Trump captured Nicolás Maduro. The right’s response has been to argue that the socialist left is effectively standing with a narco-dictator—one who presided over the ruin and displacement of millions of Venezuelans. The left, meanwhile, accuses the right of reverting to neocon instincts: oil, regime change, and unilateral force dressed up as justice.

I’m uneasy about all of this, and I want to approach it in good faith.

It’s possible—indeed necessary—to acknowledge that Maduro is a brutal and destructive figure while still caring about the rule of law. Venezuela remains a sovereign state. Sending forces to seize its sitting president, absent UN authorization or a declared state of war, cuts against one of the core norms of the international system: non-intervention. Heads of government are not ordinarily subject to arrest by foreign powers outside a lawful international process.

Ask a simple question: would we accept China doing this to a U.S. president it accused of crimes? If the answer is no, then legality—process, not merely outcome—matters.

The counterargument is familiar. Maduro is said to be illegitimate: he stole elections, governs as a narco-dictator, and therefore forfeited the protections of sovereignty. The U.S. has indicted him on drug trafficking and terrorism charges, framing the act as law enforcement rather than war. And there is no denying the immense suffering, repression, and displacement his regime has caused.

These claims carry moral force. But they are thin legal substitutes for internationally recognized authorization.

The harder question is the enduring one: what do you do when the law shields monsters, and breaking it feels like justice? History offers an uncomfortable answer. Once great powers normalize “exceptions,” those exceptions tend to grow—and sooner or later, they are used against people who are far less monstrous.

None of this suggests Maduro deserves sympathy or protection. It suggests that the method matters as much as the target. Cheering outcomes while dismissing process is how liberal orders erode—not all at once, but gradually, and then suddenly.