Thursday morning in Caracas dawned much like any other day in the slow decline of Venezuela’s Bolivarian revolution: sparsely stocked shops were open, commuters boarded decaying metro trains and clapped-out buses to get to work.

Schools were half-empty, buses were harder to find, but apart from that, the capital was mostly calm, and there was little indication of the previous day’s extraordinary events – or that two men now claim to be the country’s rightful ruler.

To roars of approval from thousands of supporters – and the enthusiastic support of the Trump administration – Juan Guaidó, the former head of the national assembly, declared himself interim president on Wednesday.

It was the most brazen challenge so far to the government of Nicolás Maduro who immediately dismissed the move as a coup attempt orchestrated by an alliance of the “fascist right” and “the coup-mongering, interventionist gringo empire”.

Overnight, security forces clashed with protesters in the working-class neighborhood of Petare in eastern Caracas, and isolated incidents of looting occurred.

Guaidó’s bold gamble set the scene for a political standoff: neither side seems willing to budge, and each leader can count on international support.

What that means for Venezuelans remains far from clear, said Alejandro Rondón a 24-year-old management student who joined a pro-Maduro rally on Wednesday.

“What Mr Guaidó did seems irresponsible to me: he is deceiving people – and he’s leading us into a constitutional labyrinth it will be hard for us to get out of.”

Rondón allowed that there were frustrations with the government but he was confident that the people would stick with Maduro – if only out of loyalty to his late mentor and predecessor. “In moments like this we close ranks because of our respect for Hugo Chávez.”

And despite growing uncertainty over the country’s future, life continued more or less as normal for Venezuelans on both sides of the political divide.

“I almost didn’t get to work,” said Simara Romero a 35-year-old waitress, who crosses Caracas twice a day for her job at a coffee shop in the east of the city. “It took me an hour to find a bus that would bring me to work. And now that I’m here, we’ve only had two clients.”

Venezuela has seen two previous attempts to unseat Maduro through mass street protests – both of which failed, prompting government crackdowns which left scores dead on both sides, and thousands jailed. So for many Caraqueños the latest unrest had an air of deja vu.

Workers wait for the bus to return to their homes on Thursday in Caracas. Photograph: Edilzon Gamez/Getty Images

“I can’t keep grinding my life to a halt every time there is trouble – it’s endless here. And besides, you kind of know the drill,” said Cristina Fernández, a graphics designer, as she carried her shopping to her car .

“I didn’t take my kids to school, but other than that life must go on. It’s not like me stopping is going to bring down the government,” she said. “And I need to work because I need the money.”

Nearly 90% of Venezuelans live in poverty, so it was perhaps understandable that for many, the daily struggle to get by should take priority over political theatre.

“My president is Juan Guaidó – not because the US says so, but because I want him: I want a change. The country can’t go on as it is,” said Caty Aguilar, 54, as she headed out from home in Petare. She works three jobs as a house cleaner, and sells phone cards and individual cigarettes – but even that is barely enough to get by.

Aguilar’s daughter is one of the 3 million Venezuelans who has fled the country, and occasionally sends remittances back home from Peru, but Aguilar also relies on the occasional box of subsidized food handed out by the government. She said a local official had warned her she would lose the subsidy if she attended anti-government protests, but she shrugged off the threat.

“I just don’t care any more. I don’t think the government has the money to keep buying them much longer anyway,” she said.

Across the country, Venezuelans turned to the strategies they have relied on in previous outbreaks of political drama.

“I’ve stocked up on food – although there is hardly anything to buy in the shops,” said Victoria Daboin, 26, from the Andean city of Mérida in the west. “This [unrest] is typical, it always happens in the country when there’s uncertainty.”

Fernández said that many Venezuelan families have come up with methods to get through periods of turmoil: “You stock up on food a couple of days when you see it coming. You keep kids home. You obsessively check Twitter and WhatsApp – but you no longer forward every post because most videos of burning cities or wounded people are fake or from Nicaragua,” she said.

But this week’s developments have added a new element of uncertainty to familiar rituals: since Guaidó took his oath of office, neither he nor Maduro have made any significant public appearance or official indication of their plans.

Internationally, supporters of the two men have lined up on familiar geopolitical lines: Russia, China, Cuba, Turkey and Nicaragua have backed Maduro; the US, the UK and most of Venezuela’s Latin American neighbours have backed Guaidó.

It appeared to be business as usual at the US embassy in Caracas despite Nicolás Maduro giving diplomats 72 hours to leave. Photograph: Edilzon Gamez/Getty Images

But how that support plays out on the ground remains unclear. When Donald Trump official recognized Guaidó as president, Maduro responded quickly by giving all US diplomatic staff 72 hours to leave the country.

However, Mike Pompeo, the US secretary of state, said that US diplomats would remain in Venezuela because Maduro – who he described as an “ex-president” – lacks the legal authority to break off diplomatic relations”.

An email sent by the US embassy to its citizens in Venezuela emphasised they “are keeping regular hours” and on Thursday morning the street outside the embassy was quiet, with no sign that Venezuelan security forces were preparing to enforce Maduro’s deadline.

Additional reporting by Mariana Zúñiga