That's why I said he is doing "very little" and not "nothing" that wasn't where we were already headed. Trump has been a national embarrassment in regards to Ukraine, but I'm not sure he's really hurt them. It's not like Biden was doing a great job there. Venezuela has been "screwed up" for a very long time, and the US is largely responsible for that - both Democrats and Republicans.

I also don’t buy that the U.S. was headed to fascism with military on the streets

Then you haven't been paying attention. What do you think the militarization of police has all been about? That's something that Republicans and Democrats have both been pushing, right alongside mass surveillance. Look into how the "Cop City" protests were responded to.

and ICE taking naturalized citizens off the streets violently

Trump is a far worse than any Democrat on that front, but lets not pretend ICE wasn't draconian under Biden as well.

So no, the parties are not the same. At all.

WTF? Why is it impossible to have any kind of discussion about the Democratic establishment without this bullshit? Where did I say both parties are the same? They are very different, but the dynamic between the two has always been leading us to certain inevitable outcomes. Republicans push politics to the right, while Democrats follow the polls and don't try to lead the country anywhere. The end result is a steady march to the right.

And specifically villainizing the idiots who helped Trump win by ‘protest’ voting against the democrats is valid.

I think the term "villain" is a little over the top, but I didn't criticize you for calling them out, I criticized you for calling them out exclusively. That's a toxic attitude and a strong indicator of establishment brain-rot. It's repeating the exact mistakes that drove people away from voting for Democrats in the first place. You aren't trying to win elections, you are being smug. I hold you personally more responsible for Trump's win than any protest voter. A curse on you both.

My purity test is that anyone who uses the term "purity test" unironically is either braindead or an establishment clown.

There is still a significant pro Ukrainian resistance operating in both Crimea and Donbas. Russian has had to resort to brutal tactics to suppress them, but has still not been entirely successful. Many of the resisters retreated to fight with the rest of Ukraine, and they are certainly giving Russia a fight. In any case, it's still imperialism.

I see you have your cut and paste propaganda all ready to go there.

The people in Crimea and the Donbas wanted to join Russia, to protect them from Ukraine,

Sounds an awful lot like claiming Iraqis wanted the US to overthrow Sadam and would welcome it with open arms. It worked out about the same too, except for the Russian military embarrassing themselves. Even taken at face value, all you are doing is justifying the imperialism, not showing it doesn't exist.

China is the biggest debt holder nation in the world. Zambia just had to default on loans for infrastructure that largely served Chinese needs, and Kenya and Ethiopia are not far behind. Meanwhile, the DRC is falling into debt paying for infrastructure to ship Copper and Cobalt to Chinese. China has not been as abusive as the west was, but they aren't that much better either. It's still the same tactics.

New Labor Forum: Chinese Investments in Africa: Twenty-First Century Colonialism?

I'd rather blame every party that did their best to put Trump in power, whether intentionally or not.

But you didn't. You blamed one tiny segment of voters.

The Republican and Democratic establishments are both to blame, but they are largely the same group. The Republican establishment just lost control of their populists while the Democratic establishment lost the loyalty of theirs.

Trump himself has never been the real problem. He's just a symptom of the rot in both establishments. He is doing very little that wasn't already where we were headed. At worst he sped up the process a bit.

Russia isn't imperialist, it has no colonies nor neocolonies

Yeah, tell that to Crimea, the Donbas, or even Siberia or the puppet states like Belarus, Georgia and Moldova. Russian neo-colonialism is all over Africa.

China isn't imperialist either, it's a socialist country wituout any financial domination of the state or economy.

China is a kinder imperialist, but they are using largely the same playbook that the west used in Africa, including debt-trap diplomacy, undermining local sovereignty and regulation, and undermining labor movements.

They also have a mix of socialism and capitalism, sometimes getting the best of both, and sometimes the worst. They definitely dominate the state economy through control of banking and the use of capital controls to direct funding to national priorities. The current real estate crisis and "ghost cities" are a pretty obvious example.

Tell us what a non-authoritarian leader of Venezuela would look like

Presumably they would look not-authoritarian, a description that doesn't fit Maduro at all.

It could well be that, in the face of US policy regarding Venezuela, only an Authoritarian could hold onto the country. That still doesn't make Maduro not an Authoritarian.

it seems to me that leftist leaders are always denounced as authoritarian by North American and European based NGOs and governments.

That's a fair observation but, again, that doesn't mean they are wrong when they say it about Maduro. Maduro is referred to as dictator by Human Rights Watch, the Organization of American States, and other human rights organizations, including some inside Venezuela.

Maduro is a dictator. It's largely the fault of the US that Venezuela has a dictator. If the US succeeds in ousting Maduro, it will almost certainly replace him with an even worse Dictator. All of that can be true with no contradictions.

1/3 of eligible voters went for Trump. Another 1/3 stayed home or made protest votes. Of those who didn't vote for either party, the vast majority were (de)motivated by straight up apathy. Those trying to teach the Democrats (or Republicans) a lesson were probably the least significant bloc of all, yet some people seem stuck on blaming them for the outcome.

The fault lies with the Democratic establishment that pissed away every opportunity to win what should have been an easy victory. They really had to work to loose that election. If you really want to blame the voters, then start with Trump voters and the Democratic voters who nominated Biden in 2020.

Americans already overwhelmingly oppose an invasion of Venezuela. It will be interesting to see if that's enough to prevent it.

Every planet is a star which wasn't big enough. Some are just more challenged than others.

From a legal perspective, there was no trial and therefore no conviction so we must presume innocence.

From a rational perspective, none of these boats are remotely capable of reaching America across open ocean. They would have to refuel multiple times to do so, and still probably couldn't make it. That's just one of many reasons why the accusation is ridiculous.

So did Brazil, and they actually threw theirs in prison.