It is not proven that Chavez did not win his elections. Nor has it been proven that Maduro did not. Their procedures were the same over their period of time that both have had control.
They flood the barrios with food and even cash in the weeks prior to an election. It is outright bribery and it generates votes.
And generates more of it than the opposition. The opposition seek to oppress the people of the barrios with declarations of the virtues and glory of capitalism. This would be a form of society that would require these people in the barrios to work and make the owners rich. Those people in the barrios have chosen not to do that. They’re not stupid. They know they’re being bribed. They perceive it to be safer so go with the known bribe than the unknown guaranteed inequality.
It has occurred to me that if Maduro were as evil as painted, there would be no opposition. He would mow them all down.
As for drugs flowing into the US, we should certainly see law enforcement make arrests and prosecuted. That’s their job. Interdict this flow of drugs, prosecute them and put them in jail.
Exploding boats such that no drugs can be recovered is disquieting. Asserting that those boats are military boats and thus deserve to be intercepted with one’s own military is a little worrisome in that we’re not recovering any materials. It does require proof. If these are military boats why aren’t they heavily armed? I don’t think I’ve seen any videos of them shooting back.
Maduro had political prisoners, first of all. He was so unpopular that he couldn’t trust fellow Venezuelans to serve as his security and secret police; for that he needed to import Cubans.
Capitalism doesn’t require that anyone work. You can choose to work for someone else, or for yourself, no coercion required. Now, places where coercion is used, and where work is required by law, are communist governments. The USSR/Russia, Cuba, etc. had and have such laws.
There is inequality in every system, and people living in various aren’t looking for equality unless they are morons who studied too much Marx,Engels,Mao. What regular people want is opportunity, not equality. Equality is fool’s gold, the end goal of jealousy, and requires at all times the use of force and hate. Opportunity only requires being left alone.
If Maduro wasn’t evil, he wouldn’t have been in bed with Cuba, Iran, and every rogue nation out there, or with TdA and Hezbollah .
Blowing up drug boats in no way prevents their cargo from being recovered, at least some of it. Wherever you came across the nonsense that no drugs have been recovered, it is incorrect. That no drugs have been recovered is a false premise. Not only were drugs recovered but in some cases so were survivors.
The assertion is not that they were “military boats” but that they were boats belonging to drug smugglers, and that is just a fact. Obviously they were not being operated for the purposes of fishing. It is also known that high ranking members of the Venezuelan military were involved in drug smuggling- so much so that the military was corrupted enough to assist cartel operations.
The purpose of a smuggling boat is to move as many items from one point to another without being discovered, not to engage the police or coast guards but to avoid such engagement by being very fast and or lacking that, very discrete. If they cannot outrun pursuers there isn’t much point in attacking them. This means that there is no reason to take along any extra weight, which will cut into the profits. The most they might need would be small arms to defend themselves and their deadly cargo from thieves, but their speed alone with their abnormally new and abnormally excessive engines would likely put them beyond the reach of ordinary thieves.
Even a child can look at those boats and determine they weren’t fishing boats or tourist rentals.