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Venezuela Is the Eerie Endgame of Modern PoliticsCitizens of a once-prosperous nation live amid the havoc created by socialism, illiberal nationalism, and political polarization.By Today News - Friday 28 February 2020 Story by Anne ApplebaumLast month, Juan Guaidó appeared in Washington in the role of political totem. Venezuela’s main opposition leader—the man who is recognized by that country’s National Assembly, millions of his fellow citizens, and several dozen foreign countries as the rightful president of Venezuela—was one of the special guests at the State of the Union address. President Donald Trump welcomed Guaidó as living evidence that his own administration was “standing up for freedom in our hemisphere†and had “reversed the failed policies of the previous administrationâ€; he called Venezuela’s current leader, Nicolás Maduro, an illegitimate ruler whose “grip on tyranny will be smashed and broken.†He gave no details of how that would happen. Trump, who has never been to Venezuela or shown any prior interest in it—or, for that matter, shown any interest in freedom anywhere else —presumably knows that the country matters to some voters in South Florida. To their credit, members of Congress gave a bipartisan standing ovation to Guaidó nevertheless....And yet—Venezuela is not an idea. It is a real place, full of real people who are undergoing an unprecedented and in some ways very eerie crisis. If it symbolizes anything at all, it is the distorting power of symbols. In reality, the country offers no comfort for youthful Marxists or self-styled anti-imperialists—or for fans of Donald Trump. I spent a few days there earlier this month, on an academic invitation. During the course of ordinary conversations with me, three people burst into tears while talking about their life and their country.One of the three was Susana Raffalli, a widely recognized Venezuelan expert in nutrition and food security. During her long career, Raffalli has worked all over the world, never imagining that her skills would be necessary in Venezuela, which has large oil reserves and was long a middle-income country. Raffalli and I met in a deceptively chic restaurant in Altamira, one of the wealthiest neighborhoods in Caracas. Just around the corner stood one of the shiny new hard currency stores, where people with dollars can buy things like Cheerios or large bottles of Heinz ketchup. Imported goods like these had disappeared in recent years as hyperinflation rendered the Venezuelan bolÃvar almost worthless, and as international sanctions and Venezuela’s own import controls disrupted trade. Now they are again available—but only to those who have access to foreign currency.Read more at: https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/02/venezuelas-suffering-shows-where-illiberalism-leads/606988/
