Thread by @fawfulfan

There's a ton of misinfo going on about what's happening in Venezuela.

This is not a "coup". This is the National Assembly using its constitutional powers to remove Maduro for rigging the election and the judiciary. It's not that different from impeaching a president in the U.S.

What needs to be understood here is, the Assembly is the only branch of govt that was democratically elected.

Maduro's election was a sham. As was his creation of a puppet Supreme Court that tried to dissolve the Assembly. The Assembly alone is trying to establish rule of law.

Maduro is trying to convince the world that this is a secret plot by the U.S. to invade and overthrow him, and that the economic collapse and famine in his country are a result of U.S. sanctions that were designed to manufacture unrest.

And to be fair, since Trump is such an unstable idiot and since the U.S. has a long history of intervention against Central and South American leftist regimes, Maduro's propaganda campaign kind of *sounds* like it could be true.

But it's not. All of it is a lie.

The truth is: Venezuela collapsed bc Maduro nationalized oil profits, funneled them into his pocket, and tried to cover it up by just printing more money.

U.S. sanctions did not target Venezuela's economy. They targeted Maduro, to block him from parking stolen oil cash overseas.

Now, finally all of this is catching up to Maduro.

The U.S. is happy to declare him illegitimate now. But Trump's government can't take credit for overthrowing him. The Venezuelan people are doing it, under the rule of law.

And he has only himself to blame.