These are just collections of some of my comments this morning as someone who's put a lot of time and effort into learning about Venezuela over the past 5 years. My bookshelf is full of books about it, and I wrote my university dissertation on imperialism in Latin America. No, I'm not an expert, but I certainly know more than your average person. These takes are field tested against liberals and conservatives alike, and they usually just shut up about it and change the topic.
ON MADURO'S 'AUTHORITARIAN REGIME'
Tricky one - authoritarian? Technically true.
But what country wouldn't enter a state of law and order if you had an invasion force on your coastline for 20 years? When multiple coups have been attempted supported by a foreign government? A foreign government that currently funds political yet 'non governmental organisations' for the opposition party in your country to the tune of millions of dollars when the average monthly wage in the country is $200? When that opposition party has repeated supported coups and foreign influence? When a country has repossessed billions of dollars of gold, and explicitly states it wants to strangle your economy until the country chokes? When there's a 200 year old precedent of U.S invasion in the region? When the U.S is following the classic playbook for invasion?
You either roll over and have your country sold to the highest bidders, or you put the walls up. Look at any country in wartime. This is the only way to conceptualise this. Latin America has been at war with the U.S since the 1800's (The Monroe Doctrine - 1823). EDIT: in the press conference, Trump just called it the 'Donroe Doctrine'. FML.
So here's my task for you all: Ask an American how they'd feel if China had done even half of those things in America. How would the U.S react?
ON VENEZUELAN REFUGEES FLEEING THE REGIME
Can't stand this line being parroted about how '8 million refugees fled the Maduro regime' because its a tyrannical government, when the reality is that they fled a country whose economy was being strangled by the USA to the point of collapse. The USA openly admits they were essentially holding the Venezuelan people hostage by destroying the economy - presenting two options: live in poverty or overthrow Maduro.
Here's John Bolton talking about it: "The effect of the sanctions is continuing and cumulative. It’s sort of like in Star Wars when Darth Vader constricts somebody’s throat, that’s what we are doing to the regime economically." Yes, seriously, he compared America to Darth Vader.
If this ends in a new right wing Venezuelan comprador government, there will be an 'economic miracle', and the west will report that Venezuela has been saved. The reality is that the sanctions would be taken off the economy, and a large extraction of wealth would take place within the oil sector, thus inflating GDP. In the short term, the people of Venezuela will see an increase in quality of life - a quality of life they never would have lost in the first place were it not for U.S encirclement. I'm sure a lot of Venezeulans won't fight the change in government because it means a (perhaps temporary) reprieve from poverty, and peoples material circumstances are, as we all know, the bottom line.
ON NARCO TRAFFICKING CHARGES:
So Maduro's got a 50 million dollar bounty on his head and is deposed, when the USA has a long history of endorsing drug trafficking for their own purposes. Let's not forget that the USA supported and did business with Manuel Noriega (a prolific trafficker) throughout the Iran CONTRA affair until he stopped serving US interests (so they then couped him). And Trump just pardoned the conservative ex president of Honduras Orlando Hernandez, despite the fact that:
"US prosecutors argued that he was a central figure in a more than 18-year-long drug-trafficking scheme that funnelled over 400 tonnes of cocaine into the US - equivalent to roughly 4.5 billion individual doses", and "US federal prosecutors accused him of accepting a $1m bribe from notorious drug lord Joaquín "El Chapo" Guzmán for his first presidential campaign in exchange for protecting narcotics routes through Honduras." Prosecutors also detailed how "Hernández abused office by shielding drug traffickers armed with machine guns and grenade launchers. In exchange, he received millions of dollars to fuel his political campaigns."
**There are of course more arguments than this, but yeah, these are the big three in my opinion. **
I would add something about 'rigged elections', but I don't have time right now as it's quite complex. The bottom line is that there cannot be calls for democracy when USAID and other US State Department fronts have had major influence in Venezuelan and Latin American society for decades. It's the old capitalist myth of free speech - where said free speech is controlled by the ruling class.
phrasing of these as thought-terminating cliches. and unsurprisingly, one of their other examples of such a thought-terminating cliche is "hand-picked successor" as exemplified by amerikkkan coverage about nicolas maduro. this was an ep from several years ago.
