Representative Jamie Raskin (D., Md.) fired off a post on X Friday in which he characterized socialist Venezuelan dictator Nicolas Maduro as “right-wing” a day after the United States recognized opposition candidate Edmundo González as the rightful winner of Venezuela’s presidential election.
“The democratic world must stand up for the rule of law in Venezuela and oppose Maduro’s assault on the electoral process and free speech,” Raskin wrote. “The right-wing attack on democratic institutions anywhere is a threat to freedom everywhere.”
Maduro has indeed subverted the electoral process and cracked down on dissent. But it was Raskin’s claim that the avowed Marxist is “right-wing” that made him the butt of countless jokes on the social-media platform.
National Review‘s Dan McLaughlin, after seeing Raskin’s post, wrote, “Oh, those right-wing [checks notes] socialists,” later arguing that Raskin understands Maduro’s political leanings but “thinks his followers are gullible fools.”
Jonah Goldberg of the Dispatch agreed, saying he does not “think Raskin is this dumb or ignorant” but that “his Takoma Park constituency probably cannot abide him telling the plain truth,” calling the post “MTG level pandering.”
The Maryland congressman’s father, Marcus Raskin, co-founded the far-left Institute for Policy Studies, a think tank that counts among its scholars Cambodian Genocide denier Noam Chomsky and includes on its board Noura Erakat, an assistant professor at Rutgers University who celebrated Hamas’s October 7 attack against Israel and claimed “any shock in response to this multi scalar attack reflects an expectation that those Palestinians die quietly and a complicity in their strangulation.”
Marcus Raskin was also indicted — though later acquitted — on charges of conspiracy to aid resistance to the draft over his encouragement of draft-dodging during the Vietnam War.
Commentary editor John Podhoretz contended that Raskin’s claim that Maduro is on the political right, “given that [he is] the actual son of a Communist-adjacent intellectual disgrace” amounts to “genuine demagoguery.”
A few others noted Raskin’s family history in conjunction with his denial of Maduro’s Marxism, including the Hudson Institute’s Ezra Cohen.
“This is an extremely bizarre take,” Cohen wrote. “By all accounts Raskin is an intelligent individual, even if hard left. I guess it’s difficult for Raskin to accept that his fellow Marxist is a murderous narco trafficking autocrat, thus the cognitive dissonance.”
Steve McGuire of the American Council of Trustees and Alumni pointed out that Raskin “sounds just like Maduro;” the dictator accused Venezuelan opposition of being a “violent, fascist, and criminal counterrevolution.”
Townhall columnist Kurt Schlichter asked for evidence of Maduro’s “right-wing” status, saying he will “believe Maduro is right-wing when he starts throwing communists out of helicopters” in reference to former Chilean leader Augusto Pinochet.
While most who responded to Raskin’s post took issue with his framing of Maduro as a man of the Right, Spectator contributing editor Stephen Miller reminded his followers of Raskin’s decision to debate certification of former president Donald Trump’s victory in the 2016 election “to raise concerns about voter suppression” and bemoan the electoral college.
“Jamie Raskin stood up in protest of certification of the 2016 election,” Miller wrote in a post on X, while Senator Tommy Tuberville (R., Ala.) said that “the left is the very thing they accuse the right of.”
The Manhattan Institute’s Ilya Shapiro responded to Raskin’s post with one thought likely shared by many who read the congressman’s claims: “Uhhhhh.”