Those of us who wanted Trump 2.0 to begin January 20 were sorely disappointed with one of his final acts in office: He issued an 18-month amnesty for 94,000 Venezuelans facing deportation (I say this as a Venezuelan immigrant, albeit legal) [Trump Issues 18-Month Amnesty for Thousands of Venezuelans in U.S., by John Binder, Breitbart, January 19, 2021]. On cue, clueless conservatives, like Florida GOP Sen. Marco Rubio, defended the move on the usual grounds: Hispanics, in this case, Venezuelans, are part of Trump’s natural constituency. Speaking as a Venezuelan immigrant, I have one thing to say about that narrative to Little Marco and Conservatism, Inc.: If you believe it, I have a bridge for sale in Caracas.
Thank you @potus for approving Deferred Enforced Departure for Venezuelans in the U.S.
— Marco Rubio (@marcorubio) January 20, 2021
https://t.co/F1JkMmFMFa
After Trump lost, the Stupid Party Media Class claimed to find some shreds of victory. Understandable—anyone wants to find a silver lining in a cloud. And Trump’s marginal gains with minorities just do just the trick for hacks who flinch at defending whites from the constant Blood Libels spewed by the corporate press and crazed minority mobs.
Con Inc. flunkies focused on headlines like these:
A history professor exchanged tweets with conservative Ryan Girdusky after he correctly doubted the baseless assumption that Venezuelans are solidly pro-GOP by a 70–30 margin. Girdusky asked for evidence. Answer: Crickets. That’s typical.
Can't load tweet https://twitter.com/RyanGirdusky/status/1351772384865480705: Sorry, that page does not exist
“I am on that search Sir,” Richter politely answered. “So you made it up?” Girdusky asked.
I am on that search Sir.
— J.R. (@JRichterR88) January 20, 2021
Let me be blunt: enough with the assumptions and speculation. I’m a numbers guy. I want to see the hard data behind any such claim, and lacking any from the good professor, I offer a few numbers.
It’s unclear how Venezuelans voted for Trump. The 80,000 Venezuelan registered voters in Florida appear to be all over the place, as I’ve written before:
Even if those latter data are Professor Richter’s source, post-election figures were murkier. NBC News found that non-Cuban Hispanics were split down the middle on Trump on Election Day [Did Trump draw out a new Latino Republican voter bloc in Florida?, by Carmen Sesin, November 25, 2020].
Yet your typical Con Inc. Cuck—I’m looking at you, Little Marco—agitates for more Venezuelan immigration on the assumption that it represents a new Republican base.
Again, I urge caution. A more Republican first wave of immigrants does not guarantee that their offspring, or subsequent waves of migrants, will vote the same way. Regression to the mean sets in. However conservative the first wave—think Cubans running from the communist tyrant Castro—successor waves and their children might not be as conservative. They also will be rowdier and bring tons of social baggage. The classic example: the Marielitos. Cubans fleeing Castro in 1959 were from Cuba’s white middle and upper class, the convicts and mental patients dumped by Castro in 1980 were from Cuba’s lowest classes, and considerably less white.
Exceptions to the rule cannot form the basis of building a viable electoral strategy. Not recognizing this will be lethal at the polls in the future.
A few more facts to illustrate my point.
Venezuela’s current opposition is not remotely right-wing or even tepidly conservative. Many of its notable leaders, such as Leopoldo López, interim President Juan Guaidó, and former National Assembly President Henry Ramos Allup, belonged to political parties that are part of Socialist International. The only remotely right-wing figure to hold power recently was military dictator Marcos Pérez Jiménez, in charge from 1952 to 1958, the country’s most economically prosperous time in its history.
As well, Venezuela was actually richer than a number of European countries in the 1950s. Oil discoveries in the early 20th century and an immigration system that attracted relatively skilled European labor from Italy, Portugal, and Spain are the reason. As well, the state was neither debasing its currency nor partaking in the egregious acts of land confiscation of the typical Banana Republic.
Here’s another fun fact to give Con Inc. and its neocon masters a splash of cold water in the face: The country began its notable decline in the 1960s when the country went back to democracy [Venezuela Before Chavez: A Prelude to Socialist Failure, by José Niño, Mises Wire, May 4, 2017].
Venezuelan political elites thought they could build a tropical version of Scandinavian social democracy by nationalizing its oil industry in the 1970s, then using the petroleum rents to finance social largesse. They ignored one key ingredient: high trust Nordics who save and think long-term.
Venezuela's racial data, as with other Latin American countries, can be confusing due to the high levels of racial mixing that took place in these countries when they were first settled centuries ago. But according to rough estimates from the Nations Encyclopedia, the majority of Venezuelans (roughly 68 percent) are mestizo (mixed race). 21 percent are of European extraction, mostly Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, and German. Blacks make up approximately 8 to 10 percent of the present population and Amerindians account for 2 percent. As in a number of Latin American countries, there is also sizeable Arab community of 1.6 million (predominantly of Lebanese and Syrian origin).
Americans often don’t realize this because, however, Venezuelans have tended to be the most educated of Latin American immigrants here. Venezuela’s historically high level of economic development afforded it the ability to build respectable institutions of higher learning that have produced petroleum engineers, businessmen, computer programmers, among other professional fields. While cities like Miami are the main destination for the average Venezuelan heading to the states, Houston has attracted a significant number of Venezuelans with petroleum engineering backgrounds.
Since 1970s, the country has decayed on the cultural, economic, and political fronts. By the 1990s, Venezuela was a political shambles and inflation was never curtailed [Venezuela: Forty Years of Economic Decline, by José Niño, Mises Wire, May 17, 2017].
A largely impoverished population with no faith in the political system fell for former Lt. Col. Hugo Chavez’s demagoguery and decisively voted for him in 1998.
The rest is history: Venezuela is now a failed state and one of the most dangerous countries on earth [No Go Zones: A Guide to Western Failed States and European Secessionist Movements, Ammo.com].
Only the naive think Third World migrants will discard their dysfunctional political and social habits when they set foot on American soil. Culture is exceedingly difficult to change. The soil here is not magic.
Granted, the sympathizers of the Socialist International might be tamer than the government of Nicolás Maduro and other hardcore communist regimes. But this same consortium of leftist political parties in Venezuela are prominent in European politics, and some are the strongest proponents of multiculturalism and mass migration.
As the paleoconservative historian Paul Gottfried lucidly explained in the Strange Death of Marxism, a strong oppositional force to Communism came from the multicultural Left. For this Leftist variant, culture war replaced the war against private property.
One can reasonably speculate that Venezuelan immigrants will bring affection for what they left behind with them. Despite empty food shelves and starving children, the country’s failed socialist experiment still enjoys strong support. They won’t become Republicans.
Americans must ask this: why import masses of people who have been socialized in a country where multiple generations repeatedly voted to destroy their own institutions? Granted, you’ll get outliers like me. But others will vote to turn their new home into replicas of the dumpster fires they left behind.
That said, I strongly doubt Stupid Party leaders understand—or want to understand—that truth. Multiple generations of leaders conditioned to accept PC tropes and reliant on sinecures from a donor class addicted to cheap labor have no incentive to think critically. They’ll keep repeating the Con Inc. mantra: America is an idea. Inside every Venezuelan is a conservative Republican waiting to get out!
In other words, for Venezuelan immigrants still pining for socialism, and for Con Inc. hacks who think immigrants join the Grand Old Party, some delusions are simply too good to give up.
The bottom line is this: Americans risk creating an even greater block of Leftist immigrant voters by importing hordes of Venezuelans.
But don’t hold your breath expecting Stupid Party cucks to figure that out.
