WELL PAST TIME: It’s Time for a Coup in Venezuela.

Nearly two decades of creeping authoritarianism and large-scale economic mismanagement have taken a staggering toll on Venezuelans. Moreover, with reports of low voter turnout in an otherwise stage-managed electoral process and rising military dissension, clearly the Maduro regime is “taking on water,” as Juan Cruz, the National Security Council’s senior director for Western Hemisphere affairs, said in May at a panel discussion hosted by the Council of the Americas.

But if time is running out, it’s less clear exactly for whom: the Maduro regime or those struggling for a restoration of democracy in that benighted country? After all, Cuba — which serves as Maduro’s ideological mentor — has demonstrated that a strategy of forcing out the discontented and subjugating the rest, while muddling along with a dysfunctional economy, can sustain an authoritarian regime for decades.

The question thus becomes, as the New York Times editorial board wrote, “how to get rid of Mr. Maduro before he completes the destruction of his country.”

A coup, as nasty as that would be, would almost certainly be an improvement. But unless it comes with a complete denunciation of “Bolivarian Socialism” and an expose of Chavez, Maduro, and even the military’s political and economic crimes, Venezuela will be right back here someday.