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Comment by sourcegrift | Hacker News Reader

Like him or hate him, Venezuela has been quite literally a fabulous win.

Fabulous win in what ways, and for who? I'm genuinely asking, as I haven't followed the country much. From what I have read the same corrupt repressive regime, the one that ran the country into the ground, is still in place while the democratic opposition that had shown some life in recent years has gone silent.

The pro argument I find most convincing is that the US's interest is mostly in restricting oil going from Venezuela to China, which previously was the majority destination of of Venezuela's imports. A similar case can be made for Iran.

China possibly expecting something to this effect has recently built up both it's coal and renewables capacity, as well as an extremely large SPR.

Any claim at all that Trump is running any sort of strategy against China blows right up the second you look at anything else he has done.

All his bullshit market screwing, tariffs, poor diplomacy has pushed everyone right into China's sphere of influence.

Instead of competing with the products China creates, we leave them out of our own market while the rest of the world continues to buy from China.

The stupid as hell war against Iran has eliminated our stocks of munitions, leaving the pacific basically undefended against China. We pulled weapons out of our Pacific allies to go waste them in the desert.

There is no cohesive strategy and China has been preparing for us to cut off their oil for over a decade now, and has made massive strides in the development of independent energy like Solar to protect them.

imo this sort of strategy is not decided at the POTUS level, or at least there's consensus. For example during Biden's term the trade war largely persisted or expanded.

Competing in terms of production is realistically not an option (Triffin Dilemma, strong currency means exports other than tech/finance are inherently noncompetitive). Competitive exports would require giving up the dollar as a unilateral reserve currency, and China for the reverse reasons, at least for now, does not seem to want the Yuan to be a reserve currency. My personal read is both sides wish for something like the current system to persist but on more favorable terms.

I agree China has been actively taking steps for this scenario, but that they're continuing to make strides seems to indicate it is still an issue. I think we're still in the thick of it before a victor is conclusively decided either way.

Yeah, but did you considered that democracy was never a goal? Republican party is in full swing to destroy American democracy, why would they seek to create one in Venezuela?

Bribes and oil were the goal. Consolidation of allied dictator was goal. That worked.

That's not a bad policy, considering America's disastrous history of spreading democracy and then finding out those voters want different shades of fascism

America has a disastrous history of propping up dictators who are overthrown and replaced by governments who can then justify anti-Americanism as a populist political strategy.

America has more history of destroying democracies and actively proping/helping dictators then of trying to create democracies.

It did made germany democratic after wwii. That really happened. But then it has stream of helping dictators and killing democracies while being acting confused when locals did not appreciated it ... and when different violent movements joined the game.

America is even supporting fascists parties all around Europe right now. If they win, it is going to be mainly eu dysfunction. But it will also be true that America actively sponsored fascists and actively undermined democracy in Europe.

> spreading democracy and then finding out those voters want different shades of fascism

Where exactly this happened, really?

> Where exactly this happened, really?

Iraq, Egypt, Gaza, Post-Soviet Russia comes to mind among others

Any government that isn't democratically chosen is illegitimate. Better a democratic fascist government than a dictatorial fascist government, which will have to be more brutal to maintain power.

And you suppose the Nazi party that had won a large enough of the seats to enforce democratic consensus is also better than any alternative?

Do you think a government not supported by its populace would have fared better? Unless it brutally represses it's opposition, it would be violently overthrown by the government that the people wanted, and then that government would do what the people wanted. The solution to a bad government isn't to install one that doesn't have the support of the people it governs.

What I am saying is that as often missed by American policy makers, bringing Democracy does not make a population automatically Liberal, and they often vote for disaster for both them and for the US.

Also, contrary to your theory, most of human history people were ruled by non-democratic governments that were deemed legitimate, so I think you are conflating the two

> bringing Democracy does not make a population automatically Liberal

Nobody believes this to be the case. What is more often missed by policy makers is that overthrowing a government supported by the local population is unpopular and will cause blowback. The CIA-supported coup in Iran is a currently relevant example.

> Also, contrary to your theory, most of human history people were ruled by non-democratic governments that were deemed legitimate

That was when people believed in the divine right of kings, so those kings ruled with the consent of the governed. This is no longer the case. Nobody believes in the divine right of dictators.

Literally nothing has changed except for the names though?

In what sense exactly? Apart from that they caught a high-level criminal in a questionable way?

Yeah, slightly changed market for something that didn't matter that much to begin with. Its was a successful military operation. A fabulous win is WW2, ending the Cold War or things like that.

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