There very well may have been fraud, and I won't pretend that Maduro hasn't maneuvered in dishonest or outright illegal ways to avoid the Chavistas losing power. And I do think it is fair to say he hasn't managed well and has lost the socialists there a lot of good will which just makes foreign interventionism easier.

However BE's framing of this is unsympathetic. Like he will for sure agree that Maduro being in power is better than the alternatives, he has said as much in the past week, but because of how approaches controversy he can't help himself but frame it this way. It is really annoying and I say this as someone who defends him 9 times out of 10.

I get that it is frustrating to see some leftists utterly dismiss some of the reality in Venezuela or any other country. There is a certain blindspot plenty of us have. You see it when Ortega is mentioned, you see it when Iran comes up. But antagonism is not going to fix that, and certainly not WHILE coup attempts are happening. He could save that shit for after like he did when he talked about Maduro previously. But then again, holding onto power, however better than the alternative electoral options they may be, is harming socialism in the country if this continues. Maduro should stay in power right now, but by god PSUV needs to have a new face, Maduro needs an established successor and one who won't come off as obviously hand picked. I think that is what BE is mostly pissed about, that people are taking tactical necessity and treating it as everything is going well or this is ideal.

But again, bitching about people bitching about other people is not really helping either so this type of talk is useless