"I asked what she thought about the government. She told me that the government gave people what they needed. This was a Venezuelan truism, whether or not it was true in practice: Venezuela was a petrostate, and in the eyes of its citizens, it existed to parcel out the riches pumped from the ground. What did she think about Chávez? She said that he was her comandante. And Maduro? The son of the comandante. That was all."