Andrew Sage

And, you know, those things are necessary when people are really living day by day.

You know, and I think that if people on the left want to play the long game and understand, care about their prospects for the future, they need to understand that the Maduro regime is the worst model for them to be associated with.

You know, and this has already been taking place with campaigns, electoral campaigns around Latin America, where candidates on the right run against the boogeyman of, you

It makes sense.

And a lot of people on the left are very skeptical of Maria Corina Machado.

I have skepticism about some of her policy platforms of privatization and other neoliberal ideas.

They also shouldn't be surprised if there's been a decade of people being told that this model of corruption, authoritarianism, state terror, corruption,

criminal insecurity, that's what socialism is, then people are going to believe that.

And then they're going to... Then they'll vote against whatever that is.

And this model has provoked, you know, the greatest refugee crisis, certainly in the region, 8 million people.

They're all carrying with them stories about why they left, right?

And so...

If there ever were to be democratic elections in Venezuela, it's pretty clear the country would turn to the right.

And I don't think we should be surprised by that.

And I think we should also recognize that many of the things that Maduro embodies, these strongman politics...

are things that are embodied by other strong men, not just on the left, too.

You know, I would just point out that, at least according to some, Trump has privately expressed a lot of admiration for Maduro.

I read John Bolton's book, the former national security advisor,

You know, maybe he has a lot of reasons to lie, but, you know, he did say that Trump privately expressed a lot of admiration for Maduro being, in his words, too smart and too tough to be overthrown.

You know, was was really happy to see him surrounded by what he called all these good looking generals.