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[LordBaal]

I don't vouch for a military intervention because it would mean even more senseless life loses. I would support something like Noriega's extraction but that would be hard to pull here.

However as the military of this country has proven over and over again is that they won't support a democratic movement since the higher echelons are knee deep in narcotics trade and all sorts of racketeering and corruption, while middle and lower ranks are either too afraid to do anything or too brainwashed and enjoying the pitiful perks of having a tad of power.

[IronyOwl]

The United States is not going to do anything other than the common sanctions and the like.

I think you underestimate how easily Trump is swayed by strongmen, or at least how much he cowers to them. Not to mention that he is going to become desperate for distractions as the pressure on him builds.

Well, go on. You're claiming it's likely that a war and regime change is imminent, I assume you've got some fascinating data to back that up?

[smjjames]

I never said that it was imminent, just that I wouldn't put it past Trump to try something.

[Dorsidwarf]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-46997555

Really surprised nobody here's mentioned the fact that the opposition leader Juan Guaidó  just declared himself president at a rally, the US officially backed him (and recognised him as the 'real' leader of Venezuela) within minutes, followed by several other south american nations and the UK, while Russia makes threatening warning noises.

US National Security Adviser John Bolton has said the Trump administration is working on a plan to funnel funds to Mr Guaidó, who is currently at an undisclosed location.

President Trump has said that "all options are on the table" in response to the unrest.

[Kagus]

I mean, it'd be a great distraction from domestic US politics... A war with Venezuela? That's an untapped resource of brown people to fight! It'll be a blatant installation of a hand-picked puppet sympathetic to US economic interests, just like the good old days!

Yeah, I still doubt it's going to be outright war, but it's definitely gonna be interesting. "Interesting", in the "What if we fixed this by making it worse?" sense of the term.

[scriver]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-46997555

Really surprised nobody here's mentioned

We had a tangent in the WTF thread this time instead

[Reelya]

Interestingly, Mexico is bucking the USA's influence and backing Maduro on this.

That could be as much of a snub of Trump as support of Maduro: Trump does X, so Mexico does Y.

[Kagus]

Interestingly, Mexico is bucking the USA's influence and backing Maduro on this.

Yeah, I'm wondering how much of that is actually Mexico supporting Maduro, and how much of it is "Goddamnit EEUU, stop trying to drive South/Central American politics like a damn RC car"

[LordBaal]

I mean, it'd be a great distraction from domestic US politics... A war with Venezuela? That's an untapped resource of brown people to fight! It'll be a blatant installation of a hand-picked puppet sympathetic to US economic interests, just like the good old days!

Yeah, I still doubt it's going to be outright war, but it's definitely gonna be interesting. "Interesting", in the "What if we fixed this by making it worse?" sense of the term.

Hey! I'm not brown. If anything I'm pasty informatic white.

But seriously yeah, I didn't wanted to rock the boat much here but it sure is interesting. The thing is that he just didn't proclaimed himself president on a rally. It was the culmination of months of work and he's really sticking to our constitution, which if followed by the letter didn't gave him much options either, he had to take charge or renounce to his seat as "senator" (the word in Spanish is diputado, dunno I'd senator is really the same
 Congressman seem more fitting).

Anyway, why would you think USA besides the obvious would support a change when the former government always took any chance to proclaim you were an evil empire of war and destruction and eating babies while at the same time they stave us to death, quite literally?

[Reelya]

Diputado would be related to the English word Deputy. You're right that this usually refers the the lower house of a bicarmarel legislature, so it's the equivalent of the US Congress. However, there are places with a unicarmarel system where it's just a Senate. e.g. in Wales, they have the Senedd.

[scriver]

The Irish one is called Sinead

[LordBaal]

Sure I would guess. We used to have a bicameral congress with deputies and senators but then the revolution came in and dissolved that to make a simpler national assembly which consists only on deputies.

[scriver]

(In Sweden they're called realmsdaysmen and -women

[Reelya]

Really? I would have thought that in Sweden they would have deemed it sexist to have gender-specific terms for that and changed it ages ago. But ... I guess that type of stuff is off the table now due to the political situation.

[scriver]

Well if you want to you could also call it realmsdayslimbtowards, that's gender neutral.