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Maduro Takes the Easy Way Out  (Gisela Salim-Peyer, The Atlantic)
More than a decade later, a humanitarian crisis has turned a quarter of Venezuela’s population into emigrants, and Maduro seems to have decided that popular support is a luxury he can do without. To stay in power, he must have concluded some time ahead of the election, repression would have to suffice. His charisma certainly wasn’t going to win him the votes he needed. And with the country’s oil industry in decrepit shape, Maduro could hardly have afforded the grandiose presidential campaigns of his predecessor, or the generous food baskets doled out only during election years. He went for the cheaper option: scaring activists, opposition leaders, and everyday people into voting a certain way by showing them that those who don’t can wind up in prison.
Distant observers of Venezuelan politics might have thought it obvious that Maduro was never going to recognize the election results. But some Venezuelan academics and political leaders I interviewed before the vote were convinced, or maybe hopeful, that Maduro would acquiesce if the opposition victory was overwhelming. Even dictatorships need some level of popular support, they argued. Perhaps military leaders would see the results and calculate that Maduro’s collapse was imminent. Perhaps they would be willing to negotiate a deal with the opposition, leaving the regime exposed.
Nothing further can be asked of the opposition leadership; Machado and González have pulled off something extraordinary. On the campaign trail, they faced every imaginable difficulty: Their staffers were thrown in jail; state-controlled media refused them airtime; gasoline stations and hotels were closed for supplying services to them. Yet the pair rallied crowds in the most remote corners of the country, places only Chávez had previously galvanized. When Maduro banned Machado from running for president, the opposition could have been derailed by intrigue and succession battles; instead it coalesced behind González, a career diplomat who comes across not as a power-hungry schemer but as someone happy to help.
In the past 25 years, the opposition has used three different tactics to challenge Chávez and Maduro: elections, protests, and international support. Never before have all three strategies gathered so much momentum, or come together so effectively all at the same time. Just about a week ago, when so many preconditions seemed to be finally aligning to bring the dictatorship to its end, the moment seemed full of hope. But if, with all of that serendipity, the Venezuelan opposition does not triumph, then maybe Maduro will be proved right that dictatorship can be sustained indefinitely with repression alone.

White Supremacist and Anti‐Government Extremist Groups in the US  (Katherine Keneally and Jacob Davey, GNET)
This report is the second in a series of short reports of user journeys of individuals in extremist communities. The selected communities include formal and well‐defined extremist organizations, beginning with White supremacist and anti‐government extremist groups in the United States. This overview provides a snapshot of the current operating behaviors that the public can readily access, including acting as the first sites of exposure to extremist content.
White supremacist and anti‐government groups in the US are adept at manipulating events and societal developments, usually for the purposes of radicalization, recruitment and offline mobilization of the public, as part of their core ideological narrative. It is worth noting that these narratives are prevalent in both their online and offline activities. This report highlights their characteristics, platform use, violence and attacks, and gendered dimensions.
The study uses a repository of current and historical data on the social media activity of extremist groups, conspiracy movements and disinformation. Through big data collection and ethnographic monitoring of more than 600 channels and groups, we analyzed the interconnectedness of the following White supremacist and anti‐government extremist groups: White Lives Matter (WLM), Patriot Front, Proud Boys, Aryan Freedom Network and Nationalist Social Club‐131 (NSC‐131).