The Venezuela that my aunt was from was a prosperous nation. But by 2017, the creeping, unconstrained far-left policies and decisions had led to the socialist hellscape described above.
The human catastrophe in Venezuela is unspeakable. Record hyperinflation, shortages of basic goods, unemployment, environmental destruction, high child mortality, malnutrition, disease, poverty, rampant crime, and political corruption. Since June 2024, mass emigration has created a refugee crisis of almost 8 million people fleeing the country for neighboring South American countries and the US. Credit reporting agencies declared Venezuela to be in default with its debt payments.
The rapidly deteriorating human rights situation has spread to the US southern border.
Dashing all hopes for reform, the results of this July’s elections were overturned by President Nicholas Maduro.
The key economic and political events that shaped the current crisis are a warning to the US, where the perennial promise of more handouts without long-term consequence rears its head every election season. In Venezuela, it was the incremental changes that slowly boiled the proverbial frog unaware of its doom.