In Things Are Never So Bad That They Can’t Get Worse (St. Martin’s, Mar.), journalist Neuman examines the factors behind Venezuela’s economic collapse and documents the suffering of ordinary Venezuelans.
What does the average American get wrong about Venezuela?
That Venezuela’s a socialist country—socialism in Venezuela is just branding. It’s a way to pose as some kind of leftist movement. Venezuela’s a highly consumerist culture. The government always had a really strong role in the economy because of the oil industry, which it controls. Venezuela, under presidents Hugo Chávez and Nicolás Maduro, is a populist country, both politically and economically.
Are there connections between what’s happening in Venezuela and Trumpism in the U.S.?
I think that Venezuela is a kind of a cautionary tale for the U.S. Chávez didn’t invent populism, and he didn’t invent a lot of the things that he did. But he showed that they still worked after a long period of time when they weren’t in vogue. This phenomenon of demagogic leaders using the institutions of democracy to come to power, and then undermining those institutions—Chávez was the first among this new crop, before [Hungary’s] Orban, [Turkey’s] Erdog˘an, or Putin. In the U.S., we see very similar things. Populism is this idea that the leader has this personal charismatic connection with the people, but “the people” are only part of the people. And deep, deep divisions come out of that. They were very destructive in Venezuela, and are destructive in our country right now.
What, if anything, can the Biden administration do to help with the economy in Venezuela, where many still have limited access to basics, such as food, water, shelter, and electricity?
Trump didn’t have a Venezuela foreign policy, he had a Florida electoral strategy that involved Venezuela. The Biden folks are in the same position, because what they’re deeply concerned about is how badly the Democrats got beat in Florida in 2020, and the midterms, and the next presidential election. Venezuela has become a code word in Florida electoral politics. In 2020, the Republicans rallied the troops with campaigns saying that Biden was a socialist, Biden was going to turn the U.S. into Venezuela. My reporting tells me that the Biden administration basically has no interest, really, in changing Venezuelan policy in any substantial way. Because anything they do that could be interpreted as some sort of concession to Maduro, such as lifting sanctions or even talking about dialogue, can be seen as soft. And they’re very cautious about that. So, I don’t see much potential for movement.
