On Monday, President Trump made the crisis in Venezuela a central part of a rally in Florida. And yes, to rail against a socialist country where people quite literally don't have enough to eat is a great implicit knock on potential 2020 Democratic challengers who embrace socialism, either in name or in the form of policies such as "Medicare for all" and free college tuition.

But Trump should be wary of attaching foreign policy threats to rhetoric motivated by domestic politics, as he did at the rally in Miami.

For one thing Democrats, for all of their flirtations with socialist policies, aren’t authoritarian in the mold of embattled Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro. They aren’t advocating for state control of food distribution, they aren’t claiming that the military is the rightful enforcer of the president’s will, and they certainly aren’t calling for a dictatorial centrally planned economy — at least not most of them.

What's more, most Democrats side with Trump on this as an issue of foreign policy. Even Sen. Bernie Sanders I-Vt., has spoken out against the Maduro regime:



The Maduro government has waged a violent crackdown on Venezuelan civil society, violated the constitution by dissolving the National Assembly and was re-elected last year in an election many observers said was fraudulent. The economy is a disaster and millions are migrating. 1/3 — Bernie Sanders (@SenSanders) January 24, 2019



Trump has a tendency to take the socialist brand and run with it, talking about the crisis in Venezuela as if Democrats wanted to turn Washington into Caracas. Indeed, he alleged as much against Democratic candidates during the midterm elections:

Beto O’Rourke is a total lightweight compared to Ted Cruz, and he comes nowhere near representing the values and desires of the people of the Great State of Texas. He will never be allowed to turn Texas into Venezuela! — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 19, 2018



Trump also did this in the State of the Union. He began well enough: “We stand with the Venezuelan people in their noble quest for freedom — and we condemn the brutality of the Maduro regime.” He went on to blame “socialist policies” for turning the country into “a state of abject poverty and despair.”

Then he immediately followed those remarks saying, “Here in the United States, we are alarmed by new calls to adopt socialism in our country.” He added forcefully, “Tonight, we renew our resolve that America will never be a socialist country.”

Those remarks clearly play well with his target audience. But if anything they undermine what has been a broad, bipartisan U.S. opposition to Maduro’s regime. It isn't just inaccurate to conflate socialism with traditional social-democratic policies like government funded education or healthcare. It's also counterproductive to drag criticism of Democrats into his justifications of backing Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaido. He needs Democrats on his side.

Trump is right to take a strong stand against Maduro and the military that supports him, but he isn't going to beat the dictator with applause lines that are meant primarily to appeal to his own domestic political base in the U.S.

Maybe tough talk on Venezuela is politically useful for highlighting flaws in Democratic policy proposals. But right now, with Venezuela on the brink, Trump needs to be leading nation united against Maduro's tyranny, not using Maduro to create new partisan fissures at home.