But I'm actually far more curious about the more prosaic questions about what happens in Venezuela over the very near term.

Interesting that Trump has ruled out the woman who won the election (we all assume, but vote counts are notoriously opaque) and won the Nobel Prize while praising Trump, and the admin, at least at this moment, is fixating on the VP.

Which is weird, because that’s a long-time Socialist (with a Capital S) and who has declined to criticize Maduro ever. (That, obviously, is a political thing, given how long people who criticize Trump remain in the inner circle) but there is no indication that there’s some wont to “come over from the dark side” either.

That said, it’s hard to take over a government without having some of the people in place who know where the levers and switches are, so it may be a reasonable approach - or it could go the way of rioting in the streets as basic services fall. This is a serious case of “wait and see”.

I note that China has invested more than $100B in Venezuela over the past couple decades, so I’d guess there’s a bit of worry there. Maybe they make it back when we don’t do anything to stop their takeover of Taiwan ;)

And maybe Russia, which gets a fair amount of Venezuelan oil is mollified when they get to keep the best part of Ukraine as our attention immediately and totally goes elsewhere.

Oh, it’s a funhouse international world we’re living in. Hope I make it long enough to see how this one turns out.