The left behind Venezuela

"What ever happened to the new left in Latin America?" asked a friend when she was over here for dinner with a visiting Peruvian.

Remember those days of the Bolivarian Revolution?  Those were some heady days when Hugo Chavez, Evo Morales, and the Castro brothers made all the headlines, right?

Caption at the source:
President Nicolás Maduro, of Venezuela, at a rally in Caracas on Feb. 3.

Chavez has been gone for a while, and his anointed successor has been carrying the torch since.  Fidel is gone, with his brother carrying the torch since.  And, of course, Morales is still there.  But, as the Economist points out:

A bigger worry than regress in Latin America is political decay—“when political systems fail to adjust to changing circumstances” because of opposition from entrenched stakeholders, as Francis Fukuyama, a political scientist, puts it. 

Political decay.  Of course, we here in the US have lost any moral high ground from which we can comment on political decay elsewhere.  But, I, who was consistently anti-trump and worried about him winning, and warned that the Berniacs will end up helping trump, have earned my privilege to comment on the decay anywhere!

Do you ever wonder though what the uber-liberals have to say about the disaster that has been the Latin American left?  Especially about Venezuela, after all the praises that they heaped on Chavez?  That left wing embrace of Chavez is why the the left is silent now.  Because, if they open their mouths about Venezuela, then they have to first acknowledge their error. 

As Bret Stephens, who I don't care much for, writes:

the Venezuelan regime was a cause of the left, cheered by people like Naomi Klein, Sean Penn and Danny Glover. Left-wing publications such as Glenn Greenwald’s “The Intercept” have gone out of their way to make excuses for the regime and treat its critics as Washington stooges. Jeremy Corbyn, who could yet be Britain’s next prime minister, memorialized the late dictator Hugo Chávez in 2013 for his “massive contributions to Venezuela & a very wide world.”

It is like how the left tied itself in knots after the Soviet Union came tumbling down.  Search all you want, but you will read practically nothing from those celebrities and intellectuals about contemporary Venezuela.  They have moved on to other topics that bring them fame and money.  Keep in mind that the likes of Naomi Klein and Noam Chomsky are in the elite of elite when it comes to wealth that they accumulated from their writing and speaking about the favorite left causes of the day.

Stephens asks a good question:

How many more Venezuelans have to starve or drown before Western liberals do something more than merely shake their heads?

Ask your favorite Naomi Klein fan to answer that question!