After President Donald Trump‘s shock move to oust former Venezuelan dictator Nicolas Maduro, the national debate has focused on the legality and wisdom of such a drastic step. But, while those debates are all important, a broader lesson is falling under the radar: the story of Venezuela’s downfall as a wake-up call for the misguided American leftists promoting so-called “democratic socialism.”
Given the bloody and brutal historical record of socialism, American leftists — from Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) to Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) to the new mayor of New York City, Zohran Mamdani — wisely rebranded their preferred political agenda to something different, “democratic socialism,” to avoid being lumped in with the authoritarian regimes of the 20th century. This rebrand has been so successful that recent polling found 62% of young Americans aged 18 to 29 view socialism favorably.
It’s all based on one premise: that “democratic” socialism is different and will not lead to the same economic devastation and authoritarian rule as its historical predecessors. There’s just one problem: This is a lie, and Venezuela’s fall proves it.
After all, given the authoritarian state of the Maduro regime, where elections were rigged and dissidents crushed, one might assume that Venezuela was always controlled by an authoritarian system. It was not.
The political leader who implemented many of Venezuela’s destructive socialist policies was Hugo Chávez, and he was elected in a free and fair election in 1998. Chávez’s agenda embraced “democratic socialism,” so much so that in 2013, former Sanders campaign staffer and socialist writer David Sirota praised Chávez’s so-called “economic miracle.” Sanders once praised Chávez’s policies, endorsing an editorial that suggested the American dream was more alive in Chávez’s Venezuela than in the United States. (Sanders later distanced himself from this praise and has repeatedly condemned the Maduro regime, which succeeded Chávez, for its human rights abuses.)
So, it’s not unfair to view Chávez’s economic record as reasonably representative of “democratic socialism,” when, at the time of its implementation, that’s exactly how American socialists saw it. Plus, the actual policies he implemented, from nationalizing private industries to setting price controls to booms in welfare funding financed by money printing, all neatly map onto the agenda of American socialists.
Chávez’s policies also destroyed Venezuela’s economy to the point where 8 million people were forced to flee the country, and people were left eating dogs, cats, and pigeons because of food shortages.
“Socialism run rampant — not cronyism, corruption, falling oil prices, or U.S. sanctions — caused the crisis in Venezuela,” free-market economist and Venezuelan expatriate Daniel Di Martino wrote in a Manhattan Institute commentary. “Welfare programs that were supposed to help the poor actually increased the cost of living. A foreign currency control that aimed to reduce inflation only increased it and allowed for massive corruption. And nationalizations that should have given ‘power’ to workers only left them unemployed and hungry.”
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So, the “socialism” part of Venezuela’s “democratic socialism” worked out as well as it always does. And the “democratic” part turned out to be as fleeting as it always is, which started to erode under Chávez and was then entirely abandoned by Maduro, his successor.
Ultimately, we should all be rooting for a brighter future in Venezuela. But we also can’t forget the important lessons taught by its past.
Brad Polumbo is an independent journalist and host of the Brad vs Everyone podcast.