As the Democratic Party's "it girl," Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, sings the praises of socialism, what's going down in Venezuela's 20-year socialist "sea of happiness" kind of tells a different story. Here's what happened yesterday:

CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) – An annual gathering of Venezuelan socialists took an unexpected turn when the lights went out just as they were about to select President Nicolas Maduro as their party's leader. The blackout happened Monday right as Diosdado Cabello was urging socialist party delegates to give Maduro unlimited power to "strengthen the party and revolution." Cabello raised his hand and asked others to follow suit in electing Maduro, but the lights abruptly went out and the live television transmission cut off.

This is about how things go with socialism, no matter how many times you try it. Venezuela, by the way, has the world's largest energy reserves. Apparently, it's just not enough to keep the socialist lights on in Caracas.

It gets worse. Here's what Agence France-Presse had to say about the event itself:

CARACAS (AFP) – Under-fire Venezuela President Nicolas Maduro admitted his economic model has "failed" in the wake of food and medicine shortages and public service paralysis, such as Tuesday's power failure that affected 80 percent of Caracas. "The production models we've tried so far have failed and the responsibility is ours, mine and yours," Maduro told his ruling PSUV party congress, as Venezuela looks to tackle chronic inflation the International Monetary Fund predicted would reach one million percent this year. "Enough with the whining... we need to produce with or without (outside) aggression, with or without blockades, we need to make Venezuela an economic power," he added late Monday, with the country grappling with a four-year long recession. "No more whining, I want solutions comrades!"

It's so bad that even Maduro is starting to admit it – just as Castro over in Cuba admitted that socialism is a miserable failure in an offhand remark to U.S. journalist Jeffrey Goldberg in 2010.

You can rest assured that these latter two know what they are talking about, being the foremost practitioners of socialism in the world, with exactly the same horrible results.

What's more, even as Maduro admitted the humongous failures of socialism in his country, he didn't propose any reforms that might get rid of the failure, given that those reforms involve what we in the U.S. call "winning." Or, to put it in more sterling terms, free markets. No room for those, in the world of Nicolás Maduro. So he and the comrades he wants solutions from are stuck.

Yet, amazingly, there's always a boob out there who will sing the praises of socialism, despite its obvious failures, even despite that admission from the biggest-league socialists out there about the wretchedness of the mess it creates. Are you listening, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez? Or will your socialism be "a really good socialism," as Tom Wolfe once noted as the familiar phrase of such idiots?

The Maduro admission, despite its absence of answers, is an amazing turning point that ought to be put before Ocasio-Cortez, because a lot of Latino Spanish-language news programs are starting to ask if Ocasio-Cortez is a Chavista. Will she follow the leader and admit that socialism is a disaster? Or will she just keep sailing that canoe over the falls until she's there with him?

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