Caracas Chronicles

On July 28^th, we witnessed an election that offered a beacon of hope for Venezuela, unlike many other presidential elections under Nicolás Maduro’s dictatorship.  We felt an overwhelming sense of hope and unity. We made it happen. The opposition won, but our biggest fear came true: Maduro declared himself the winner, sparking devastation and anger that drove us to protest in the streets worldwide—allowing Venezuelans abroad to stand united with those risking their lives back in the country.

However, I want to discuss the other elections that we —Venezuelan-Americans— face this year.

As a Venezuelan-American who moved to the U.S at the age of seven, I find myself increasingly frustrated with Democrats and Republicans for exploiting our identity for political gain. Political parties have long manipulated voters, targeting our emotional trigger points. 

It’s fascinating yet disheartening that the Venezuelan crisis has recently become a popular talking point among American politicians –both from the left and the right– for this very reason. 

Over the past ten years, the GOP strategically began to appeal to certain Latin American voters. The Democrats —usually hailed as the party for American minorities—have made a continuous effort to fit Latin Americans into their liberal minority vote. Some in the Democratic party often view the Hispanic population as a broad entity, simply another minority group they could rely on for votes. The two parties have now finally realized that you can’t simply market something to the entire Hispanic umbrella. I argue that the Republican Party has been more attentive to this shift than the Democratic Party, which, in a way, for a long time took the Hispanic vote for granted. 

It’s fascinating yet disheartening that the Venezuelan crisis has recently become a popular talking point among American politicians –both from the left and the right– for this very reason.

Recent polls show that while Latino voters still mostly support Democrats, their support is declining as Republicans work to appeal to this growing voting group. One of the reasons is that the Republican Party cleverly recognized that many conservative Hispanic voters are immigrants who fled left-wing dictatorships. As a result, many American politicians on the right are now appealing to this fear of communism and socialism shared by many of these Latino voters. 

We can observe this phenomenon on social media where many Republican politicians have, misguidedly, compared Democratic Party leaders to Hugo Chávez, Nicolás Maduro, and Fidel Castro. These ill-advised social media posts oversimplify the nuanced issues that are happening in our countries. And, again, I also want to emphasize that I am also seeing this misguidedness coming from the Democratic Party as well. 

I recently saw an ad by Democrat Senate candidate Debbie Mucarsel-Powell. Her campaign rests entirely on painting the current Florida Senator Rick Scott as a corrupt politician—leading her to haphazardly compare him to Chávez and Maduro. The ad is in Spanish, so it’s obvious that her target audience are Latinos who live in Florida—many of whom are Venezuelan. 

These aimless analogies comparing local politicians to polarizing Latin American dictators are examples of the straw man tactic, which involves setting up a distorted, easily refuted version of an opponent’s position and attacking that instead. 

Instead of Marco Rubio directly challenging Kamala Harris’s liberal policies, he attacks them by comparing them to the policies of Castro and Chávez. Instead of directly criticizing Scott’s abortion policies, Mucarsel-Powell took the easy way out with the straw man approach.

Ultimately, many politicians genuinely care about Venezuela, but others may not, and some simply use our country of origin as a buzzword to appeal to a growing, minority demographic. In the end, I hope this year we Venezuelan-Americans make the choice that is right for us. 

These aimless analogies comparing local politicians to polarizing Latin American dictators are examples of the straw man tactic, which involves setting up a distorted, easily refuted version of an opponent’s position and attacking that instead.

We care for our family back in Venezuela while caring for the future of our new home. Navigating our dual identities is challenging. As immigrants, it’s difficult to digest and simultaneously learn the intricacies of the American government. My hope is that we can take a step back and think more critically about how Venezuela is discussed within American politics. And to do this, we need to digest diverse forms of journalism from both sides. We cannot simply rely on our 10 second TikTok videos or solely watch content from Univision. Digesting information solely from one source makes us fall more prey to misinformation and extreme political polarization that relies on emotional manipulation as a way to gain votes. So I invite you to read, critique, and learn as much as possible from a variety of sources so we can make the best decision for us in our second home.