Trump And The Post-Truth World

United States – In what has created one extended moment of surreal shock, the United States went ahead and elected Donald J. Trump to the Presidency, its highest and most prestigious office. The somewhat gruesome autopsy has already begun, even before the last votes are counted. Shock seems to have dulled the reactionary impulses for the moment, but they will come and with recrimination. Republicans must feel like the staggering drunk who has awoken, serendipitously, in his very own bed. They will control the House, the Senate, and the Executive. The media pathologists conducting the autopsy appear, however, to be stunningly clueless about where to even begin. Never mind. Expect the same people, pundits, pollsters, and experts, who knew precisely nothing about what the electorate was going to do, to clamber over each other to tell us now about why they did it. This author is no exception.

What seems unassailable is that this event marks the large scale repudiation of the progressive agenda, its economic, social, political, and ideological components. When the dust settles, that might not be all that difficult to understand, part of an unceasing historical pendulum. Obama-world did look a bit like, and act a bit like, a series of debates about the good and the right were settled, when they clearly were not. Not to the other half of the country. They may never be. The latent causes of faction are thus sown into the nature of man. And the American political system ensures that the other half will be heard before long, and that no faction, even a majority, will be able to impose its worldview. But this result represents far more than the return of an historical pendulum. It is non-ergodic. It won’t return to some pre-existing and recognisable state.

The changes underpinning this momentous event have already been with us for some time, but they are hard to locate and identify. It would be churlish to claim that we have been too busy checking our social media feeds, but the riposte contains the threads of an explanation. Its not just that progressivism has received its comeuppance. Its that the informal institutional foundations that support the agenda, any agenda, have been almost silently collapsing. Informal institutions are, essentially, the collection of social attributions we all apply, both individually and collectively, to the un-institutional or physical world. We give physical things statuses and functions, and when we agree, or our attributions at least overlap, we have what philosopher John Searle called social facts. They are the fabric of our social reality. When we make social facts as groups, when I act as we, we have collective social facts or what Searle called collective intentionality. Collective intentionality is the substance of our informal institutions, our agendas, and eventually our formal institutions, like the Republican Party for example. But it contains a surprisingly fragile component.

That component is comprised of the expectations people accommodate regarding the legitimate source and location of any authoritative truth claim. The fragility derives from the fact that authoritative truth claims are supported more from the bottom up than the top down. That is, their status and resilience depend much more heavily upon our expectations about them, than they do on their actual content. We have an evolutionary propensity as humans to posit a location and a source in the process of accepting the legitimacy of a truth claim. This means the flow of information, the way it moves around a society, is as important as the content of the information when it comes to authoritative truth claims.

For most of human history, hierarchical social structures have defined the flow of information. Hierarchies have been overwhelmingly superior forms of social organisation for a range of important activities, and they can be thought of as supporting inherently vertical information flows. Spacial, temporal, and technological limitations kept the network, an alternative social information structure in which information flows horizontally, subordinate to the hierarchy. This meant that the vertical flow of information, up and down hierarchical social structures, defined the location and source of authoritative truth claims for people, and their collective intentionality about those institutions reflected this. Support for any social, political, economic, or ideological agenda contained this structure, and the weakness or strength of any institution turned more on the capacity of the people who inhabit the institution’s upper echelons to regulate the flow of information. Think the State, the Church, and the professions, and their resilience as institutions. Expectations about the location and source of authority cannot change when people can only reach upwards through hierarchies for information. Yes, information is power. But it’s the flow, not the content. Nevertheless, this structure’s inherent fragility remained hidden.

Enter the digital information revolution. By which I simply mean ubiquitous access to the internet, Wi-Fi, and mobile portable devices. In the space of less than a generation; FAST; the way information moves around societies has been fundamentally transformed. Technology has enabled and facilitated the emergence of horizontally connected up, persistent information flows. Consequently, the latent fragility in the structure of informal social institutions has finally been exposed. The expectations in the minds of people, both individually and as collectives, about the location and source of authoritative truth claims via the flow of information, has shifted from the vertical to the horizontal plane. Massive institutional collapse is occurring, but we are left dumbfounded by its cause because we search for the answers in the content of information, the top down part. Elites, people whose power has transferred over generations at least partially because of the vertical social structures they inhabit, are equally confounded by the relative decline of their social power.

It is the structural flow of power via information that is so rapidly transforming society. The almost complete failure to predict why the American electorate did what it has done derives from our inability to spot the structural fragility tied up in social institutions. Talk of a post-truth world is only scratching the surface. Truth is merely an institution, held in place by the collective intentionality of people. We are entering a post-institutional world, where social facts will be derived from the peculiar, even alien power structures imposed by networked information flows. Want to win an election in this new world? Telemetry, real-time big data, artificial intelligence, and a quantum computer.

Cuba – One week ago today, Cubans woke up to the news that the 90-year old leader Fidel Castro had died. It was an event much expected and anticipated, given Fidel’s ailing health and advanced years, but it still took Cubans and the world by surprise. It was a particularly hard blow coming so soon on the heels of the election of Donald Trump to the U.S. presidency. In some ways these events represent the waning of one era marked by wealth redistribution downwards, international solidarity with oppressed peoples, and pro-poor governance to another that signals an intensification of free market capitalism, wealth redistribution upwards, and a rhetoric of borders and walls that unleashes rampant xenophobia and racism.

The American mainstream media and hardliner Cubans in Miami have long presented the Cuban socialist system as entirely dependent on the iron fist leadership of Fidel Castro, with his much awaited death leading to celebrations in the streets and the downfall of the system. Yet this view is wrong on several counts. Fidel managed a transition in leadership to his brother Raúl ten years ago, when his health started to decline. In practical terms, Fidel’s death presents little to no challenge to the everyday functioning of the Cuban government. And when Raúl retires in two years, there will be a transition in leadership to Vice-President Miguel Díaz-Canel, ensuring a continuity with the Castro brothers’ policies and programs.

While there have been mixed reactions in Cuba to Fidel’s death, there are no large celebrations on the streets. This is only partly due to fear of reprisal: for many Cubans, particularly of an older generation, Fidel still represents the idealism and hopes of an earlier generation that they could create an independent and equitable socialist system on an island under the yoke of the United States. For all of Fidel’s errors and flaws in leadership, and they were many, he pursued this dream single-mindedly for many decades. He survived numerous assassination attempts, outlived many U.S. presidents, and always sought to extend the outreach of the Cuban revolution abroad through solidarity with liberation struggles and medical and educational assistance, which will be some of his greatest legacies as leader of Cuba.

There will be no quick transition to a market society as a result of Fidel’s death. While the media has often presented Cubans as clamouring for market freedoms denied to them, the past few decades of experimentation with market reforms have resulted in widely increasing racial and economic divisions in Cuban society. Although the Cuban socialist system became dysfunctional after the collapse of the Soviet Union, the Cuban leadership has had to tread carefully in their market reforms to preserve the most important and cherished aspects of Cuban socialism, including the health care and education systems. Cubans could see the vast inequalities that opened up in Russia and Eastern Europe after the collapse of communism, and that was not a model they wanted to emulate.

Fidel was beloved by many for his charismatic style of leadership that kept him close to the people and to their concerns. A Cuban friend of mine, now in her mid-40s, recalled the day that Fidel came to her elementary school. There was no formal visit announced and the children didn’t even realize he was coming until they saw him enter the schoolyard with a few of his guards. He sat with the children and asked them about their day, and what they were learning about in school. For my friend, that day forever marked her view of the president as someone who cared about the people and wanted to get their input.

At other times, he could be seen as a micro-manager who demanded people’s attention and allegiance. On the evening of September 11, 2001, Fidel reflected on the events of that day in a nationally broadcast address from a new elementary school that he was inaugurating. In front of a group of ten and eleven-year-olds, Fidel expressed sympathy for the American people, offered the resources of the country for treatment of the victims, and urged caution on the part of the American government. In the middle of a statement about why the United States should not be carried away in a fit of rage and start dropping bombs on innocent people, he paused to reprimand a young schoolgirl sitting at her desk: “Put down that pencil. Don’t doodle. Try to pay attention while I’m talking.”

Cuban musicians and artists tended to refrain from references to Fidel in their artistic productions partly in a bid to avoid censorship. They sometimes used veiled references to Fidel, such as Daniel Díaz Torres’ 1991 film Alicia en el pueblo de Maravillas (Alice in Wondertown). Alicia is a satirical comedy about a drama coach who goes to a small town called Maravillas for her obligatory year of community service. The director for the corrupt and mismanaged Sanatorium for Active Therapy and Neurology (SATAN) in Maravillas was rumored to be a caricature of Fidel, and the film was withdrawn from theatres after four days. In 1989, an exhibition at the Castillo de la Real Fuerza was closed when it was found to include a portrait of Fidel Castro in drag with large breasts and leading a political rally. This period was one of provocative political art and confrontations with the art establishment, but in the wake of censorship, artists again moved to safer topics.

Despite the lack of tolerance for anti-establishment art in Cuba, Fidel showed himself willing to engage with new cultural genres like rap music during the 1990s. At a National Championship baseball game in 1999, when the Cuban national team played the Baltimore Orioles, instead of the obligatory salsa song, before the game started they chose to play a song by the Cuban rap group Doble Filo. The whole stadium rapped along with the group, including Fidel Castro himself. American actor Danny Hoch, who was present at the game, called Fidel “the first world leader to embrace hip-hop.”

A much maligned figure seen by some as the Castro dictator, and loved by many others who referred to him endearingly as Fidel, he is remarkable for his very survival in a world that sought to eliminate young black, indigenous, and third world revolutionaries. Lumumba, Che, Sukarno, Malcolm, Allende, Anna Mae Aquash, Fred Hampton—all were gunned down before they could bring to fruition the visions of equality and justice to which they dedicated their lives. By sheer luck or ingenuity, Fidel and the Cuban revolution survived to provide an alternative model of a socialist society. In the current dystopian Trump era, it will be important to keep alive the memory of what Fidel Castro and others of his generation stood for.

This article is the first in a series of reflections on Fidel Castro’s passing—and his significance for Cuba, Latin America, and beyond first published by NACLA. 

Venezuela – I am largely in favor of international institutions. Far from an orthodox realist, I consider myself a constructivist and even an idealist. However, with frustration I have seen how the international community turns its back on millions of Venezuelans with no access to food, energy, or basic medicine. Surely, Venezuela is far from a priority in the list of US strategic interests, and Europe is consumed with its own problems. Nevertheless, the international community is failing to condemn, and worse, to act against an illiterate leader that maintains his power by relying on coercion and political games.

It is clear that other governments in the region are scared of the fate of their own countries if Venezuela´s government were to fall, but that is not a valuable excuse to ignore massive violations against the core values of democracy. Through petro-dollars and manipulative Cuban-led foreign relations, other governments have failed to help the Venezuelan people and have allowed Maduro to continue with his regime of terror.

In desperate moves of the foreign affairs chessboard to benefit his domestic approval rates, Maduro intends to consolidate an external enemy to stimulate cohesion and support from its people; the delusional claims of a foreign government attacking and threatening Venezuela -an enemy that takes the form of a blurry Uncle Sam- are daily bread in the president´s podcasts. In a ridiculous clown show, the president recently put together military exercises to demonstrate the country´s readiness for war. Maduro has become a pathetic version of Kim Jon-Un, employing the diversionary theory to glue together the pieces of a broken system.

Colombia has been one of the direct victims of Maduro’s tactical games. Some time ago, for example, Maduro proclaimed martial law in the municipalities along most of the Colombia-Venezuela border. Through public addresses, he blamed officials within the Colombian government and its citizens for Venezuela’s scarcity and elevated crime rates. Was I the only one seeing that his true intentions were to isolate the country from a porous border that could turn into the breeding ground for protesters and antigovernment forces? The only one seeing his intentions of diverting attention away from Venezuela´s domestic issues by blaming a foreign actor for the problem he has created?

As expected, martial law caused a major humanitarian crisis. Though not to the scale of the Mediterranean refugee crisis or to the displacement camps after a civil war in Africa, Colombian citizens were mistreated and systematically deported from Venezuela. For weeks, people continuously arrived in Cucuta, a Colombian border city, looking for shelter. They were received in soccer stadiums while the world ignored the crisis. Violations of human rights were perpetrated, but the call for international actors was largely missed. Around October 2015, with Panama as a swing voter, Colombia lost its opportunity to bring the crisis to the international arena. The Organization of American States (OAS) again failed in its mission. Maduro looked in the eyes of the member states and walked away free of any remorse.

With the change of the OAS head from Insulza to Almagro and with Maduro´s constant insults and erratic behavior, the regional institution grew tired and responded accordingly. Recently, the OAS suggested the activation of the Democratic Charter, which states that only democratic governments can be part of the OAS. As a symbolic act as this might be, since it does not have binding power, it is a much-needed action that arrived late.

Small steps are being taken by the international community to intervene in Venezuela´s situation. A group of former presidents in the region, for example, signed a memorandum directed towards Maduro. It demanded protection of human rights and respect for the sacred institution of democracy. Furthermore, the European Union and, to a lesser extent, the United States have called out Maduro for the lack of access to basic medicine and food in the country. Ricardo Hausmann, from Harvard University, even compared Venezuela’s situation with a society in pre-famine stages. However, these actions seem insufficient in the face of the destitute civil society.

Without asking for an all-out intervention, there are diplomatic forces that can be activated and strategic negotiations with important economic and political leverage that can be used to move Venezuela from where it is. More international pressure will drive Maduro to the edge.

To predict the fate of Venezuela is a difficult endeavor. Many speculate an implosion of the government; others are waiting for the opposition to consolidate even more and represent an alternative government. Still others even consider the possibility of a military coup.

I do not foresee things changing anytime soon, but I see the beginning of an end. I see the four horseman of the apocalypse slowly riding over Maduro, with Capriles Radosky, opposition leader, at their command. There must be moments in time where the weak basis of a political regime such as the one built by Chavez and continued by Maduro has to fail. In the past months, Venezuelans filled the streets of Caracas and other cities pressuring the government for a referendum that will like change the course of Venezuela’s tragic present. Time is running against Venezuelans to reach a fair-deal and for the little democracy that is left to actually influence the status quo. It is no longer the time of a resilient dictator but of a fragile leader whose time is running out.

United States – In the Preamble to the United States Declaration of Independence, Jefferson gave us the purpose of government, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights… That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.” The purpose of government is simply to secure the inalienable rights of the people – that is the pact we form with one another, that is the Constitution we form with one another.

When Benjamin Franklin was walking out of the Convention, he was famously asked, “Well, Doctor, what have we got—a Republic or a Monarchy?” His response is illuminating, “A Republic, if you can keep it.”

Populism, a philosophy which advocates for the common person overthrowing elites, is itself noble in the problems it seeks to address. Unfortunately, populism quickly degenerates into mob rule. Today many of our citizens vote for representatives who will implement a populist version of mob rule without regard to the Constitution or to the Republic. The ban on prayer in some schools can be seen as an example of such a transgression. Lawmakers fall to into the trap of thinking that they must balance the right to pray against some supposed right not to hear a prayer in a public setting, an imaginary non-existent right that does not exist because people abandon an expectation to privacy in most public settings.

The examples of these transgressions are countless. Government does not have any authority to define marriage, infringe on gun rights, limit free speech, to enact sodomy laws or sterilise certain people yet in all of these cases it does or has in the past. Government illegally transgresses on the inalienable rights of people on a regular basis because it is popular – it is populist. These transgressions are, or were at one point, the will of the mob. It was the zeitgeist – it was fashionable and trendy at a time. When the mob is religious, religiously dogmatic laws are enacted that suppress other religions or impose one religion above others. When the mob is secular, religious intolerance laws and attacks on all religions are enacted, because secularism is itself a quasi-religion. This populism is not the form of government that America was founded upon. That is not to say that populism as originally intended is not an important and powerful tool to keep oligarchs in check.

Jefferson warned us that, “A democracy is nothing more than mob rule, where 51 percent of the people may take away the rights of the other 49.” The Founders saw democracy as an imperfect solution to the need of selecting representatives who would administer the Republic. The intent was that these representatives would handle the “policy” decisions that were needed to tend to government while making sure that the Republic was adhering to its charter of securing the citizen’s rights. All elected leaders, public servants, and soldiers swear an oath to uphold the Constitution. The oath is to the Republic itself, not to the will of a majority mob. Diluting or destroying the Republic is not an “option” that elected leaders have. The dismantling of the Republic is never “on the table,” regardless of the voter turnout.

The pact that the I have with my fellow-citizens is that “I form Constitution with my fellow citizens to safeguard our rights.” That is the extent of the pact. The role of government is not to balance rights. The role of government isn’t even to define the contours of liberty – that task is charged to a jury on a case by case basis when a transgression is suspected to have occurred. Every power that government derives is directly drawn from that original Constitution to secure the people’s rights: the need to keep order; the need to provide for the common defence; the need for conveyance, traffic laws; and countless other laws. The mob majority or the mob minority have no business deciding where inalienable rights start or end. If a transgression on someone’s rights occurs, then on a case by case basis a local jury of peers decides the degree of the transgression and the punishment. That is the common-law system established for the Republic.

Jefferson rightfully understood that Rights come from God, the Creator. The Founders correctly identified Rights to be out of the reach of the state because if the state can manoeuvre into the role of granting Rights or into the equally dangerous role of balancing Rights then the government will invariably destroy the people’s Inalienable Rights. The examples of government transgressions on human rights are laid bare in history and in today’s countless governments of the world who carry the name “republic” in their title. Many of these so-called republics are just tyrannies, oligopolies, or mob rule governments. Sadly, Britain and so many European democracies are exactly mob rule states who today happen to benefit from an educated and moderate citizenry; however, the oppression by a mob, even an educated mob, is as dangerous and repugnant as the oppression of a tyrant. A mob is never fit to rule. That is why the Founders intelligently created a Republic, not a populist democracy.

Unfortunately, in the United States today, the Democratic party is attacking the First and Second Amendments with abandon. The Republicans are not faring much better. Republicans attack the Fourth Amendment in the name of safety, a false appeal – because the opposite of safety is not freedom.

Beyond the issue of Rights, there are too many foreign influences on American politics and on our elected officials. America strikes suboptimal trade deals. It’s far easier for a corporation to move their manufacturing to a country that does not have strong environmental laws or labour laws, while the people in Ohio, Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania see their livelihoods wither. The people of those states are left in poverty, unable to compete on the world stage. America can never reasonably compete with countries that use child labour; countries who pour raw sewage into their waterways; countries with no fossil fuel emissions limits; countries that devalue their currency to dump their products on American shores – all under the guise of free trade. Americans trying to sell cars in Germany or Japan are met with a Trump-Like wall’s worth of rules and obstructions. True free trade is an illusion.

In looking at the candidates, one stands out as unqualified to be President and Commander in Chief. What Hillary Clinton has done with Benghazi; with the Clinton Foundation; with the late-breaking revelations from the FBI that investigation into her e-mails continue; and with her dual positions (one for bankers and one for the public) is disqualifying and in some cases, criminal in my opinion.

Mrs Clinton set up a public e-mail server to keep her communications out of the eyes of the voters. Her dealings between the State Department and the Clinton Foundation held potential conflicts of interest that many suspect she did not want exposed to the citizenry. Why else would she have her servers bleached clean and the computer hard drives and phones destroyed with hammers? In taking the actions that she did, she exposed our national security to foreign powers and broke the many laws that deal with the handling of classified information. As proof, today the White House claims executive privilege in not releasing certain e-mails. 30,000 other e-mails were deleted. Still, not a day goes by when WikiLeaks, an international transparency group, does not release a trove of e-mails from Mrs Clinton’s files.

When America’s embassy mission came under attack in Benghazi, Mrs Clinton and Mr Obama simply did not pick up the phone. Mrs Clinton did not send help. She likely did not send help because it would have hurt Mr Obama’s reelection campaign and because of the nature of the work that the mission was engaged in Libya – work that could have been dealing with arms and Syria. Irrespective, Mr Obama and Mrs Clinton ignored the phone ringing at 3AM, a phone call from our brave men and women who were under attack. America had assets in the region, Aviano Italy is a short flight away. America had assets in Tripoli that were ready to respond. Mr Obama’s and Mrs Clinton’s lack of action that night disqualified them from serving as Commanders in Chief.

Mr Trump, on the other hand, has lived life as a rich bachelor: he is brash; he is arrogant; he can be petty; he is accustomed to getting his way in life on most matters. Men with money are that way. John F. Kennedy was that way. President Kennedy had numerous affairs and had an eye for beautiful women, something the media conveniently shielded the American people from seeing. Mr Trump’s initial negotiating positions on most business deals are absolute and border on the irrationally unacceptable, but that negotiating tactic allows him to emerge out of negotiations with favourable deals for himself and for his investors. To use two metaphors, Mr Trump does not telegraph his moves and he does not show his cards. Mr Trump takes the same tact in politics. A strong negotiator who does not show his cards is exactly the type of person America needs sitting across from Putin or from people who I feel have taken advantage of America.

Mr Trump is unquestionably 100% American. Categorically, America does not need someone like Mrs Clinton; someone who is engaged in personal and professional entanglements with foreign countries and international corporations. Beyond his nature, many of the things that Mr Trump is accused of saying he simply did not say. A cursory review of the transcripts of his words or a review of video tapes show that pundits regularly misrepresent Mr Trump’s statements. The mass media companies including CNN, ABC, CBS, NBC, MSNBC and to an extent even FOX have during the campaign either officially been anti-Trump, or they favour commentators who are anti-Trump – the result is the same anti-Trump bias from the major networks.

Sadly, Mr Trump has not been the only one to suffer under the unbalanced reporting of the major networks, magazines, and newspapers. Senators Bernie Sanders and Rand Paul also received very unbalanced treatment from major media providers. If anything, this election has laid bare that while the system might not be completely “Rigged” the deck is certainly “Stacked” against any non-establishment candidate.

I would like a candidate who would best protect The Republic, The Constitution, The Bill of Rights, and all our Inalienable Rights. Mr Trump is not perfect, but he is, in my view, the least dangerous to our Constitution and Bill of Rights. To be more specific, Hillary Clinton would immediately begin to erode both the First and Second Amendments via Supreme Court appointments and legislation. I would like a candidate who is not heavily indebted to lobbyist from establishment bankers or international corporations. Those same interested parties will attempt to lobby Mr Trump and he might become beholden to them at some point, but the process of influencing Mr Trump might allow the citizenry a degree of transparency obfuscated by today’s ingrained establishment. This rearrangement of power and influence might become visible to the citizenry, and, once revealed, the citizenry can continue to set things to right.

The United States needs an American, not a Globalist, as President. Globalism has given the world some great things, notably peace in the first world. Globalism has also created a more multi-cultural and tolerant world – which is a very good thing for long term peace and diplomacy. At the same time, globalism is moving too fast and most countries of the world are not yet ready for a borderless world. Laws have not caught up in all countries of the world to create a level playing field. Cultures have not all progressed to where they can all peacefully settle their differences. Maybe a social utopia where people live peacefully and where the environment is protected will one day exist, but the author views this as distant.

In a republic, elections are not meant to be a popularity contest, and they’re not meant to be a decision that imposes the views of one group on another group. Elections are about selecting the candidate who will best safeguard the Constitution and the Republic and whom will faithfully represent the American People’s Interests on the world stage. Trump claims he will “make America great again” but America is already a great country. Only in America do people enjoy freedoms of the kind that countless other people only dream about. Still, the slogan is appropriate and powerful. The slogan is appropriate because it speaks to the people of the United States who have been left behind in the last 50 years. A group of people that is rapidly growing.

However, Trump’s support base does not simply consist of the forgotten. I hold advanced political degrees, have travelled the world for business and pleasure, visiting over 100 countries. I am a decorated combat veteran. I have meticulously studied the Federalist Papers. I have studied Plato, Aristotle, Cicero, Hume, Hobbs, Montesquieu, Gibbon and many other notable thinkers. I do not, as many have been labelled, consider myself a low information voter. I am not what Hillary would term to exist in a basket of deplorable’s.

Most of the ills that society faces are a combination of both Republicans and Democrats disrespecting and abusing the Constitution. Those abuses will not be corrected until both the Republican and Democratic party start allowing more Libertarians and Classical Liberals like Rand Paul into leadership roles. Sadly, it seems that is going to take a lot of work and quite a bit of time. To leverage a terrible cast-system term for convenience only, the Middle Class is not as wealthy as it used to be. To those people, America is not as great as it used to be for their fathers. People yearn for that greatness again. In that respect, it is a very appropriate slogan and one that speaks well to the campaign of Mr Trump.

These are the reasons why I voted for Donald Trump.

Venezuela – If we compare South America to the Middle East, Africa, or South East Asia, the region seems idyllic. There have not been any major international conflicts in decades, and most civil struggles are contained to the sovereignty of its nations. Moreover, the area is populated with relatively stable governments, modest economic growth, free societies and active democracies.

Venezuela, however, is a major outlier in the region. Without ignoring the collapse of Dilma Roussef’s government in Brazil and the long-lasting presidencies of Rafael Correa and Evo Morales in Ecuador and Bolivia, it is fair to conclude that no other South American society is experiencing more oppression from its government than the people of Venezuela. No other country has deteriorated institutionally to the magnitude of the once-rich state; nor has another country seen its people be disenfranchised as rapidly and brusquely as Venezuela has. While the country is not yet considered a failed state, it is certainly approaching tyranny.

Given that I grew up in Cucuta, a Colombian city right on the border with Venezuela, I have observed the country´s vicissitudes for years. I have lived the deteriorating circumstances of a society praying for political implosion and felt the uncertainties of a state without the rule of law.  In less than a decade, Venezuela transformed from a prosperous country with growing industries, large and well-maintained highways, and bustling airports to the pariah state with empty supermarket shelves and energy rations that it is today. The so-called “XXI Century Socialism,” ideology promoted by former Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez stunted the country’s progress. Indeed, it has actively promoted its destruction.

Since Hugo Chavez’s death and the appointed transition to Nicolas Maduro, the sitting President, things have gotten worse. Even though the situation has been in decline for a while and corruption and organised crime have undermined the country´s institutions, the lack of a strong –  instead, preposterous – leader has created a power vacuum. Despite Maduro’s efforts to legitimise his disastrous policies, a discontented population and a rising opposition has led to more oppression and power centralization. Amidst the cruelty of the situation, international powers have ignored and “watched from the bench” as Maduro takes action against civilians and basic freedoms.

Five to seven years ago, the government shut down opposition channels and radio stations in a deliberate attempt to limit and control access to information. Not long ago, newspapers ran out of paper in a Maduro-led charade. Freedom of the press since Chavez’s years has become a far-reaching goal in Venezuela.

If the power and protection of opposition leaders measure the health of a democracy, Venezuela shows signs of severe democratic disease. Along with the lack of toilet paper, food, and basic medicine, news regarding the political prisoners’ situations has reached the international stage. Leopoldo Lopez, former mayor of Caracas, surprised the world with a letter quite similar to Nelson Mandela’s reflections with a flavour of Gandhi-ism. With genuine pain in every word, he described what he wants for his country and the limitations he currently faces to reach this utopian future. Along with Lopez, Antonio Ledesma, Maria Corina Machado, and others have taken up the flag of martyrs and have fought harshly against the establishment. Maduro has prohibited legal representation for political prisoners, as he categorises opposition activists as agitators and U.S-backed government destabilizers. Attempts from international leaders to defend the prisoners have been shot down by gross acts of unilateralism.

Besides the institutional debacle, economic pressures are vivid in Venezuela’s current state. Companies have been nationalised and expropriated, driving international investment away and destabilising markets. Major airlines, for example, have stopped flying to Caracas for the lack of foreign currency. Factories have closed and multinationals have left the country. Migration waves of educated Venezuelans are fleeing to countries like Panama, Colombia, and the United States. Inflation is reaching sky-high levels and unemployment rates are in the two-digits.

The concentration of power in executive hands has no precedent. A concentrated leadership has extended presidential power to the state’s legislative and judiciary branches. Despite the fact that the opposition won a majority in Congress in the last election, Maduro quickly constrained the congress’s power, once again changing the rules of the game, in an attempt to counteract a potential referendum that would put its presidency in risk. Rule of law is fading, reminiscent of other dictatorships in the region’s history. The boundaries between the executive, legislative, and judicial branches, built to reassure the balance of powers, are constantly violated and largely ignored.

With the steps to anarchy being accomplished one by one, what is expected for the future of Venezuela? The oil-driven economy is far from the powerful country it once was, and its people are craving for a radical shift away from a failed state-led socioeconomic plan.