They are similar in some ways. Both believe might makes right, that an election means you can do anything, and countries belong to whoever dominates. Donald Trump just grabbed Nicolás Maduro by the pussy.
I made this 20-minute video in 2021, which looks at my reporting on violent authoritarianism around the world, including Venezuela.
Venezuela is a deeply corrupt society, indeed one is required to participate in daily corruption to exist. The generals and ministers steal big amounts, the police checkpoints and army patrols and gangs all exact a price. Resources are distributed according to loyalty tests. Partisanship rules. It’s kind of the world Trump wants to live in, and I have always argued that he is at bottom a blustering Latin American strongman.
It’s called “Maracaibo at Midnight” because it all went wrong for me in Maracaibo, the oil capital, one midnight.
I spent a month in Venezuela, writing about the Chavez Revolution, political repression, and the oil industry. The claim from opposition and US leaders, then as now, was that the dastardly commies had run the oil business into the ground, polluting everything. (TL;DR no). Oil exports pay for the Venezuelan regime, so they have a strong incentive to it flowing.
Which is how I ended up climbing onto platforms and well heads in the middle of Lake Maracaibo. I tell the story of that night here.
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