As the United States faces increasing questions about the legality of its military pressure on Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro, this week seizing an oil tanker off the Venezuelan coast, Venezuelans inside the South American nation are more focused on personal survival.

On a spotty video call from her modest tin-roofed home in Caracas, Venezuela, a grandmother describes how her routines have “completely deteriorated” in recent years. The cost of food and transportation are increasingly out of reach for the seamstress, who is being identified by her initials, A.C., for her security. Her siblings and children pitch in to keep the lights, internet, and gas on.

And ever since the introduction of a government telephone application that Mr. Maduro says allows citizens to report “24 hours a day

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