social: ‘Nicolas Maduro on board the USS Iwo Jima’. Photograph: Donald Trump’s Truth Social account/AFP/Getty Images
The stunning attack and unprecedented capture of a sitting president follow months of an intense US pressure campaign against Venezuela.
Since September, the US navy has amassed a huge fleet off the
Venezuelan coast and carried out airstrikes against alleged drug
trafficking boats in the Caribbean and the Pacific and seized Venezuelan
oil tankers. At least 110 people have been killed in the strikes on
boats, which human rights groups say could amount to war crimes.
The attack was the largest, most direct US action in Latin America since the 1989 Panama invasion. The lightning operation stunned the international community, allies and adversaries of the US alike, which were taken aback by the brazen interference in a foreign country.
At
a Mar-a-Lago news conference, Trump said the US would “run the country”
until a leadership transition could take place, and that US oil
companies would go into Venezuela, bragging that “no nation in the world
could achieve what America achieved”.
The
future of Venezuela’s ruling regime remains uncertain. Despite Trump’s
statements that the US will decide the fate of the country, the
Venezuelan military appears to be in control of the country and its
military assets.
On Saturday, the country’s
supreme court ordered the vice-president, Delcy Rodríguez, to assume the
role of acting president to fill in for Maduro’s “temporary absence”.
Trump later said Rodríguez had offered her support to Washington,
observing: “She really doesn’t have a choice.”
The
US leader appeared to dismiss Venezuela’s democratic opposition, saying
the Nobel peace prize winner María Corina Machado did not have the
necessary “respect” and support to lead.
Rodríguez
has a strong leftist pedigree as the daughter of a Marxist guerrilla
who won fame for kidnapping an American businessman, but she is also a
French-educated technocrat who has forged links with Venezuela’s
economic elites, foreign investors and diplomats.
Caracas is bombarded by the US in the early hours. Photograph: AFP/Getty
How did we get here?
Since
Trump took office for his second term, he has put Maduro squarely in
his sights, pursuing a maximum pressure campaign against the Venezuelan
regime. He accused Maduro of being behind destabilising activity in the
Americas, including drug trafficking and illegal immigration to the US.
In July, the US announced a $50m (£37m) bounty on Maduro’s head,
accusing him of being one of the largest narco-traffickers in the world.
Trump’s
administration declared Venezuelan gangs such as Tren de Aragua as
terrorist organisations and began carrying out airstrikes against
alleged drug traffickers in the Caribbean Sea. Soon, the US began to
seize Venezuelan tankers and build up its military presence in the
waters surrounding the South American country.
Trump
has openly flirted with the idea of regime change in Venezuela. In late
November, Trump gave Maduro an ultimatum to relinquish power, offering
him safe passage out of the country. Maduro refused the offer, telling
supporters in Venezuela that he did not want “a slave’s peace” and
accusing the US of wanting control of his country’s oil reserves.
As
the Trump administration ratcheted up the pressure, the government in
Caracas at times seemed bewildered. Maduro repeatedly said Venezuela did
not want war with the US, at one point dancing in front of Venezuelan
students to the lyrics “no war, yes peace” and mimicking Trump’s
double-fist pumping dance move.
Trump was
reportedly not amused, and the dancing is said to have contributed to
the decision to remove him from power. On Thursday, two days before his
capture, Maduro said in a televised interview he would welcome US
investment in the country’s oil sector.
A
newly unsealed US justice department indictment accuses Maduro of
running a “corrupt, illegitimate government” fuelled by an extensive
drug trafficking operation that flooded the US with thousands of tonnes
of cocaine.
People ride on a motorbike next to military vehicles at the border between Venezuela and Colombia after the US strikes. Photograph: Luisa González/Reuters
Why are the US and Venezuela at odds?
Relations
between the US and Venezuela have been strained since Hugo Chávez
became Venezuela’s president in 1999. A self-professed socialist and
anti-imperialist, Chávez angered the US in his opposition to its
invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, as well as his alliances with
countries such as Cuba and Iran. Relations further spiralled after
Chávez accused the US of backing a 2002 coup attempt.
To
many in the US, particularly in the more hawkish wing of the Republican
party, the socialist ideological orientation of Venezuela’s government
has made it a natural adversary of the US, alongside its ally Cuba.
As
Chávez consolidated power, punished political opponents and
expropriated much of the country’s private sector, the US condemned
Venezuela for its poor human rights record. Despite occasional minor
thaws in relations between the two countries over the years, the
relationship has continued to deteriorate, especially after Maduro took
power in 2013.
Under the Trump administration, the US has portrayed the Maduro
government as illegitimate, recognising Juan Guaidó, the speaker of the
parliament, as Venezuela’s president in 2019.
In
July 2024, Maduro appeared to suffer a landslide defeat in the
presidential election, amid widespread anger at his increasingly
authoritarian rule and Venezuela’s economic collapse. The Biden
administration recognised the opposition candidate Edmundo González as
the victor. Detailed voting data released by the opposition and verified
by independent experts indicated that González won the vote, but Maduro
clung to power after launching a ferocious crackdown.
In early December, the Trump administration published what it called the “Trump corollary”,
which said the western hemisphere must be controlled by the US
politically, economically, commercially and militarily. As part of the
new Trump doctrine, the US military can be used to gain access to energy
and mineral resources in the area.
During a
press conference hours after the capture of Maduro, Trump invoked the
19th-century Monroe doctrine, which was used to assert US military power
in Latin America. Dubbing it the “Don-Roe doctrine”, he said: “American
dominance in the western hemisphere will never be questioned again.”
A supporter of Nicolás Maduro holds a Venezuelan flag near Miraflores palace. Photograph: Leonardo Fernández Viloria/Reuters
Who is Nicolás Maduro and why did Trump capture him?
Maduro has been the president of Venezuela since 2013. The former bus driver
rose to prominence under Chávez, working as his minister of foreign
affairs, before becoming the country’s president after Chávez’s death.
Maduro’s
rule is considered dictatorial, with the UN estimating in 2019 that
more than 20,000 Venezuelans were killed in extrajudicial executions.
Key institutions such as the judiciary have been eroded under Maduro and
the rule of law has deteriorated.
Over recent
months, Trump has repeatedly called for the ousting of Maduro, accusing
him of sending drugs and criminals into the US – a claim experts have
said lacks evidence. He also claimed that Maduro was stealing US oil.
Despite
months of escalating rhetoric, Saturday’s capture of the sitting
president arrived without warning and Venezuelan authorities seemed to
have been caught off guard by the brazen operation.
At
least 40 people, including civilians and soldiers, were killed in
Saturday’s attack, the New York Times reported, citing a senior
Venezuelan official.
Destroyed vehicles at La Carlota military airbase in Caracas. Photograph: Leonardo Fernández Viloria/Reuters
What happens next?
The
future is uncertain. Venezuela’s defence minister has vowed to fight on
and has called on citizens to unite to resist the foreign “invasion”,
calling resistance to the US a “fight for freedom”.
Though Maduro has been captured, Venezuela’s institutions and military
appear to be intact. It is unclear if Saturday’s attack on Venezuela was
the beginning of a wider conflict or a one-off operation, as Trump said
the US retained the right to mount further military operations in the
country.
What is clear is that the US is
determined to play a large role in Venezuela, through the use of
military force or otherwise. Trump said on Saturday that the US would be
making decisions on what was next for Venezuela. “We can’t take a
chance in letting somebody else run and just take over what he left, or
left off,” Trump said.
It was unclear what
exactly Trump meant when he said the US would run Venezuela, as there
were no signs that the US had taken over the capital and Venezuelan
soldiers remained at their posts at military bases across the country.
Trump did not rule out US military boots on the ground but said
Venezuelan officials were agreeable to his demands – a sharp contrast to
the defiant statements of officials in the hours after Maduro’s
capture.
The US has in the past carried out war games
to simulate a scenario where Venezuelan leadership was “decapitated”.
The simulations predicted prolonged chaos, with refugees pouring out of
Venezuela and rival groups fighting one another for control of the
country.
“You’d have prolonged chaos … with no clear way out,” said Douglas Farah, a Latin America expert who helped run the war games.
Colombia has mobilised its armed forces and expressed concerns about a potential influx of refugees.
