Maduro stole the election with the help of the Chinese. By your own NYT reporting, The Venezuelan government has paid $75 to a Chinese IT company to create a citizen database system tied up together with the national ID card. The National ID Card -Cedula de Identidad- is required and obligatory for every citizen to have. And it is always needed to conduct all business in private or public.
The system is centrally managed and creates individual citizens’ files. This database contains all personal and confidential information that a passport contains. Then, it collects everything else about a person down to very granular level that includes voter records, banking records, debts, and alliances.
The system reminds of Communist East Germany, but apparently of Chinese origin.
The system is used to control and command individuals and to reward and to punish.
Venezuela is now Cuba with Venezuelan money that was quickly stolen and stashed in Miami.
Irony of ironies.
Go ahead. Fact check me.
2
I wish the NYT would go a bit deeper, and explore just how and why things got so bad in Venezuela. Why were Chávez, and later Maduro, elected in the first place? Why did Venezuela take a turn towards pseudo communist authoritarianism? Was Venezuela ever truly democratic? Was US policy towards Venezuela effective before Chávez/Maduro? Is it effective now? How can the US help Venezuela 'return' to liberal democracy? Is Venezuela an inescapable victim of what some have called the 'oil curse'?
2
Mr. Maduro is a product of the far left. What we see in Venezuela is what would happen if the Democrats had a firm grip on power in the United States. They just promise the people everything in exchange for their votes. And then it all falls apart when they can't live up to their promises. Look at what's going on in NYC. De Blasio wants to guarantee everyone a paid vacation. Like, what could go wrong?
5
During the Chavez years, unemployment fell by about half, per capital income more than doubled, poverty fell by a factor of nearly 3 and infant mortality dropped by about half. Anyone seen those kinds of improvements in West Virginia, Mississippi, upstate New York or northern New Jersey lately?
True, Washington and the white Venezuelan ruling class hated Chavez and tried on more than one occasion, with help from CIA (that democracy-loving organization!), to overthrow him, after elections which were judged far more reliable than ours.
Of course, It's also a known fact that right-wing oligarchies and market-dictated economies never have inflation or financial crises, which is why folks are so happy in Honduras, El Salvador, Guatemala, Greece, Congo, etc.
28
@jrd
Your comments are insightful and point at some deeper levels to the story. And I might have made them myself under Chavez. However, there’s two unique features of Maduro’s rule that to me supersede the allusion you make the pre-eminence of the gains made under Bolivarian socialism, and the crippling pressures effected by Washington. First, Maduor is incompetent—many world leaders told him to prepare for the collapse of oil, and he did not. He has magnified this problem by putting the wrong people in charge of the nationalized oil company. Second, it matters that his populace is worn down, starving, in need of health care, employment, and hope. You might want them to sacrifice their sick children and grandparents and another generation to the socialist dream, but they are fed up and would take any semblance of normalcy—even at this point the neoliberal, brutal, trickle-down version. Maduro has failed. Allende, Manley, Fidel, even Roosevelt would have managed this nightmare more effectively. Do you hear me?: Maduro has failed.
22
Bernie Sanders vision for a socialist America.
9
Maduro plays salsa while his people starve and die,
US strangulation, cheap oil—big causes, that’s no lie.
Weary of the socialist dream,
For food, meds, jobs folks switch teams,
A tragic horror El Prez continues to deny.
3
Believe it or not, there are still many Venezuelans who buy into socialism. Those who knew better and had the means to do so fled years ago.
5
Maduro's election cannot be understood without reference to the vast abuses that preceded him.
A tiny elite looted the country. Poverty was wide and deep. Illiteracy was normal. There was no health care. Life expectancy was short.
The country was rich, and its people were ignored and suffering. It was the same as is Nigeria today, a people living on top of vast natural resources, suffering because they were not needed to extract the make off with that wealth.
Maduro and Chavez before him are incompetent. They are however not what came before. It is the same as in Cuba, where for many years the explanation for Castro was simple -- Batista and his American backers.
16
@Mark Thomason But life for most people in Venezuela is worse now than in 1998 when Chavez took over.
5
Was life worst when Chavez was in power?
@NS
Life for most people in Venezuela is better than in 1988. People living in extreme poverty has been reduced by a significant amount, and these same impoverished people, whom capitalism never helped, also gained the right to vote in a Bolivarian Republic, which was not available to them in the previous regimes.
2
What happens in Venezuela is the business of Venezuelans, not the USA, which only seems to cherry-pick which authoritarian states are acceptable (e.g. Egypt and Saudi Arabia) and which are not. It is also not surprising that Maduro was re-elected given that the opposition has been boycotting elections. Perhaps if the same opposition actually had a platform for governing, rather than simply campaigning on ousting Maduro and little else, they could actually build a genuine movement for change.
20
@Diego I never thought of it that way, the part about the opposition not having a platform. Thanks for pointing that out.
2
This has nothing to do with social-democracy, which is actually the opposition to chavism and Maduro in Venezuela. Venezuela's regime is a fascist, military, kleptocratic and illegitimate long ago de facto government. Every single thing they have done to stay in power is a crime, as it is the irresponsible policies that have caused a FAMINE. They will only return the power to the people, who elected the legitimate Congress by an 80% in favor the opposition and was stripped of its powers by Maduro, whose "election" was joke, by force. Even the chavista founded company that handled the electronic counting of the risible number of votes of the illegitimate, illegal from origin, election for a National Constitutional Assembly (which they pretend is "plenipotentiary") announced fraud and its managers left the country. Everything happening in Venezuela for many years is a Casus Belli. Nobody wants this regime, not even the soldiers, they are escaping the country too. I just hope the ring leaders cannot escape.
12
@Concerned Citizen
This is the Establishment version of Venezuela.
For nearly twenty years the US has attempted to strangle Venezuela into agreeing that only the Venezuelan elite has the right ideas for governing. Castro withstood the US onslaught, I hope that Maduro can.
All those Honduran families fleeing Honduras are doing so because of the spike in violence after Secretary of State Hillary Clinton supported a coup in Honduras.
The US always supports its corporate interests, and not what is best for the people, and it certainly does not support any democracy that elects leaders that don't give priority to US corporate interests.
There are long term consequences to such thuggish US policies.
2
@Lucy Cooke Conspiracy theories at play huh?
2
Fraudulent or not, do Americans understand that voting for Chavez and now for Maduro is a vote against the United States? For so long the US built a reputation of intervention on behalf of their own countries business interests. From Arbenz, Allende, Torrijos, and on and on too many presidents were overthrown due to US intervention. So now when the US tries to cry wolf over some potential Latin American despot they have zero credibility. Whats more, anything that does go wrong can easily be credited to US intervention.
6
@Josue Azul Amen. The U.S. needs to stay far, far away. Nothing we can do to help the situation -- and any assistance is only likely to later be interpreted as an impingement of their sovereign rights. Let it play out as desired by the populace. They wanted socialism -- let them have it.
2
Hang in there, Venezuela. Every generation gets a chance to change the world. Many of the 3 million who fled will return with the requisite education and skills to turn the country around. Arepas away from Venezuela aren’t nearly as tasty as the ones back home so they’ll be back hungry to rebuild.
5
Is Maduro a better man than El Chapo? He's starving and expelling millions of people, and stealing the property of an entire nation.
6
"after winning an election last year that had been rejected by nations across the region as illegitimate."
illegitimate? Like Congo? Like W in 2000 in the USA?
The NY Times hasn't managed to show that Maduro was illegitimately re-elect.
We get it, the editors of the NYT don't like him, nor do a subset of Venezuelans, but that doesn't mean he didn't win legitimately.
6
It’s not up to NYT to prove that Maduro’s election is illegitimate. The article reports that many nations in the region deemed his re-election as illegitimate. That is a fact.
10
@Yaj Illegitimate or not it is up to the people of Venezuela to deal with Maduro and his minions -- not the U.S. The people voted for him -- he is their legitimate leader -- let the people follow their dreams where ever it takes them.
3
The name of the chavista game is the destruction of the upper class and redistribution of wealth from the midddle class to the working (and unworking) classes - essentially the platform of Jeremy Corbin, Ocasio-Cortez and Melenchon. While reducing inequality is a good thing it has to be accompanied by productivity and fairness to people who do the work. Investing in after-Chavez Venezuela equals insanity because the simply steal your investment. Repairing the machinery in an oil rig is impossible because the money goes to corrupt "socialist" officials and the military.
Once you start choking the productive parts of a society, the spiral can only go down. We saw this in Zimbabwe, we see it in Venezuela and South Africa.
15
@NS
People seem to vote for the incompetent tyrant (pretty much in the same percentages we are voting for ours) despite the fact that they are starving. Are they masochists and/or dumb?
There must be something else we are not seeing. When people have nothing to lose but their chains, they rebel.
One has to analyze where all that wealth and income went to prior to Chavez. I bet you some very interesting things will come out that will have some explanatory power.
It reminds me a little of Iran. During the Shah’s time income and wealth distributions were so skewed (literally L shaped) that since 1979 the people of that country have put up with a regime that is worse than the dark ages. And we are talking a country that is the longest continuous empire that has seen it all.
One wonders.
3
I visited VZ for 2 months in both 2017 and 2018. What a mess. But the solution of their problems must come from within.
10
First things first: It's abundantly clear that Maduro is not as skilled a politician as his predecessor Hugo Chavez.
However, the simple fact that the US backed the failed coup against Hugo Chavez makes the Times' reporting suspect and Maduro's claims about US-backed coup attempts against him credible. Especially since the "wide criticism" described seems to be coming from the people who want to remove Maduro before his term is up.
9
@Dave Indeed Maduro is their legitimate leader -- the man they voted for pursuing a socialist ideology they desired. The U.S. needs to step aside.
1
NYC is in trouble big time.
Drugs sold and used on 8th avenue in the middle of the day, a guy selling pot at the corner of 8th and 36 right at the WiFi tower, guys shooting heroin on the street next to a bar on 8th and 35, pot holes feet long and inches deep, and the list goes on.
Yet DeBlasio won reelection.
Go find out how that happened, and you will have the same answer to the Venezuela question.
13
That is a ridiculous comparison.
1
@AutumnLeaf
And there was crack sold on my corner until Giuliani's last year in office. Actually continued being sold until about 2005.
You're worried about pot sales?
2
@Kiki Gavilan
And AutumnLeaf doesn't seem real familiar with the Garment District.
1
Socialism will cure all of America's ills right Democrats.
9
Their problem is anti democratic authoritarianism, not “socialism”. Take heed, Republicans.
4
Not Venezuela but Germany with health care and free tuition. Seems to work there. Compare us to other democratic states not failed autocracies.
5
Germany only has free tuition for the top student who do the best on a standardized test no exceptions for race nationality or sex how would that work here
2
We should let all of those in Venezuela who want to, come and enter here into our country and let them all stay for however long they need or forever. Right? All of them. It's only fair.
What's another 10 or 20 million or so?
6
Who would have thought that governance by an incompetent grandstanding charismatic authoritarian sociopath who promised to "upend the system" for his cult like base of the uneducated, who loots the Treasury for himself and his rich cronies, who purged his own Party of those who disagree with him, demanding total loyalty from those who remain, who praises brutal police methods, threatened or actually locked up opposition politicians while rhetorically attacking them to chanting crowds, who blamed the nation's problems on wild foreign conspiracy theories, who claims he alone can "fix it", who lies constantly creating his own "alternate facts", takes no responsibility for any reverses, who attacks the free press as an enemy of the people, who runs up huge national debts, promises health care for everyone while destroying the access to care for millions...could lead a nation to economic collapse?
18
@Winston Smith
Perfect. The only thing you may have left out is his penchant for putting time into his salsa music radio show seems to me like a riff on Nero and his fiddling.
5
@Winston Smith Perfect. And if only we could fine someone to throw a mango at Trump, like the woman who threw a mango at Maduro's face a couple years ago.
1
@Winston Smith
I didn't know that Trump has had anyone locked up.
3
You forgot who else supports Venezuela - Obama's friends in Iran. Hopefully the U.S. and Brazil will coordinate an effort to introduce a little sanity to the region. Democratic Socialists like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez will resist, but somebody should help those people before they rush our border.
6
Yeah, Brazil is a shining example of democracy and wise governing.
8
@yulia
You are right but I think the commenter can’t think or see it seems.
2
Obama’s friends? Get real.
2
As has been its routine practice in nonconforming nations, the United States has been diligently working to overthrow the government of Venezuela for two decades by choking its international trade, funding antigovernment organizations and propaganda, and abetting coup attempts, all under the guise of promoting freedom and democracy.
The NY Times enthusiastically participates in this U.S. strategy by periodically publishing spin articles, such as the one today by Herrero and Specia, that blame the government of Venezuela for the nation’s struggling economy and for the hardships of the Venezuelan people.
It is a testament to the integrity and resilience of the Venezuelan people that their support for their elected government remains strong despite the hardships they have endured as a result of U.S. subversion. And it is a testament to the unprincipled journalism of the NY Times that in today’s article, as usual, the government of Venezuela is scapegoated and the Venezuelan people’s continued support of it goes unmentioned.
11
@Admiral
This is how Maduro still has enough support to cling to power. People so ignorant to believe it all the fault of some foreign power...can't believe that socialism does not work....can't believe their leaders are milking the country dry..and milking those evil "capitalists" just trying to make a living until their is nothing left to milk.
5
Why should they believe that socialism doesn't work, when they see it is working in Scandinavian countries?
1
Maduro secured his second term through illegal Marxist ballot harvesting much a Democrat Socialists did in California.
8
@iRail
Marxist ballot harvesting? You coined a new concept. Congratulations.
And it is illegal too! Wow man. You are imaginative.
3
No, he won re-election because the opposition boycotted knowing they would lose anyway and wanted to inject an air of illegitimacy. The Maduro base are the same people who voted for Chavez in rebellion against years of neoliberal economic policies that of course cause terrible inequality and rampant poverty.
4
@iRail - Alternative theory: Democrats won in CA because a large majority of our electorate are Democrats or left-leaning independents. And we're happy with the prosperity achieved by our Democratic-led government. "Ballot harvesting" is a sinister sounding way to say "making sure everyone gets to vote".
3
It's hard to have a totalitarian dictatorship if you're not an island and the borders are porous. Eventually, everyone will leave.
5
@Jonathan
Boy, I am glad for Canada being driving distance!
2
How did Maduro get elected?
The same as Trump got elected, by votes of the people who feel ignored by the sort of leader the US and the NYT think Venezuela should have.
Short of war [though it has tried a coup, and discussed attempting another coup], the US has tried as hard as it can to get rid of, first Chavez, and now Maduro.
The US is behind many of the problems in Venezuela.
It has its boot on the the throat of Venezuela... but Venezuela just won't die.
I admire the endurance of the ordinary people of Venezuela, who have never had much, so its easier for them to endure.
Of course those who were accustomed to the better life are angry and the US is doing everything it can to help them fight against Maduro... not sending weapons, but financing opposition groups and using every economic weapon tool possible against the government, and Venezuela itself.
For if the Chavez, now Maduro government succeeded in making life better for the huge majority of poor Venezuelans it would make the US version of extreme capitalism look bad.
And you remember the "domino theory"...
US intervention in Venezuela, similar to what it has done in so many other countries whose leaders aren't appropriately submissive, makes US fury at the tiny, silly social media so-called influencing of the US election look stupid.
9
@Lucy Cooke
This tendentious comment reminds me of the SDS posters I saw on arriving at college in September 1969.
4
@Lucy Cooke There are many countries with whom the U.S. has tense relations that aren't suffering the kind of humanitarian crisis that Venezuela has, or often without the oil wealth that Venezuela enjoys
4
Maduro did not win because of the disenfranchised individuals--that happened with Chavez. Maduro was only able to win because only people who support him and his party get aid, electricity, and food. These aren't disenfranchised voters; they are starving and desperate to save their families if not themselves. That's why Maduro will not let in any aid that he and his government does not control. This quote from the article touches on this. "Despite that, election officials said Mr. Maduro won 68 percent of the vote. ...
Representatives of Mr. Maduro’s party tracked those who voted by registering their “Fatherland Card” — or national benefits card — and promised aid and government subsidized food handouts if re-elected."
Thanks to the last lifeline in the country, I was able to find my host family through Facebook. I was an exchange student in 1977. It's a stunning downfall. It was surreal that I could finally find them and talk to them using Facebook Messenger as a phone. It is desperate. Imagine being held beholden to government and only getting a fraction of your basic needs met if you support the government. That's where Venezuela is now and that's why they can't vote him out or even overthrow him. They are barely surviving.
3
These people create problems in their own societies, then they will head to USA claiming persecution in their country. They will bring their culture and ideologies to create problems in our country. Democrats will be always there with open arms to welcome them. So, be careful, take a stand, build the wall to save the country from socialism, cultural shock and anarchy like the one we see in Venezula.
3
From what we read in the New York Times and other liberal publications in this country, not to mention the conservative and trashy press, the situation has been so bad in Venezuela for so long that people not taking up arms let alone electing Maduro (by the way the percentage of ballots casted out of the eligible ones is mentioned to be less then half to insinuate something, what is the percentage here in the US?) again sounds very strange indeed.
Could it be that the majority of the people who did not benefit from Venezuela being the richest country in Latin America thanks to its “almost infinite” oil reserves, do not see the current regime as evil as the beneficiaries (the old “Pedevesa” was tightly controlled so the oil wealth was distributed not unlike Aramco or Gazprom/Rosneft/Lukoil) do?
I wish Venezuela well. I have good friends from college days who were wonderful people dying to go back to serve their country who are back in the US sad and frustrated. Still, I believe better analysis of what exactly goes on there without a ideologically biased lens is badly needed.
Unfortunately this article is not going anywhere in that direction.
11
@Blunt Life has gotten worse for all classes of Venezuelans. Maduro is incompetent and a tyrant who has trampled democracy as well as ruined the economy. Socialism or US intervention are the least of their problems now.
11
There is no accounting for voter stupidity, unless fear and political corruption are factored in at the top of the list of excuses for re-electing a despot.
2
Wage and price controls, theft of private property, a patronage based public sector. 'Social Democrats' of New York, Venezuela is the corollary to your policies. When individual freedom and enterprise is oppressed by the 'will of the people' only the pigs get apples.
2
I don't know Venezuela was a richest country and yet the people voted for Chavez. I am wondering why? Is it because under capitalism and democracy only pigs have apples and everybody else have nothing. Otherwise, why didn't Venezuelans didn't support the coup against Chavez and re-elected him?
4
This should be required reading at all public educational institutions, including the new green wave in our congress. There is no perfect form of governance, ours is maddening at times, others are also, and then there is this type. I opt fully for ours.
11
This is not about capitalism, communism, socialism or any other ism. It’s plain and simple graft, corruption, theft and kleptocracy wrapped in a flag.
I heard on the Indicator, that working at minimum wage in Venezuela for a whole day a person earns enough to buy less than 800 calories of food. Another humanitarian tragedy unfolding before our eyes.
36
Great article. Thank you
I just returned from a two-and-a-half-year trip through Latin America. I visited almost every country except Venezuela. All the Venezuelans that were living abroad, and there were many, advised me not to go at this point. Hopefully one day when things return to normal I'll return.
10
In decades past, the governments in Venezuela were beholden to the military: this was still an honest (mostly!) body of educated people who could take charge at any time. But now, the military is also being "kept" by the government, so they are powerless. They also want money for themselves, and the government allows them to obtain it fraudulently.
It seems to me, too, that most (by a long shot) of the supporters of Maduro are the poor and the less educated. Look at the pictures! Venezuela has done a poor job of educating its populations. This has been the case since the time of Independence, when the revolutionary movement was NOT supported by the ordinary citizens but only by the elite leaders. The Spaniards, who controlled everything, had seen to it that the ordinary people were kept ignorant, so they chose the status quo of subservience to Spain. The same is happening now.
How to you break out of these binding facts? My own brother, who had pancreatic cancer, could not get the medications he needed to assuage his pain, but he had plenty of money, so he came to Houston to be treated, and there he died. But what of the millions who are poor? Cuba has invaded toe country for a long time; Chavez died in Cuba, under Cuban treatment for cancer. Why is a Cuban invasion tolerated but an OAS one is not?
7
@Ignacio Gotz
Chavez traded oil to Cuba in exchange for Cuban doctors coming to Cuba to provide health care to the poor.
Cuba is known for its doctors and its very high literacy rate
"Universal healthcare and free education were fundamental to Castro’s project. “They were the two big investments of the revolution,” says Mark Keller, a Cuba expert at the Economist Intelligence Unit. “So Cuba has a really well-educated population and a surfeit of doctors.” Life expectancy on the island is higher than in the U.S. and Cubans have almost more than three times as many doctors per capita."
http://time.com/5467742/cuba-doctors-export-brazil/
5
Where are Danny Glover and Sean Penn when you need them?
My Venezuelan mother-in-law lives with us. My wife has dozens of family members still living in Venezuela. Basically the only ones still there are the ones that can't leave. Meanwhile, we've seen Venezuelan government officials flying first class from Miami to New York (you can tell who they are by the type of flag they display - the 8 stars of the Hugo Chavez flag).
This has nothing to do with socialism - this is a kleptocracy. The wealth of this country has been stolen. That's all this is.
It's perfect for Russia. They are now looting the country of oil and mineral rights and antagonizing Trump at the same time.
The biggest irony for me personally is that the Venezuelans I know all thought Obama was the next Chavez (and not in a good way). And they have no problem with Trump, who sounds exactly like a third world dictator for anyone who's listening. It makes you wonder if for some reason they're just predisposed to leaders like these in some countries.
Anyway, you keep thinking it has to collapse at some point. We'd love to move to Venezuela, it's a stunning country. So far, no joy.
43
Stablished dictatorships cannot be fought with democratic elections because such a process does not exist in this type of regimes. Additionally, it is difficult to fully understand why Maduro is still in power without taking into account two more facts.
First is the fact that Venezuela is an organized crime state. This has been documented for years. Some cases have come to trial here, in the State of NY. Venezuela's government is a drug cartel more powerful than its colleges from Mexico and Colombia.
Second, Cuba. Venezuela is like Cuba's colony. The Castro regime implemented all state repression mechanisms in Venezuela, invited by Chavez. So Venezuela has the Cuban military in charge not only of the Venezuelan Armed Forces but the police and key government agencies. That way the government suppresses any attempt against it.
19
And yet the younger Democrats, and the NYT, are all-in for socialism.
None of what happens in Venezuela is unique. We have seen it all before, across the USSR and Eastern Europe.
Totalitarian political control, silencing of all opposition, hunger as a weapon, empty shelves, supply lines and management of industry so badly damaged by centralized power that industry barely functions. Purge of all those who knew how to make the food grow, keep the lights on, and keep the economy moving.
Our schools have done a great job of excising the curriculum of the lessons of 1918-1990. Our youngest Congress critters are determined to prove that when we don’t learn the lessons and pass them down, we are doomed to repeat the failures of the past.
29
You decry socialism, bit the shift to examples of totalitarianism. This economic chaos isn’t the result of socialist policies, and crank economics has been de rejur among Republicans for a generation.
30
This is socialism. My in-laws are both from behind the Iron Curtain. I have heard the stories first hand of expropriation of private property, empty shelves, secret police and people disappearing in the night.
Spare us the argument that the Democrats are only pursuing what Scandinavia has. The Democrats’ actual behavior says otherwise. Proof: campus purge of anything centrist or right wing. Physical attacks on guest speakers. Burning down neighborhoods. Speech codes. Thought crime. Excising the history classes. Turned their back on freedom of religion and conscience. And they are clearly financially illiterate.
I stand by my position.
30
@JEG As one socialist dream after another has turned to ashes (yes, even Sweden - not socialist anymore, if it ever was) political apologists on the left recite the same old litany: It was the wrong 'type' of socialism - while never pointing out the 'right' type of socialism.
If the 20th Century taught us one thing, it is this: There are limits to what government - any government - can do.
12
Madurai needs to go . People keep afloat by getting money and supplies from the US. My husband and I send money every month to help support grandma and uncles in the country. Without it they would starve. In Miami there is an industry that send dollars, medicine and food to family members. People come to the US fill their suitcases at Costco with non perishables like pasta tuna fish deodorant etc and fly back with it to Venezuela. Yes some gets stolen at the airport but some gets through.
For voting if you had any kind of job with the government you HAD to vote and for Maduro, they kept track. If not you would lose your job.
The corruption is way beyond what is imaginable. Maduro needs to go.
59
I, personally, think it is up to people who lives in Venezuela to decide who should go. I understand the situation is bad, but it seems like people don't trust the opposition also. As matter of fact, we don't hear much what the opposition has to offer in order to fix the crisis.
2
@Steph Cabrera
Like Yulia above, I believe Venezuelans need to decide for themselves. I am sure a lot of people are looking at us and saying what on earth are you guys thinking voting Trump into the Presidency of the most powerful country in the planet?
And, you, your state voted not only for Trump but a crook for Senator recently too. When will anyone learn? It is up to the people to decide.
2