Dean
Flairless
Variously accused of being a hilarious insufferable reactionary post-modernist fascist neo-conservative neo-liberal conservative classical liberal critical theorist Nazi Zionist imperialist hypernationalist warmongering isolationist Jewish-Polish-Slavic-Anglo race-traitor masculine-feminine bitch-man idiosyncratic party-line Fox News boomer. No one yet has guessed a scholar, or multiple people. Add to our list of pejoratives today!
User ID: 430
Dean
Flairless
1d ago
I think we are at peace here, and am glad for it. I believe you meant no offense. Thank you for your graciousness in return.
I also have a separate (not always upheld) rule to not re-engage past arguments the day after on the internet, so please take no implication if I skip past everything else without comment to just answer your pet peave.
By the way, completely unrelated pet peeve: why do you abbreviate the country as "Saudi", given that it is a nisbah? That's like calling the US "of America", or referring to its southerly neighbour as "Mexican" as in "I am going to Mexican on vacation".
Linguistic imperialism laziness/ignorance/habit of referring to them as the Saudis. But also because I had been trying to wordsmith that post for some time and rewrote parts enough (for clarity / charity / etc.) that I got tired of writing out "Saudi Arabia" in full and I was getting tired enough that I just wanted to post it.
I normally don't refer to the country as just Saudi, though I do refer to the state/government as 'the Saudis.' That's a relatively common nomenclature, even if it's technically/linguistically incorrect. I'd go 'Kingdom of Saudi Arabia' if I had to be really official, but in that context I just wanted a one-word identifier and 'KSA' seemed like a clunkier acronym.
And, really, I was tired and just couldn't push myself to go back.
Dean
Flairless
2d ago
What makes this more interesting is that 32 Cubans, including military personnel, were also reportedly killed. It's unclear what they were doing where when the bombs struck, but Chavez and Maduro were reportedly relying on Cubans for presidential security all the way back in the 2000s/2010s.
32 people is a platoon's worth, or four squads. That many don't normally get taken out in a single strike. I would be willing to consider that some may have been manning the sort of air defense assets that were ambiguously targeted in the explosions in the morning, but...
...well, with the VP-coup angle, that opens the possibility that there might have been some Venezuelan-on-Cuban action going on.
Dean
Flairless
2d ago
What's funnier than an Isekai Delivery Service shirt from Amazon?
An extra extra large Isekai Delivery Service shirt, falling down the flight of stairs towards you.
Dean
Flairless
2d ago
For a moment I read that as 'isekai agent,' and I was even more confused when you said to offer them a pager instead of a truck ride.
Man, this thread got weird.
I've written a mea culpa for 4bpp (in response to Arijan), but I genuinely didn't get that people thought I wasn't saying that Israel had nukes out of some official obligation. I wasn't saying it because at first I didn't think it needed to be said because it was obvious, and afterwards I didn't say because I thought it was a non-sequitur and some bad faith (since cleared up) from 4bpp.
Before today I was fairly sure I'd raised up Israeli nukes enough in the past that there was a broader perception idea that I was trying to deny/not admit Israeli nukes didn't cross my mind.
To be fair, you are going to bizarre lengths to imply that Israel doesn't have nuclear weapons,
...you know, if someone I had less faith in the good faith of had said that, I would have dismissed it. Instead, I forced myself to do a review. I don't see what you apparently see as 'bizarre lengths' in a short-ish 2-post exchange, but I do see places where I both was relying too much on implicit points, where there was backthought no one else would see, and a place where I simply erred.
Also, @4bpp, since I'm going to eat some crow on insufficient charity towards you, but also admit to suspecting bad faith from you with your question. That, and some things that you weren't to blame for, shaped that response. Consider this me clearing the air, but still being viewing you as someone to engage in good faith going forward.
(...but also @ArjinFerman again, for pushing me to some reflection that might have otherwise ended with concluding bad faith from someone from now on.)
Le sigh. Let's get it on record, but also give Ilforte something to laugh at.
On the subject of Israeli nukes-
I, Dean the Motte Poster, totally believe Israel has nuclear weapons. I sincerely believe I have also repeatedly raised it in the past, unprompted, and enough times that the fact that you thought I was trying to hide this is one of my two reasons for responding. I don't expect anyone to pay too much attention to my past posts, but I'm fairly sure it's come up in the context of why 'and then the Arabs will overrun Israel' or 'and then Iran will wipe Israel off the face of the earth' and even in a long-form about how nukes don't deter proxy wars because look at Israel and Iran.
In the context of this post exchange, I did not address the issue of Israeli nukes (a) I thought my past position on this was common knowledge enough to move past it, (b) because I view it as irrelevant to the point I had made in the post 4bpp was responding to, and (c) because I misunderstood 4bpp's perception of why I'd done that, even as my reason for doing so was not explained on my part.
On the subject of Motte glow-
I refuse to answer questions about my IRL for personal reasons, not professional. I have two personal rules for the internet on top of usual internet secrecy. First, I deliberately never claim, confirm, or deny any professional affiliation. This calls to mind for most people the American espionage cliche of 'neither confirm or deny,' but it's a lot more basic than that. I find it incredibly trite, annoying, and unfalsifiable when people claim it on online, which I don't want to do to others. It also weakens your persuasiveness in other topics, since people will look for excuses to dismiss and a confirmed unrelated profession is an easier basis of dismiss than an uncertainty. Second, I keep my hobby accounts separate. The Motte is where I indulge in my geopolitics and culture war hobby, but people who see that here don't see me spurge on other things elsewhere, so they build a mental model of where the only thing I spurge about is geopolitics and (mostly American) politics. This compounds with the first rule, since people naturally ask/suspect that I therefore must the profession of the thing I talk most about, and I never give a clear answer or alternative.
As for the Motte government thing in particular, I've been not-so-subtly playing along with this theme since Ilforte accused me of being a Polish spook when I was between jobs years ago. The prospect seemed to annoy him at a time he was stanning Russia, so I played along and played it up. I do deep dive into a lot of American government stuff, but this is as often for personal pique (like reading the US National Security Strategy rather than just trusting g media coverage of it) as the fact that I've been subscribing to international relations media for literal decades.
On the subject of NDAs that make you toe a party line-
I am unaware of any sort of non-disclosure agreement- governmental or corporate or judicial- that can require people to take a party line on a topic on anonymous internet conversations. I also inclined to think the premise is dumb, given the monitoring and enforcement challenges of such a premise. On the chance I am wrong and they do exist in the world and not just bad espionage thrillers, then I am happy to say I think the premise is still dumb, and that a better uber-NDA would simply ban you from talking about a subject entirely. Requiring you to talk about it in a certain way to glow to internet audiences is antithetical to a large part of the point of an NDA, which isn't just to keep you from saying something but also to keep people from knowing you could say something.
I also think it's a dumb question to ask outright even if you do suspect it. Any sort of super-surveillance system that could compel someone to have to take 'the party line' in internet anonymous conversations has to catch them to enforce it. That means de-anonymizing their anonymity. If you thought that was how it worked, but also thought you might get an honest answer of yes, you might as well have held up a line to the panopticon going 'would you please incriminate yourself to the panopticon by breaking your promise to the panopticon?' It would also flag the person asking that question. Which trivially leads to de-anonymizing them.
Just stating your beliefs plainly would probably dispell any suspicion about your luminosity levels.
Okay, sure. Aside from the Israel thing, I assume you also mean what my position during this exchange was? I'll clarify it, and use it to clear the air with 4bpp.
In my opening, which 4bpp responded to, I am asking, quite literally, which of the big five nuclear powers is supposed to be convinced of Lizzardspawn's position.
I asked this question because I believe Lizzardspawn's proscription is bad, and as a prediction worse, and indicates a poor understanding of the international environment. I think there are a whole host of reasons why nuclear powers would not want normalize eachother nuclear first-striking states with 'a nuclear weapon program.' Three reasons, unstated but hopefully obvious enough to not need elaboration, are that civil nuclear programs for near-breakout are protected under the nuclear non-proliferation treaty, it tends to be bad form to let your geopolitical enemies nuke your allies, and its even worse for you to nuke your own.
But this not-explicit argument was also meant to capture that the scope of 'nuclear weapon program' is incredibly broad. It can include everything across a spectrum of 'has it, but unannounced' (Isreal) to 'does not have it, but seeking others' (Saudi) to 'doesn't have it, but could quickly' (all the other breakouts). Israel and Saudi were both included examples of non-breakout states that could qualify as 'having a nuclear weapon program' despite not being breakout states. They were meant to be a pair showing opposite ends of a spectrum where breakout is in the middle between them, rather than Saudi being breakout as well and Israel being the odd state out. This was not well conveyed.
My intent was to allude to these unstated points by pointing at various ally/adversary clusters who might be nuked for breakout capacity (such as France/Britain and Russia over Germany/Poland over the European theater), and then a cluster of more ambiguous not-ally-but-partnerships, such as the middle east spectrum of 'not-so-secretly has nukes' (Israel, who works with the US), 'is-seeking-nukes' (Iran, who works with the Russians and Chinese), and 'is-not-necessarily-seeking-nukes-but-maybe' (Saudi, who works with both the US and China and-). The point of the answer of the question is to draw out that either a Big 5 nuclear country would be expected to nuke their own allies, let their archrivals nuke their allies, or nuke the ever-stable middle east that both the Europeans and the Chinese really like their energy exports from.
I also thought I was being clear in the second post that I was asking about the big five when I disagreed and did not engage with the premise of 4bpp's leading questions ("Is this to suggest...", "wish to participate in curious play," or the "or think...") and to instead return to my original question.
I viewed 4bpp's questions as leading, not interested in engaging in my question or the points I had made. I also viewed, and view, the form of asking with suspicion, as rather than ask a direct question to me, 4bp passively presented characterizations of positions I had not taken. He proposed what I 'suggested,' 'wished,' or 'thought' when I did no such thing. I have a long-standing irritation at my position being mispresented, but these were also framed in such a way that a non-answer could have been perceived as an answer, a sort of strawman by insinuation. Despite suspicion, I felt charity called for me to clarify if I had been misunderstood.
As for the questions themselves, I ignored them because I felt they were all non-sequiturs to my question of who in the big 5 was supposed to adopt Lizard's position. Whether Israel has nuclear weapons is irrelevant to which members of the big five would adopt Lizard's view. Whether I wish to participate in curious play over Israel's nukes is irrelevant to which members of the big five would adopt Lizard's view. Whether I think announcing nuclear weapons is analogous to breakout is irrelevant to which members of the big five would adopt Lizard's view.
The last question on public declaration did have the seed for a bad misinterpretation and miscommunication on my part, which showed in my third post.
In the third post, I was both surprised and a bit annoyed by 4bpp's closing (yet leading) question, which not only continued the insinuation-if-no-response from the previous question, but invited a new one.
I do find musing about someone's IRL to them to be bad form in the sense of a breach of internet etiquette. Particularly when it appears to be a setup to typecast them as a 'well of course you'd say X, you're Y.' Unfairly to 4bpp, my perception of his (question) was also shaped by a separate sort of 'you'd only say this because you're a X' argument elsewhere recently. This made the suspicion of bad faith from the previous questions worse, and contributed to a conclusion that my question and supporting points that had just been re-articulated were being ignored in order to make the leading questions.
I also felt the final question was bad as a matter of form, in the 'any response could be interpreted the same way' formation. Analogies to 'have you stopped beating your wife yet' came across, and didn't help. I didn't care so much about the government insinuation itself- as raised before I've leaned into it for the sake of teasing- but I am the sort of structural/formalist where if I feel the person is trying to insult me, I will at least hold them to do it better. "Romanes eunt domus" and all that, with an insistence on argument structure being my retort.
This contributed to tunnel vision, and where I deserve to eat crow.
As one of his two remaining paragraphs were about Israel, which I viewed as a non-sequitor, I felt it would be appropriate to briefly acknowledge and push past the first paragraph, of categorization. Here I did misunderstand 4bpp, and so my response was worse than unclear, but bad. In short, I perceived him as making an argument Lizardspawn did not make, when I was trying to draw attention (but didn't explicitly make an argument) about the laxity of Lizard's categorization. Instead, 4bpp was providing his perception of Lizard, and elaborating his question on why I included Israel as the only nuclear state. This was a fair request for clarification, and I did not catch it.
So, @4bpp, I do apologize for misunderstanding your question there. I did and do give you stink eye for that leading question, but I accept your response after that as genuine and worth trying for good faith in the future.
And with all that speaking clearly all spoke out, namaste.
I'm having de ja vu of a previous time you laughed at me not countering an argument that didn't really need to be countered, and for not using words I tend not to use unprompted. Which is even funnier because I have acknowledged/addressed/raised Israeli nuclear weapons in the past, and you recognize why it wasn't relevant now. Ah well.
Glad you're in good humor, Ilforte. You've been off-kilter the last few years since the move. Hope the family is well!
It's just that you listed it along with a set of countries that don't currently have nukes, discussing the hypothetical question whether someone now or in the proximate future would preemptively nuke them to prevent them from crossing the threshold if that were what it took.
The scope of 'has a nuclear weapons program' does rather run the gauntlet of 'already has' and 'could have soon' and 'has a nuclear power program,' yes. That was rather the point. It was a very poorly bounded claim, and returns to the question of 'who is supposed to agree with about their geopolitical friends/rivals nuking their friends/partners.
(Do you work some US-government-adjacent job that comes with speech obligations, to the extent you would even be allowed to disclose that? That would make a lot of things about my reality model click into place, given the number of times I have been frustrated with you arguing for the "party line" in the past.)
Mate. Think about what you just asked and how you asked it.
If I say 'yes,' you can take it as an honest admission and it validates your belief.
If I deny it, you can believe I am lying or am compelled to claim so and that it validates your belief.
If I don't say anything at all, you can believe I refusing to lie in a denial and use it to validate your belief.
If I reply without giving any sort of definitive answer, you can interpret it as a dodge for the same reason and use it to validate your belief.
Whatever you think of me or what I might do, I don't need to be under a nondisclosure agreement to disagree with the sort of reality model that believes it's more reasonable for someone to be under a nondisclosure agreement than to disagree with their sort of reality model. I am quite willing to disagree for free.
Dayum, third time is the charm. Still can't admit to any relative share of responsibility, can you?
Want to fall for it for a fourth time?
Regardless of the extent to which it is Venezuela's fault,
Wait for it.
There's a reason even those who try to blame the American sanctions studiously try to avoid having to establish any relative share of responsibility for the economic consequences of Chavez's, ahem, distinctive economic model.
Wait for it...
the US has actively sought to destabilize Venezuela. That means that the US has increased migrants and drugs flowing into the US so that Venezuela can be brought into the American zone of influence and get DEI, gay marriage and gender reassignment surgeries for kids.
Wait for it...
Why, I bet even you will studiously try to avoid answering that prompt, and will try to bypass that uncomfortable, overshadowing context once more.
Nailed it, two in a row with the same prediction from a day ago.
Want to walk into it for a third time in a row?
Dean
Flairless
2d ago
Setting aside that Venezuela is already a failed state causing migration and drug cartels, and has been for well over a decade-
Let's check for past predictions for a moment.
There's a reason even those who try to blame the American sanctions studiously try to avoid having to establish any relative share of responsibility for the economic consequences of Chavez's, ahem, distinctive economic model.
...and of course in response to that what you wrote...
That is an even stronger argument for not destroying Venezuela. Failed states cause migration and drug cartels. If Venezuela is struggling the last thing they need is sanctions and war.
As usual the military industrial complex is a leading cause of diversity and immigration.
..aaaand and wrote that despite...
Why, I bet even you will studiously try to avoid answering that prompt, and will try to bypass that uncomfortable, overshadowing context once more.
Called it!
It is to suggest I don't know who in the big five Lizzardspawn believes would think it was a good idea to nuke those countries based on his proposed doctrine, hence the question of 'Which members of the big five?'
It is also to suggest I do not know who else in the big five Lizzardspawn believes would come to his view that it is a good idea for their geopolitical adversaries (or allies) to pre-emptively nuke states that are often their own partners of regional importance.
Is Venezuela even remotely communist?
Sure. Socialism is generally recognized as 'remotely close' to communist, and the Venezuelan government under the PSUV was for about a decade across the 2000s was widely praised as socialist success by other self-identified socialist and communist individuals, parties, and in some cases governments around the world, even as Venezuela's own leaders proudly claimed their own socialist credentials, albeit through the Chavismo mixture of socialism.
Now, the classic motte and bailey is that true communism has never been tried and all the self-identified communists who were recognized as communists at the time really just tried to implement variations of socialism. Or the no true communist fallacy that, in hindsight, they were just right-wing autocrats who betrayed true communist/socialist principles.
It looks a lot more like an autocratic narco state
Most communist and ideologically socialist states look like autocratic states because they are. Their specific funding source may differ- Venezuela's was and still is oil- but the devolution into criminal states because corruption becomes a requirement to handle the economic disfunction is pretty par for course.
Is it other people being a smartass, or you underestimating how bad the status quo already is?
Venezuela is already in a state comparable to, and in some ways worse, than many of the major geopolitical wars of the last quarter century. The previous leader was headed by a literal Catro fanboy who saw Cuba, and went 'I want my country to be like that,' and then saw that Iraq War insurgency and went 'I want my capital to be like that too, except in peacetime.' And then the next leader doubled down, and added another decade to that.
Don't get me wrong- I am always up for a 'it could get worse' musing. But rock bottom isn't even the bottom there, because you can blow up the rocks and go even deeper. It's an expression that means precious little if you don't peg it to some level of what 'rock bottom' even is. Genocide? Natural as well as man-made famine?
The reason that actual civil wars are considered 'rock bottom' in most cases is because they do think like break basic infrastructure like clean drinking water or medical services (already happened years ago), or see increased civilian casualties (has been the case for approaching decades), or see government forces or proxies extort and target local residents (ayup), or that the government resorts to prison camps or blacksites and disappears dissidents (ayup again), or it ruins the local economy (errr....), or it causes mass migration refugee crisis as people flee (ha...ha...sob), and many other things, several of which have also come to pass.
But these are additive qualities in most contexts, things that wouldn't exist except for the but-for the test. But for a war, Venezuelans would still have clean drinking water. But for an uprising, the government wouldn't back gangs to prey on people. But for the opposition, the economy would be fine.
When these are not additive qualities- when these are the status quo- 'rock bottom' appeals have to put in the work for some distinction that's worth a difference.
Dean
Flairless
3d ago
I have always thought that nuclear weapons program by itself should be casus belli for nuclear strike. If more nations start trying - I can assure you that the big five will come to my opinion too.
Which members of the big five?
While I am willing to concede for the sake of argument that, say, China might appreciate your gracious offer of a nuclear first strike pass on Japan, or South Korea, who both have near-breakout capability, I am not clear why you think the the US- who has a mutual defense treaty with both of them- would want that. Or, in the European context, why Britain or France would want to empower Russia to nuke Poland or Germany, one of whom already is a breakout-capable state and the other who could well move that direction. Or, in the middle eastern context, who is supposed to want who to nuke Israel and Iran and Saudi Arabia alike.
No one ever answers this one
Because communist Cuba is right over there, has been since most of the Cold War, and once the poser of the hypothetical Mexican question is reminded of that they tend to quietly drop the topic to avoid acknowledging that their gotcha-hypothetical already came to pass, but with a different conclusion than they wanted to imply.
You don't even have to use a Cold War example. What do we think would happen to Mexico today if it tried to let China set up naval bases on its coasts?
Sanctions and spycraft, obviously.
We already know what came to be of a country neighboring the post-WW2 Americans that wanted foreign security guarantees, hosted military assets, and more. It was not invaded, let alone annexed on revanchist grounds. Spied on, attempted assassinations galore, a half-baked dissident landing, and sanctioned for decades, but not invaded by the regional great power.
It has been darkly amusing people trying to model Iraq or Syria onto Venezuela, however.
Iraq and Syria were as bad as they were because they were sectarian civil wars on ethnic and religious lines, against minority ruler sects that had been suppressing the demographic majority for decades. In turn, those regimes were backed by demographic minorities who knew/feared that, if they lost, they might be genocide/ethnically cleansed. It's not exactly clear who the corresponding ethnic groups are in Venezuela. They were also as bad in part because Syria in particular spent nearly a decade supporting the neighboring insurgency in Iraq... but the Venezulan-supported narcos and gangs are already present in the capital city, by design.
In turn, the Iraq War accusation that the US would steal the oil runs into past and contextual history. In the past, that accusation never actually occurred- the Iraqi oil wells were back under Iraqi control, and largely used to fund the reconstruction and social welfare programs. Which is not what they are currently doing in Venezuela, because in the Venezuela contextual history the Chavistas already stole the oil for foreigners by giving so much away for basically free, especially Cuba, and in the corruption/mismanagement of the state oil companies. An American takeover, Iraq-style, would be unironically an improvement of the oil benefits to the country.
While there are certainly ways for this to get worse, and I am never inclined to rule it out entirely, it warrants a bit more insight than merely 'it's gonna be a quaqmire like Iraq!' or 'but Syria!'
functor, functor, functor. Why do you have to deny the achievements of the global south? The Chavistas worked so hard and succeeded at sparking an even greater mass migration exodus than Syria all on their own.
The PSUV spent so much time wrecking the capitalist economy, cracking down on dissent, stealing everything they could, employing gangs and narcos to attack their opponents, and drove more people to flee Venezuela than fled Syria. They did so for decades over the protests of the Americans, and their neighbors, and their own people, in proud acts of defiance and national sovereignty. There's a reason even those who try to blame the American sanctions studiously try to avoid having to establish any relative share of responsibility for the economic consequences of Chavez's, ahem, distinctive economic model. Why, I bet even you will studiously try to avoid answering that prompt, and will try to bypass that uncomfortable, overshadowing context once more.
Moreover, they have to wonder who might have facilitated to it. While the theory of the moment is that Maduro might have negotiated his own extradition as opposed to... consequences (dim lights, spooky sound)... there are other theories that someone else might have made that deal on his behalf. Like a sort of 'Mr. President, we're under attack this way!' that led to the courtyard with the nice men with guns ready to take him away.
Palace guard? Backroom deal with Putin and the Russians in country? Generals?
It's a coordination problem. Which works against many things, but with both the President and First Combatant (as she preferred to be called) out, the Chavistas aren't exactly known for their smooth factional politics.
The migrant crisis already happened in Venezuela. That’s in the past and occurred under Biden.
Much longer than that, but substantially correct.
One of the weaknesses of the 'but this could destabilize the region like Iraq or Syria' is that Venezuela's collapse under Chavez/Maduro already has been at the level of the Iraq or Syria civil wars. Venezuela has a bit less than 40 million people now, but 2 million left during the Chavez years, and another nearly 8 million under Maduro. This compares to the 6 million Syrian refugees during the Syrian civil war. Caracas 'at peace' notably had a murder and kidnapping rate rivaling, and eventually surpassing, Baghdad. Rolling blackouts, gang paramilitaries, endemic corruption, refugee displacement, and all that.
It's also why the 'but the Americans will just steal the oil!' narrative has, so far, largely fallen flat on the Venezuelans, and gets more or less Yes-Chad response. Venezuelan oil was already being stolen for the interest of other countries- particularly Cuba- and the money was already being stolen by a corrupt elite. The (never particularly accurate) 'Americans stealing the oil' doesn't actually make things worse, because things are already that bad... or worse.
A lot of the online / social media response of 'Trump bad' is running into the Venezuelan/local regional perspectives of 'but Maduro worse.' Taking the hyperbolic claims literally, Trump is still better, because Trump's avarice/greed/etc. doesn't come with the police state repression of the Chavistas.
None of which means today's intervention a good idea / will work as planned / etc. But it's very hard to overstate just how bad the Venezuelan situation has been for quite some time. Appeals to 'but it could be a bad war!' lose some resonance when the status quo is already equivalent to some of the bad wars being raised.
The next man up will probably not be married to Maduro's wife, who was a central power player in the Chavista movement on the policy/coalition side and a queennpin in her own right who had held significant government power.
Flores was a non-trivial part of the political competence of the Chavista movement at the policy maker level, in the 'knows how to systemically setup an apparatus to coordinate harassment and violence against the outgroup' sense. In so much that the Maduro regime was on its way towards becoming an Nicaragua-Ortega-style dynasty, Flores was both the cause and a key parallel.
The US getting Maduro and Flores is probably one of the more significant things about today's raid, and honestly does more to imply a deal with someone- whether Maduro or someone else in the Venezuelan government- such that Flores couldn't step in as acting-president on her husband's behalf.
Dean
Flairless
4d ago
With the caveats that explanation is not endorsement...
Maduro is the successor to Hugo Chavez, who deliberately turned Venezuela into an ideologically anti-American state as a matter of principle. The Chavista Venezuela under the PSUV is the caricature of the instinctual anti-American: if Americans dislike it, it must be good, and if its in conflict with the Americans, all the better. This applies to all geopolitical frictions or conflicts.
Maduro, who was a busdriver before then and who has no prospects or powerbase outside of it, is basically committed to the cause. Whether he is a true believer is irrelevant- without the PSUV he has nothing.
The PSUV, under both Chavez and Maduro, basically transitioned Venezuela from a democracy to a one-party state before democratic backsliding was cool. This included thing like taking over opposition media, banning opposition politicians, and so on. This is bad for democracy, yes, but also pre-cluded a democratic transition of power towards anyone less anti-American.
The PSUV is also hilariously incompetent and corrupt. Corrupt in the sense of 'seize businesses and redistribute to party members', and incompetent in the sense of 'mandate that stores sell products at a loss, and then accuse them of conspiring to have empty shelves.' This has resulted in the general economic collapse of Venezuela, first by destroying most of the non-oil economy, but also by ruining the oil-producing capabilities.
The PSUV also has a more than slight connection with paramilitaries and drug cartels, which is more proximal. Venezuela is a major drug shipment center for the Columbia FARC, but also has long embraced the used of gang-proxies to attack domestic political opponents during protests, and the PSUV views a gang-insurgency strategy as its deterrent to American intervention. This, uh, has consequences, which is why the capital of caracas had murder and kidnapping rates surpassing Iraq War Baghdad.
The economic incompetence and political repression have made Venezuela into something between a failed state and a narco-state spurred a massivive migration exodus. While the vast majority of Venezuelans went to regional countries, they did become one of the largest groups crossing the US southwest border, making the sustained PSUV rule a consistent driver of regional migration. Relatedly, Venezuela through the regional anti-Americanism is one of the closer partners to Nicaragua, whose similarly authoritarian Ortega regime absolutely facilitates northward migration as a way to pressure/annoy the US.
The general quasi-failed-state status has led to three more recent geopolitical tensions with the US.
One, Maduro has basically tried to align with every American geopolitical adversary possible not just diplomatically, or economically in sanctions evasion, but in seeking military aid including stand-off weapons. Fair enough, if you want, but...
Two, about two years ago Maduro attempted a rally-the-flag movement to annex the (oil-rich, American-invested) western third of Guyana. It fizzled, but the American government framing parallel is/was Iraq seeking Kuwait's oil fields to solve monetary issues. Weapon investments thus become an expansionist enabler.
Three, in 2024 Madura rather ineptly stole the Venezuela presidential election, despite all the government efforts to rig it. And by ineptly, I mean the opposition parties got the voter tallies from enough stations to not only persuasively show that Maduro lied about the results, but lost. This is why the Venezuelan opposition has been supporting/calling for US intervention.
Finally, Venezuela has been a pet issue of Marco Rubio, the US Secretary of State, who is also Trump's national security advisor, the first man to hold both roles since Kissinger. Rubio had influence on the recent National US Security Strategy, which was generally discussed in Europe terms but had greater implications towards the Western hemisphere, where Venezuela could be inferred in the priority list.
Dean
Flairless
4d ago
If they lack the talent to find their way in, they wouldn't be the sort of talent being looked for.
A political party isn't a technocratic assembly looking for credential applicants, it is a group of networkers who can network with and for eachother by their own initiative. People who just want to volunteer for an advocacy group can go to the advocacy groups directly. Networking societies don't fall into a well-structured hierarchy, but rather create an ecosystem of push and pulls as people put something out and offer/encourage/ask/trade others to put in. People who don't understand that / don't at least intuitively grasp it are not the sort of people fit for ill-structured coalition politics.
To bring an anime demonstration of the concept, have you ever read / watched Hunter x Hunter? Do you remember what the first test of the Hunter Exam really was? It isn't the sort of awe-inspiring feats, battles of wits, or hunter-and-hunted of the later series. It is to literally find the exam location.
Some entry tests aren't about streamlining or maximizing candidates, and then filtering over time. It is to filter out unsuitable candidates at the start.
Now I am curious/concerned/afraid for what was your favorite post.
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