Greyzone: The Making of Juan Guaidó: How the US Regime Change Laboratory Created Venezuela’s Coup Leader

Or, as my headline might go, "The Making of Venezuela's Pete Buttigeg: [etc]." The article.

No, darling, that's a reference to the conscious construction of a candidate designed to beat back progressive, well, progress. I am not saying Mayor Pete and Gauidó are "the same" in any other sense.

As in:

The discussion about Mr. Sanders has to date been largely confined to private settings because — like establishment Republicans in 2016 — Democrats are uneasy about elevating him or alienating his supporters.

The matter of What To Do About Bernie and the larger imperative of party unity has, for example, hovered over a series of previously undisclosed Democratic dinners in New York and Washington organized by the longtime party financier Bernard Schwartz. The gatherings have included scores from the moderate or center-left wing of the party, including Speaker Nancy Pelosi; Senator Chuck Schumer, the minority leader; former Gov. Terry McAuliffe of Virginia; Mayor Pete Buttigieg of South Bend, Ind., himself a presidential candidate; and the president of the Center for American Progress, Neera Tanden.

NYT, ‘Stop Sanders’ Democrats Are Agonizing Over His Momentum, 4/16/19, my emphasis.

You: "I can't believe that angry Bernie Bro Doug just said Mayor Pete is exactly like Guaidó! How much money did he take from Putin and Ilhan Omar to destroy America and reveal his lifelong homophobia like that? And the proof of my first assertion is right there in the second paragraph directly above--only a highly trained Russian asset would pull that kind of double-bluff. We're through the looking glass, people! 

"Now, after I get my assistant to call Maddow with this scoop, I'm off to check my 401(k) and make sure Ashely can code her way into Harvard which will provide her with her own bespoke ecosystem once the planet's tanks.

"Sanders delenda est, amen."

Think I'm kidding about the above "satire"? Here's what I just got from a former Sanders supporter on why he's bailing in 2020:

I don't believe the angry socialist Jew from Vermont can accomplish that. Instead, I think his presence in this process is a huge reason why Elizabeth Warren's candidacy is DOA. She's far more informed, far more intelligent, and far more capable. Pouring money into Sanders shuts down Warren. I don't want Warren to be shut down, I want her participating in the debates. But she's now going to be viewed as the "losing" choice amongst the far-left candidates.

If I'm Russia, I pour money into Sanders because I know he doesn't have a prayer of winning, and I want him to be funded well enough that the other progressive candidates - like Warren, who might actually be able to take Trump down - don't get a chance to rise up. 

I believe that if Russia wanted to undermine our political process this time, making sure that Sanders wins the Democratic nomination would be the easiest way to accomplish it. Whether they do or don't is immaterial.

Doug, this isn't about my view of Sanders' policies or of him as a person. It's about a rational evaluation of America. Elizabeth Warren can be policy-identical to Sanders and she has a better shot of winning. But the Bernie bros are out in force again, and when he inevitably falls short because the people in the middle don't want him to be the Dems' candidate, they're going to turn on whoever is chosen and it'll be 2016 all over again.

I watched it happen. I literally saw people who were aggressively supporting Bernie suddenly turn into Trump supporters when Hillary won the nomination. Now what? They come back to Bernie, then Kamala or Biden wins the nomination and they're Trump supporters again?

That's over several emails, lightly edited. Another latte-sipping idiot, and of course there are responses to all that garbage and I gave them. The point is that it exists out there. OK, fine: my responses, also lightly edited from several emails' back and forth:

Sure, if you agree that you don’t really want any progressive policies, by all means, go along with these rich donors and the NYT that is their poodle-paper. 

Just make sure you’re doing it honestly, and above all not because you got sheep dogged (and don’t think you can’t be; the easiest mark on earth is someone who literally believes they can never BE a mark), because this “Sanders can’t win” crap is simply garbage. Sure, Trump might beat anyone. The future is uncertain. But all available evidence is that Sanders is extremely strong in the general, and, after his Fox News appearance, literally guaranteed to change people’s minds and steamroll over the usual Republican crap talking points, to say nothing of bringing in some of the 100m people who didn’t bother to vote last time.

As for “litmus tests,” yeah, like, my “litmus test” is “Does this candidate have any kind of plan to ram through policies that might save us or at least give us breathing room on about five different critical issues?” If not, they are “full of crap.” That’s my “litmus test.”

I hear garbage about Sanders being the savior. No, sorry—that was you guys with Obama and then Hillary, and I bashed it then. If Sanders wins, within 48 hours, he, too, will be a war criminal as he won’t end the drone war. And I’ll fight him on that. Support him where I should. It’s really not hard if you drop this PR-drenched “love affair” crap people—grown people—have with political candidates, which is without a doubt undemocratic. He’s sucked on Assange’s arrest which is nontrivial. 

I already have a wife, and I long ago stopped worshipping heroes. Sanders is serious, has the infrastructure and cash to win. And the skills—and FREEDOM, given he’s not addicted to the corporate teat like these Matrix-candidates who are designed to fool you. Yes, precisely like Obama did. 

American Politics 101: the Republicans fear (and thus serve) their base whereas the Democrats despise (and thus ignore the till now weak and self-neutered) their base. They hate them for one good reason: the base wants to break their rice bowls. Period. I do, definitely. Clean out the stables—before “this whole sucker goes down” to quote Ellen’s favorite war criminal—he made such nice paintings of “warriors,” Doug—why are you so MEAN? [Cries.]—George W Bush, Resistance General 29-A3.

Drop the learned helplessness—or just own that you’re not at all a progressive, which is, yes, shorthand for a set of polices we all know about. People are for them for real or not. End of story. The rest is garbage.

You’re cutting your own nuts off. Based on nothing but being scared what Trump might say about Sanders. Guess what? We just went through eight years of a Republican president, Obama, being called a marxist yada yada. Literally anyone who runs against a GOP candidate for president will be called, equally, a marxist whatever. It’s an opportunity, not cause for going into the fetal position.

This is where latte-sipping views of something called Racism floating down on gossamer wings of Whiteness is what caused Trump’s win [comes into the argument]. Wrong. It’s very useful—it’s Putin! It’s X! It’s Y! And against a background like what I’m sure you read in the article I just sent—serious reasons to see that Sanders has pretty much the best chance—people, and by “people,” I literally mean, “people like you and me, wealthy people who supported Sanders in 2016 or are at least nominally for these programs.” They’re the only ones who have bailed on Sanders—to the effect you see now. Almost none. Good! All the people I know who are not in our cohort, and I know plenty, are blissfully unaware of these TERRIBLE, GONAD-SHRIVELING WORRIES being foisted on us, against all evidence, by a bunch of rich cunts who don’t want to pay up.

Sanders literally just defended his friend and colleague Warren in his magnificent letter to CAP and that twat Tanden. That’s how he’s “shutting her down.” Warren’s great; she doesn’t have Sanders’ following, and their policies are almost the same. They are political allies. It’s important not to infantilize yourself and fall in love with pols. Any pols.

The Russia thing you just noted is literally the stupidest thing you’ve ever said. Sorry, can’t be polite here. If you’re going to go completely Maddow-crazy and start red-baiting progressives, we have nothing more to talk about. Seriously.

How the fuck would they [Russia] actually do that [throw the primary to Sanders]? What did they do in 2016? This was fringe, marginal crap that has been elevated to an evangelical-Christian-level conspiracy theory the only purpose of which is to undermine any progress on the issues you hold dear. And you’re aping it, amplifying it, and making actual decisions in the real world based on it.

You have absorbed the elite media hatred of Sanders, and against your own stated interests. That’s fucked up. If you were some centrist Clintonista, sure, fine. You’re not. 

Not good. 

You literally lack the courage of not just your convictions but to the point where you literally are ignoring actual reality. It’s right in front of your face, but Bad Flyover Fools keep you from even trying to push what is already literally working. 

OK, fine. Have fun with that. But you’re essentially making it all up. Sanders’s polices are majoritarian. Sure, he and anyone else might lose.

Fine, you’re all set with that and want to go all in for the tiny center, about 15 people, who have yet to make up their minds. It’s elite media manipulation 101; you got had.

You have no evidence that Warren, who is terrific, has anything like the popularity in the demz and nationally to take on trump. Zero. You’re literally pulling it out of your ass.

Bernie Bros? Are you fucking high? Sanders voters bailed on HRC to a far lesser degree than HRC’s bailed on Obama in the general in 2008. Fact. Sorry. It’s a fact.

Now you’ve adopted “Bernie Bros” too? Totally fucking stupid. I’m done.

See, in the world of rational people, you have to actually come with the stats. Your anecdotal facebook evidence is not sufficient. People—serious political scientists—actually study this stuff.

Funny, you wouldn’t make this error dealing with sports stats, but here…

See what alleyways you get led down when you buy into garbage you literally cannot support? Now you’re literally a talking-point bot for the Clintonistas you used to decry. You fell for it. Now you’re spouting Russiagate Putin shit and “angry Bernie Bros.” Enjoy that—I am reacting to this conversation by going to give yet another c-note to Sanders.

And that's what I did. :) This self-infantilizing pose you see above is what I call The Politics of the Impossible: everything good is impossible to achieve so ask, on your knees, for some tiny crumbs, and then kiss their feet if they even hear you out because incrementalism Bernie Bros Putin. Or something. Hard to have any respect for such people, one of whom is pictured below. He has a PhD in Resume Burnishing from Harvard, too; but he all scareded pwease weave wights on Mommy: