Venezuela’s Maduro chased by angry mob

How’s that socialism working out for ya’, Venezuela? Apparently so poorly that even the New York Times notices. President Nicolás Maduro was chased at a routine political event by a crowd of angry protesters banging on pots and yelling that they were hungry, just days after thousands of Venezuelans took to the streets to call for his ouster, local news media reported on Saturday.

Scenes from the confrontation late Friday, which also appeared in videos uploaded to social media, captured the attention of Venezuelans, many of whom blame the unpopular president for the country’s food shortages. In one video, Mr. Maduro tries to calm the pot-bangers by walking among them, only to be surrounded as the furious crowd yells obscenities. “What is this?” an astounded voice behind the camera asks in one of the video clips. Mr. Maduro had traveled from the capital, Caracas, to Margarita Island off Venezuela’s northern coast to inaugurate a number of new public housing units and give a televised address. During the speech, he denounced his opponents’ calls for his removal from office, calling them “vampires” and saying they were preparing for violence. Madura has plenty of reason to worry. The demonstrations against him in Caracas were massive: At this point, Venezuela faces a massive preventable tragedy. The spectacular failure of socialism there, despite the world’s largest oil reserves, is all the proof anyone should need (note that the word socialism appears nowhere in the Times article). Unless Maduro leaves office and turns the country over to those who understand and want to help free markets thrive, there will be mass starvation, disease outbreak, and human suffering and death on a terrible scale. The fact that the normal bleeding hearts of the left are mostly silent on the tragedy of Venezuela’s embrace of socialism discredits them. Hat tip: Monica Showalter