You clearly haven't spoken to very many Venezuelans, have you? I have lots of extended family there, and I can assure you, they don't support Maduro. The only people that still do, are either being bribed or extorted.

There aren't very many "true Chavistas" left. And the ones that are still there, also don't unanimously support Maduro. Chavez was inspirational. Maduro is just incompetent.

My bad I didn't know you knew a statistically significant portion of venezuelans of a random array of educational, economic, and cultural backgrounds. This is for real the first time some gringo tells me they know a Russian/Venezuelan/Cuban/Chinese/whatever somebody (making them basically an authority on the subject).

I guess the sanctions that were designed precisely for the purpose of causing unrest have nothing to do with the people desperate or angry enough to go to those Nazi-ass countries being very dissatisfied with the situation at home. What a fucking revelation, I'm telling you.

Dude. Venezuelans know enough about their own country's political climate to know when things are not as they seem. This is especially true when 2/3rds of the country voted against him in the last election. It's pretty hard to gaslight that many people, all at once. If it was "close", people wouldn't all be looking around at each other saying, "What the fuck just happened?"

And if you want to talk about how bad the sanctions are, maybe explain why everything Maduro does in response to those sanctions, actually makes things worse for regular Venezuelans? Every policy he puts in place, makes it even harder for people to buy things, or to save money, or even just to find work.

You tell me. What do you know about what people are going through there? I don't know anyone who thinks what Maduro has done, has made anything better for them. He's had over ten years to make some kind of progress...but all he's done is abandon all the policies that actually helped people, and implement new ones punishing people just for trying to get by on their own.

You saved that drivel on your phone as if it were useful for anything other than smoking gun proof you're a dope?

First off the entire premise of your argument is fucking stupid. He's a bad leader? Oh well! Not your fucking problem! He's the democratically elected leader of that country so fuck off.

But even allowing your hitleresque premise that you should be allowed to murder tens or hundreds of thousands of people because they voted wrong, your arguments are as stupid as a New York Times article and for the exact same reasons. Just taking a sample from the middle:

Reality: Economists and international organizations primarily attribute the economic crisis to the Maduro government’s policies, including price controls, currency mismanagement, and corruption. U.S. sanctions were largely targeted at specific individuals and sectors, rather than the general economy, and many of the economic issues predated the most severe sanctions.

"The people applying the sanctions to their country, who are actively engaged in a propaganda campaign to de-legitimize it, and who are repeatedly murdering their civilians with military attacks on random fucking boats sailing around it, said the sanctions aren't what made the country bad, it was already bad!"

Fucking baby brain.

If you actually believe the line that sanctions don't hurt the general economy you're a fucking moron and I can't be effusive enough on that point. You're extremely fucking stupid to think that. It's literally the entire fucking point of them. The politicians putting them in place say so explicitly in all situations except in this specific context when they're defending themselves against critics. The entire point of sanctions is to make the population blame and overthrow the government.

state.gov/venezuela-related-sa…

Bet that link is blue for you

Reality: The U.S., Canada, and the European Union all condemned the election as neither free nor fair. The Venezuelan opposition presented overwhelming evidence suggesting their candidate, Edmundo González Urrutia, won by a wide margin, contradicting the government’s official results.

"Trump said the election was stolen that's why I'm building a gallows for Mike Pence"

Lol! 1st of all...he lost the last election by 2/3 of the vote. Venezuela has one of the most transparent elections systems in the world. It was designed to provide verifiable proof of outcome, in order to guarantee the results were legitimate.

All the government had to do, in order to validate their claim on power, was to publish the results. That way, they can then be independently verified, and everyone would know who really won.

Except, they didn't do that. It's been almost two years, and they still haven't released those results. Why?

If you are such a galaxy-brained genius, and Maduro is such an unimpeachable Paragon of truth and honesty...explain that. They have the results...they just aren't letting anyone else see them? "Trust me, bro" is not how that system was intended to work.

Except, they didn’t do that. It’s been almost two years, and they still haven’t released those results. Why?

Because they don't answer to the people trying to murder them you fucking moron.

Oh and by the way literally the only people saying the election was illegitimate are the people trying to murder them. Not that you've shown yourself capable of critical (OR EVEN INDEPENDENT) thought, but don't you think you should be examining your sources before you say shit? Mmm?

Finally, way to ignore literally everything of substance in my comment and go off on your own shower argument like an NPC by the way. Not touching the central argument that none of your points have any say on whether you should be allowed to murder innocent people. You fucking nazi piece of shit.

I hope for you what you hope for others.

Because they don't answer to the people trying to murder them you fucking moron.

Oh and by the way literally the only people saying the election was illegitimate are the people trying to murder them.

Are you saying the Venezuelan population is trying to murder them? The Venezuelan people are the ones who need to see the results of their own elections. Without that, the government has no legitimate claim to power. That's the entire point in setting up a system that can be verified independently. There is no ambiguity here. Either the results say he won...or they don't. So, the only reason they are refusing to show people the results, is because he lost. Period.

You clearly have no idea what you're talking about, so you're backing up your bullshit with insults, thinking that's a valid argument. It isn't.

None of your arguments are valid unless you can address the giant hole in your argument when it comes to those results not being released. That is the only thing that matters. You cannot make the claim that the Maduro government is legitimate anymore, when they have refused to provide the evidence that they won. Everything else you can say to try and defend him, is just hollow and pointless, without that.

Even making the argument that the US is wrong to question the election results falls flat, when the results are so obviously in question. All you're doing is showing me that you are not arguing in good faith. You are defending the indefensible.

Venezuela isn't being hit any harder than any other country the US has beef with. Those other countries aren't all collapsing under the weight of those sanctions. In every other case, they've managed to find a stable equilibrium within their own means. So, why is Venezuela so different? Why isn't Iran experiencing rolling blackouts in a weekly basis? Why is Cuba able to fund cutting edge medical research?

Venezuela has no shortage of natural resources at its disposal, and also no shortage of countries willing to do business with them, despite the sanctions. There is no reason why they should have failed so completely, to maintain even a minimum level of economic stability.

But, they haven't. They're unique in both their economic and infrastructural collapse, as well as their out of control inflation. Almost everything they've done over the last two decades has made their situation worse than it should have been. It's like they took all the available options, and chose the ones that would cause the most damage.