There is a very contentious debate whether it is appropriate to draw parallels between Donald Trump and Hugo Chavez.
Here's the thing: in terms of professed ideology, there couldn't be more difference between Trump and Chavez. One professes to be some type of a mercantilist (with lots of capitalistic sounding rhetoric), and another professed to be a socialist. So, yes, there's a lot of difference between them in this regard.
Yet, there's something extremely similar about them: they're both populists. Populism isn't an ideology in the same way that capitalism, mercantilism and socialism are ideologies. It is better described as a discourse and a political strategy. Populism is characterized by the splitting of a society into the "authentic" society and the "anti-society" or the enemy; typically lines are drawn around the "real people of the country" vs "the elites". It is characterized by the populist leader becoming the embodiment of the authentic society, asserting this his will is the will of the people.
At its core, populism is a political strategy that fractures a society, creates enemies out of neighbors and results in the concentration of ungodly amounts of power into the hands of the populist leader's political apparatus.
In this regard, Trump and Chavez are essentially twins: they follow an almost identical political discourse, with an almost identical political strategy...with different ideological window dressings and in different historical contexts.
Is this a bad thing? Well, I guess you have to ask yourself which is more important....ideology or power structures.
I'll offer a few thoughts about where I stand on this topic:
A lot of people claim that fear is the most dangerous sentiment when it comes to protecting liberty. They're very, very wrong. Hate is the most dangerous sentiment. When you foment hate in a society, people are willing to endure much greater excesses to persecute their perceived enemies than they are because they are afraid of something. It is true that fear and hate are companion emotions--but to really build your power, you must create hate--and this is what populism does. It identifies an enemy, it demonizes that enemy, and then it uses the fear of and hatred towards that enemy to solidify power.
Politics is a lot less about ideology than I'd like it to be. As an example, Hugo Chavez, the socialist champion of the poor, was able to make his daughter a billionaire. In fact, more or less every socialist "leader" in Latin America (Pepe Mujica excepted) has used their position to dramatically enrich themselves and their backers. Why is this important? Because, while the ideology of socialism is uniquely dangerous, it is ultimately simply a window dressing for theives. That's also true of right wing populists, though to be fair, they tend to be less effective at thievery.
Is Hugo Chavez like Donald Trump? In one way, no--they have different ideologies. In another way--a very important way--yes. They're both populists, they both use as a central tenant of their discourse the hatred of an enemy as a tactic to gain and concentrate power.
The basic idea of a liberal society is that you have to live with your neighbors, and you want to find a way to peacefully coexist with them and build a prosperous society. In a liberal society, power is decentralized, widely distributed and not concentrate in any one individual or aparatus. That's pretty basic, but the important can't be overstated. When one is afraid of or hateful of one's neighbors, a dangerous pandora's box gets opened, and it is very difficult to close. When power gets concentrated amid an environment of hatred, truly horrible things happen.
I still think (and hope) that the United States can walk back from edge of the very dangerous cliff upon which we find ourselves. That doesn't happen if populist politicians get rewarded at the ballot box--which will fan the flames of societal hatred even more.
When you look at societies like Venezuela and Bolivia, you see societies that are fractured beyond repair--hatred of the "other" is real, it is intense, and just about every side is ready and willing to hand over immense powers to the state if it means they will persecute the other side. A transition back to a liberal society for either of these places will be long, painful and bloody--and that's because of the populist discourse that has eroded the foundations of these places.
Populism, like socialism, has no place in a healthy democracy. I'm very open to debates about how to best suppress both, but one point shouldn't be controversial: voters should not reward populists or socialists with their votes.
In the United States, we were faced with an existential threat to our democracy--but it has already been vanquished. Bernie Sanders was at one point favored in the prediction markets to be the next President of the United States. This devilish socialist has spent his entire life closely aligned with the far left. He rode a wave of misogyny and anti-corruption sentiments to build a large personality-based movement against Hillary Clinton, and parlayed that into one of the gravest threats to American liberty in the history of our country during the 2020 primary process.
Who defeated him? Joe Biden and the Democratic establishment! They managed to unite, defeat him at the polls, and send his worthless supporters back to their parents basements to play pokemon, and hopefully to be too discouraged to participate in politics again.
Now, Joe Biden has the opportunity to do the same to the Trumpkins--and in doing so, send a corrosive populist movement on its way to the dustbin of American history.
Donald Trump talks a big talk about fighting socialism. But, Maduro is still in power, his secretary of state congratulated Luis Arce on his victory in Bolivia's electoral farce, Cuba is still under the thumb of the Castrista dictatorship, and the internal hatred in the United States that Donald Trump created has fueled the rise of famouse and very influential socialists like AOC. While Donald Trump has led the free world, Chile lost the liberal constitution that created the Chilean Miracle, Argentina fell back into the hands of Kirchner, and Mexico got its own version of Hugo Chavez.
Maybe there's not much that a US President can or should do about this kind of thing. But one thing is very certain: Donald Trump's populism, the hatred and division it promotes, fuels socialism like nothing else. For someone who claims to be a crusader against socialism, Donald Trump sure has one hell of a record of losing.
What will happen in the world if Donald Trump wins re-election? Well, one thing is certain: the socialists will take control of the Democratic party. Not because most democrats are socialists (they aren't), but because they made a conscious decision to reject socialism and go with a moderate style because they thought it was a winning decision. If they're proven wrong, moderate democrats will cease to exist--and the political apparatus will take a hard turn to the left. America's political dialogue will shift left, too. The overton window on the role of the state will shift left. Eventually, one of these leftists will get into power--and Donald Trump will have destroyed so many checks and balances that they will be able to rule by decree.
Donald Trump says you're going to be tired of winning. Well, the only victory against socialism we've seen in the last four years was won by Joe Biden. Joe Biden may not talk with bluster, but he's the real hero of this election: he's the only one in four years who has really made leftists cry.
I love the tears of statists--both left and right wing. But there is something about the tears of socialists that is extra special. When socialists cry, infant mortality goes down. When socialists cry, life expectancy goes up. When socialists cry, poor people climb out of poverty and enter the middle and upper classes.
Joe Biden is the only true anti-socialist candidate in this election. He's far from perfect--but he's already done our country a great service, and failing to oust Trump is the practical equivalent of pouring gas all over your house and then sitting down to smoke a bong.
The only rational choice for a true anti-communist is Joe Biden.