In response, the Trump administration has reportedly been considering levying a crippling sanction against the importation of Venezuela's number one export — oil.

What Maduro has done in Venezuela can reasonably be called a coup — a dismantling of the last vestiges of restraints on his power under that nation's constitution. Taking a page out of his mentor Hugo Chavez's book, he summoned a national referendum with the goal of neutering the country's legislative body, which is controlled by lawmakers opposed to his rule. Knowing that the opposition vote would be met with violence and that the vote was being rigged, Venezuelans protested by staying home.

In reality, Maduro — like Chavez before him — had relatively few limits on his power already. But like a modern Augustus Caesar, Chavez tried to maintain a cloak of legitimacy, leaving a shell of Venezuela's constitution intact. Maduro, having inherited the worst of the economic catastrophe wrought by Chavismo, has responded by doubling down on socialist economic policies, enforced by an increasingly blatant totalitarian police state.