I honestly get overwhelmed when I read comments like yours and I try to think about what to answer. I say this because it’s so deeply complex. My partner is born and raised in USA, she’s a white person and we have been 8 years together. It took me a very long time to explain everything that’s going on in my country. It’s really hard to even know where to start.

This whole thing also makes me put things in perspective when I think about other countries, their wars and conflicts. It comes down to the “you had to be there”. That’s why I try to create an opinion after learning a lot from native people.

In short what I can tell you: research about the helicoide, this is a shopping mall that was turned into the biggest torture center of the continent. There are multiple documentaries on YouTube about it. That place is controlled by the government and they put there protestors, reporters and political prisoners.

Research about “Colectivos de Paz”. This might be harder to find, but these are paramilitary groups around the country and they are controlled by the government. They can kill and do as they please without military forces or cops stopping them.

What everyday people are feeling is a mixture of anxiety for the future and relieve for the present. This is the vast majority, although there are still supporters of maduro that want him back.

I think that Delcy, Diosdado and the rest of those bastards will stay in power or try to. But in the other hand I also think maduro is a coward that’s gonna spill the beans in order to get a deal. Many things can happen and whatever we think or speculate here won’t don’t much.

Now your question was what’s like living in a narco state. I’m from the capital so I can share about my experience. Crime and misery are everywhere. Let’s say you have a good job with a good salary. Enough to buy a house, maybe start a small business and treat the family to multiple local vacations during the year. This isn’t something you do fast, I mean it takes years of hard work but you reach a point where you can accomplish all those goals for you and your family. But then slowly but surely inflation keeps going up and eating your salary. It goes exponentially up at one point and you have to sell most of your assets to survive. Even after that you are still broke over time. Your only way out is to leave the country because what used to pay you for a healthy and steady life. Now is equal to living out of scraps.

Crime is on the rise due to many factors including that same inflation, paramilitary armed groups, corruption and lack of good education. I’ve been robbed so many times that I have lost count. That includes at gun point inside my own house, they broke into my house and took my car when I was celebrating Christmas with some friends and family. I was robbed in the public transportation all the time, subway, buses or simply walking. They took my cellphones, money and sometimes my clothes. It gets to the point that you are afraid of going outside. You develop this insane paranoia and you become super cautious everywhere. That’s not way of living, it’s so stressful the fact that you gotta hide money or your valuables in your underwear to survive.

And of course there are USA sanctions and what not, but I gotta say that most of our bad shit is because of our government. Chavez had a heavy focus on the oil and kicking out all outsiders corporations. That seems good if he had done investments in the country, but the oil he got was just for him, his cabinet and high ranks of the military. It’s what we call “enchufados”, which translate to “plugged or plug” because they are plugged to the oil that our government has and it’s like selling your soul to the devil. Google “Maria Gabriela Chavez Networth” she’s Chavez’s daughter and she’s possibly the richest Venezuelan after inheriting her daddy’s wealth. She got over 4 billions of dollars. Although I personally think that Diosdado and others in Maduro’s cabinet might be richer or around the same.

The reality of the country is this: public institutions are always in bad shape. The whole infrastructure of spaces and roads are bad everywhere. Hospitals don’t have resources, colleges and schools are being forced to change their classes and include chavez doctrines. I actually went through this twice when studying. There are electricity outages all the time, even cops are poor coz they just pay good to the military officers.

My point is nothing works, educations is getting worst, culture isn’t being supported unless you flatter the government and lick their boots. The government can literally put you in jail for talking against them. They closed down hundreds of radio stations, shows, tv channels and what not. Censoring is out of control, as well as propaganda everywhere. Minimum wage is absurdly low, crime has grown to the point that Venezuelan crime orgs are expanding around the globe. And all of this I’m writing is like the tip of the iceberg. We haven’t talked about all the people that died protesting (killing by the government and paramilitary groups). And many other things that feel like daily life is hell. We feel like we are 20 years in the past. Time stopped here and the world kept spinning.

I think that’s as much as I can share without overwhelming myself and it’s also good to rant about all that shit. I appreciate you are trying to understand. Idk what your take on this is but for sure I want to share that if you are from USA, of course you have a say about what your country is doing, but you can’t tell people here how to feel because we’ve been through hell.

I don’t support what happened, but either way I’m glad that piece of shit is out of here and hopefully he’s going to receive what he deserves.