The Media Myth of 'Once Prosperous' and Democratic Venezuela Before Chvez

[Judi Lynn]

AUGUST 26, 2021

JOE EMERSBERGER AND JUSTIN PODUR

In his State of the Union address on February 6, 2019, Donald Trump said:

We stand with the Venezuelan people in their noble quest for freedom—and we condemn the brutality of the Maduro regime, whose socialist policies have turned that nation from being the wealthiest in South America into a state of abject poverty and despair.

Trump’s ridiculous comment was not considered controversial, because the Western media, including the anti-Trump outlets like the New York Times, have spent many years conveying a lie: that Venezuela had been very prosperous and democratic until Hugo Chávez, and then his successor Nicolás Maduro, came along and ruined everything. If readers believe that, then they may indeed wonder, “Why shouldn’t the US government help Venezuelans return to that prosperous state?”

But this attitude is the result of common deceptions about Venezuela’s economic history, and it ignores how the rise of Chávez actually brought democratic reform, not regression, to Venezuela. The story the Western media tell should instead make people wonder how Chavismo could have become the dominant political force if everything had once been wonderful in Venezuela.

‘Once the richest’
This vague claim about Venezuela’s economic history, in various forms—“once prosperous,” “once the richest”—has become ubiquitous in the Western media. A Nexis search of English-language newspapers for “Venezuela” and “once prosperous” turned up 563 hits between 2015 and 2019.

More:
https://fair.org/home/the-media-myth-of-once-prosperous-and-democratic-venezuela-before-chavez/