I've just received a brief message from my fiend in Venezuela, and it seems that she managed to leave the country before the power outage. I'll try to see if I can get some more information from here, although she has had some difficulties in contacting her family.
I don't care where Guaidó was schooled, i don't even like his political party, because they are also socialists, just of a different kind (yes they are in the international, go find it). But given the current situation, ANYONE that frees the economy and puts a stop to crime would do for now; later after some breathing i can think in choosing a proper candidate, probably from the only party close to classic liberalism...
When power goes out everything goes out. Thanks to a socialist (central planned) economy, at some point they also fixated battery prices. Guess what happened next? No batteries, and the few that remained were stolen. Few cell tower have working batteries anymore. I clearly remember years ago still having signal during blackouts, but that is a thing of the past...
If the new gov happens to be friendly with the US, i don't mind. You might think your government is the worst in the world, but it isn't, even with Trump. One reason: you still have food, water, electricity and a place to live, and that says a lot.
I wonder why your friend left this country...
He is in the UK as far as I can tell, not in the US, so really he doesn't know as much as he thinks he does about either party here. Artemis called your comments infantile because as you sit enjoying your own comforts telling a man there on the ground living thru this horror, "No your version of reality is incorrect I know what caused the horrible problems in your own country from thousands of miles away as I enjoy this cuppa." Meanwhile he is risking his freedom and possibly his life to tell you what he thinks is going on, but you insist on lecturing to him about his own nation from afar while you enjoy the comforts of a market economy (for now). He called you infantile because you care more about pushing your political ideology than what is actually happening there.
The sanctions were put into place AFTER Chavez nationalized a bunch of private assets. The sanctions resulted DIRECTLY from Socialist policies of snatching up private infrastructure and nationalizing it. Then they mismanaged it and it rotted into disrepair. Do you think countries should be able to just take international assets as they please without consequence? It is not like the president just woke up one day and said "fuck Venezuela", this was done for good reason. Removing sanctions just makes it that much easier for China to slide in and do what they want. You talk about pillaging, wait until China gets control.