Hmmm....So hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans take to the streets to support the current executive branch leadership. At least those are the photos from Venezuelan state run television. Still, a majority can be "wrong" if there is electoral fraud, mistrust, and oppressive behaviors afoot.
I am deeply disappointed in the Venezuelan leadership over the years. But let's just begin with their squandering of oil revenues over those years. It was nice the current Venezuelan leadership did far more things for the people than most other Latin American nations in the time period of their rule, starting with building more hospitals, better roads and schoolbuildings, and economically developing and supporting people more than most Latin American nations of the past 150 years. But there is still a matter of simple accounting, ensuring there is protection against down times, and promoting alternatives to fossil fuels--instead of living on the short-term largess of what were high oil prices.
There is, of course, and correctly, the very serious matter of the way the current Venezuelan leadership have run the politics, which have often been authoritarian and counter to transparency and open government, and not afraid to reach for the type of fraud Republican officeholders here may well be dreaming about. However, I began with the economic issues because American leadership says they care about "democracy" and such, but American government actions over the past 120 years of imperial adventures (and of course before then in earlier guises, including the stealing of Native American land and genocidal policies) show they are primarily interested in dictatorships on behalf of corporate power and the wealthy. When American leaders talk about promoting "democracy," they are, in short, lying--if History is any guide at all.
Those of us who believe in procedural civil liberties, open government, and the like, are mostly without power, and, in foreign policy "crises", forever having to live in the world of the lying power centers in our nation. Therefore, when we are in situations as we are with respect to places such as Venezuela, the proper take is American leadership should do NOTHING about Venezuela. Let the Venezuelans sort it out. It is not pretty, and it fills me with frustration. But we simply are not to trust any American leadership who hold the reins of American foreign policies. First and foremost, Do no harm. There is no "Second." We lack the power, and if we exercised it, we are going to prison.
