Donald Trump is no Hugo Chávez. He’s more like Nicolás Maduro.
By Francisco Toro October 18 at 2:08 PM
Francisco Toro is executive editor of CaracasChronicles.com and a contributing columnist for Post Global Opinions.
Nobody can be happy about the way the Clinton-Trump race has gone. But for us Venezuelans, alarm comes with a side of comfort.
For 17 years, as Venezuela has sunk deeper and deeper into a morass of autocratic populism, people have been tut-tutting in our direction. “How could you let this happen?” our friends in the United States have asked. “How could you put your country in the hands of an evident huckster? Wasn’t it obvious what would happen since day one?”
You could try to explain it, of course, and I have. But it is hard for people to really understand. Having your democracy commit suicide under the lure of a charismatic demagogue is not the kind of experience you can fully make sense of unless you’ve lived it in your own skin.
Before 2016, no explanation I could give my American friends was enough. Now, every explanation is superfluous. There’s no need to go into involved accounts of the way know-nothing populism and us-vs.-them conspiranoia have destroyed the Venezuelan republic since 1998. Now, my American friends can just turn on CNN and watch it happening live.
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https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/global-opinions/wp/2016/10/18/donald-trump-is-no-hugo-chavez-hes-more-like-nicolas-maduro/?utm_term=.f179c9d2f7cf&wpisrc=nl_popns&wpmm=1
