When Juan Guaido declared himself the interim president of Venezuela, a chorus of people in this country on the left, decried this as another "right wing coup" hatched by the CIA. This appears to be, in a word, bullshit. While America's history in Latin America is mostly terrible, it is abundantly clear that the people of Venezuela are tired of the colossal misrule of the Maduro government.
Meanwhile, on the right, Maduro is being held up as the failure of socialism. This suggests that there is a policy link between Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and whatever the hell Venezuela has as a ruling ideology.
Anne Applebaum has a nice piece on why the old language of ideology is bereft at this moment of adding clarity. Leaders like Trump, Maduro, Duterte, Erdogan, Orban, and Xi are less about ideological government and more the head of organized crime syndicates who are looting their country. Venezuela is a petro-state that gave some patronage money to the poor, as their leadership siphoned off millions. No one should be defending that, no matter what America's history in Latin America is.
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