For A Glimpse of the Future, Look South

Venezuela's socialism spiral nears its logical conclusion

Believe it or not, it’s only been roughly 25 years since Venezuela was a rich, up-and-coming South American democracy. Living large off huge natural reserves of oil, Venezuela was considered the future of socialism with the election of Hugo Chavez in 1998. Chavez rode a wave of public support into office by promising to use the country’s oil wealth to reduce poverty (with moderate short-term success).

But once in office, Socialists do Socialist things:

Firing everybody who actually knew how to get oil out of the ground and replacing them with political hires had predictable consequences. (If you try really hard, you might recognize a lesson here for America.)

With crashing oil production came the crashing of the economy, and the Socialists ‘solved’ that problem in typical Socialist fashion: They just printed the cash they needed. (If you try really hard, you might recognize a lesson here for America.)

Venezuela’s problems accelerated in 2013 with the death of Hugo Chavez and the election of his hand-picked successor, Nicolás Maduro. What little actual expertise Chavez had in running a country was lost, and Maduro was more worried about his own power than the well-being of his citizens. (Shocking, I know!)

Under Maduro, Venezuela’s already high inflation spiked out of control, literally breaking the scale in 2018:

And, as Screamers understand all too well, inflation hurts the poor the most. Frantic raises to the country’s minimum wage were far too little far too late, and most Venezuelans saw their standard of living plummet. When they couldn’t get enough to eat, Venezuelans joked about being on the “Maduro diet”.

Perhaps the perfect illustration of life under socialism

As we know, a worsening economy results in increased crime — and in typical Socialist fashion, Venezuela ‘solved’ that particular problem by banning civilian ownership of guns in 2012. (They also simply stopped reporting the stats. Sound familiar?) When protests erupted around the country in 2017, Maduro (predictably) decided his supporters should be armed.

With that quick and dirty recap of Venezuela’s history, we (finally) come to this election cycle. Maduro succeeded in getting opposition leader Maria Corina Machado thrown off the ballot (sound familiar?), and thus faced Edmundo Gonzalez instead.

This is where the story gets spicy.

On election day, Maduro ordered police to close polling locations and ‘commandeer’ boxes of ballots. Poll watchers were ordered away (sound familiar?), and Venezuela’s electoral council declared Maduro the winner — contradicting (by a wide margin) the exit polling conducted on that day.

With these election ‘irregularities’, Edmundo Gonzalez also declared himself the winner, claiming the real numbers show he won a landslide victory:

And faced with the prospect of another Maduro term, the people are NOT having it:

How do you expect the Socialists to respond to this massive uprising? If you answered “issue arrest warrants for their political adversaries”, you would be right on the money. (Sound familiar?)

In this video, opposition national political coordinator Freddy Superlano is ripped from his car and arrested:

Of course, not everybody is worthy of an arrest warrant and a raid — what do you do with the common protestor?

The answer is easy when you remember they’re unarmed:

In fact, the people were disarmed FOR THIS VERY REASON!

As the protests continue, some military and police officers are abandoning the Maduro regime and siding with the protesters:

This situation has divided the international community along predictable lines, with the United States leading the charge against Maduro (as they have been for years) and Venezuelan ally Cuba defending the current regime.

Only time will tell if Venezuelans will be forced to continue to live under the bootheels of Socialism, but luckily for us, the New York Times is here to explain what REALLY went wrong in Venezuela:

Hmmm…..a small, state-connected minority controlling much of a nation’s wealth? That….sure sounds like every instance of Socialism in history.

A couple years ago I wrote about how we’re following Canada down a dark path — if we zoom out a couple decades, that path leads exactly where Venezuela ended up. Hopefully Americans can avoid such a fate, but Shark Tank’s Kevin O'Leary (himself a Canadian) fears that Kamala Harris is the American version of Justin Trudeau:

Sorry, Mrs. Harris, I prefer my candidates to be competent, have an achievable vision, and have leadership qualities — so for those reasons, I’m out.

Afraid of commitment? Buy me a coffee on Ko-fi — no subscription required!

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Bonus: It’s been a couple weeks since the Trump assassination attempt, and with every new video, we’re less and less sure that we’re dealing with simple incompetence: