The only advantages I can see to America pushing for Maduro’s removal are unlocking mismanaged oil supplies and removing a hive of Russian, Iranian and Chinese activity from the Western Hemisphere.
Those are the upsides. The downsides are prompting anti-American balancing moves across South America, Bay of Pigsing and increasing Maduro’s legitimacy, giving Russian air defences a paintbrush to our kit and fucking it up completely and sparking a refugee crisis.
In practice, I’m increasingly convinced we’re about to go to war because of what a dead pedophile knows about the President.
It seems like an easy move to make to me. If you say it's WMDs, you have to eventually turn out the WMDs. If you say it's cocaine, well there's plenty of coke in Venezuela. It's dead simple to tie it to Maduro and label him a drug lord as justification.
This feels even more manufactured than the Iraq invasion. I don't understand why Trump would do something like this which is gonna peel off yet another group of his supporters. Maybe he just thinks he's invincible now? He must feel like this helps him politically somehow, but I can't figure out how.
I don’t see much upside either other than a regime change that brings some semblance of mediocrity back to the country. Currently millions of Venezuelans languish somewhat unwanted in other LatAm counties. They’d jump at going back home to be part of the rebuild — which can happen. Before Chavistas it was the richest country in LatAm and they can absolutely regain that title with even a mildly competent government.
And how much of that is felt by real-world people?
The insane stock price of Nvidia & friends due to them passing around billions between each other doesn't matter even the slightest bit when your family business is going bankrupt.
> what stats back up “tariff-ravaged economy”? S&P is essentially at an all-time high
Production is good, you're right. Where Trump is feeling electoral pain is in cost of living. It's why the U.S. has started lifting "tariffs on bananas, coffee and dozens of other food-related items" [1].
Unemployment and inflation numbers are probably more important indicators of economic health for most people than the stock market. The stock market might be good for the capital-owning class though.
Over a third of each of 2024 Trump voters and self-identified conservatives consider Venezuela America's "enemy" [1]. (Over two fifths of each of the male, Hispanic, 65+ and $100k+ income demos view Maduro unfavourably.)
Also, "weapons and AI platforms that were designed for a future conflict with China or struggled to prove themselves on the Ukrainian battlefield have found a niche in the administration’s tech-enabled crackdown on drug trafficking" [2]. ("In an interview, Palantir Technologies Chief Executive Alex Karp declined to say whether his company’s technology was involved in counternarcotics operations, but voiced support for the strikes. 'If we are involved, I am very proud,' Karp said.")
One third is really not a solid base of support for major military action, especially among the administration's staunchest supporters. My purely subjective impression is that there is plenty of doubt in the ranks of MAGA about this, Fox News consent manufacturing notwithstanding. Of course, the imperatives of imperialism being what they are, I don't think it makes much difference.
Does anyone down there even like Maduro? As far as I can tell even “sympathetic” regimes down there are not fond of how he’s running the place. Given that, any public sentiment supporting him would be counterfeit.
Maduro has created an ongoing migrant crisis for a decade. Colombia, Chile, etc., are up to their gills in Venezuelan migrants already. Pretty sure lots of them would love to go back home if even a barely mediocre government replaced him.
They said, it’s their mess. They should fix it by themselves —we don’t need to go in there. Let them figure it out.
Those upsides could have also been accomplished by pointing the CIA at Venezuela to do the same thing they've been doing across South America for the past fifty years.
> Those upsides could have also been accomplished by pointing the CIA at Venezuela to do the same thing they've been doing across South America for the past fifty years
Has the CIA actually advanced American interests in South America? Legitimate question. My layman's understanding is they serially fucked the theatres they were assigned to alongside America's reputation in exchange for, at best, short-term U.S. wins.
"Has the CIA advanced American interests" is the wrong question. The CIA does not work for "The United States" proper, it works for a tiny section of it that comprises the ruling elites. Those people certainly enjoyed significant material benefits from CIA actions in Guatemala, Panama, El Salvador, etc.
> 4 decades of James Bond, Tom Clancy, Homeland, Zero Dark Thirty
Not really. See [1]. A competent clandestine service lets one achieve foreign policy goals without going to war.
But more to the point, pretending everything one doesn't like is an elite conspiracy is self defeating. If you want to gut the CIA, convince voters to hate it.
>Not superbly. But more than the IRS, DoJ or Department of Education.
Three letter agency that mostly harasses people outside US borders polls higher among US voters than three letter agencies that do most of their harassing within US borders. Water is wet.
Those are the upsides. The downsides are prompting anti-American balancing moves across South America, Bay of Pigsing and increasing Maduro’s legitimacy, giving Russian air defences a paintbrush to our kit and fucking it up completely and sparking a refugee crisis.
In practice, I’m increasingly convinced we’re about to go to war because of what a dead pedophile knows about the President.