I just did a livestream with Daniel Di Martino (X) of the Manhattan Institute. He immigrated to the US from Venezuela ten years ago and has a PhD in economics from Columbia University. I temporarily pulled him away from TV appearances and getting protein drinks to talk about what just happened in his home country. We go into the history of Venezuela, its relationship with Cuba, where Chavismo comes from, who actually is going to run the country now, what Maduro’s former vice president is up to, why Trump seems not to like María Corina Machado, and more. The conversation also touches on the conservative wave that seems to be spreading across Latin America.
There are a lot of ways Venezuela can go bad. But I’m sick of pessimism. There are also a lot of ways this can go right, and certainly at least be better than the government that was there before. We remember all the regime changes that led to disaster and forget Grenada and Panama because we’re so overwhelmingly biased towards negativity these days.
Whatever happens tomorrow, today is about congratulating the administration and the people of Venezuela.
In case you missed it, see my article from this morning on why Trump made the right call.
Note: If you would like to get this podcast through a regular podcast app, go to richardhanania.com on a browser on your device (it doesn’t work in the app), log in to Substack, and click on the tab for either the Hanania Show or the H&H Podcast. Select the episode you want, and then choose one of Apple, Spotify, etc. under “Listen on” to your right. You’ll be able to add the show through an RSS feed, after which you will get new episodes, either free or paid depending on what kind of subscriber you are, through whichever platform you use.