It's bullshit to compare Trump(in the new Spanish-language HRC ad) to Hugo Chavez.

[Ken Burch]

Hugo Chavez, even allowing for something of an authoritarian streak at times, was the only leader Venezuela ever had that did anything significant to help the working and jobless poor.

Trump has never helped anyone who was poor, and never would. And his rental practices(and those of his Hitler-moustached father before him) actively made life worse for the poor throughout New York.

Trump is exactly the sort of person Chavez devoted his life to helping the poor organize themselves against.

It's greed and the privileged we should be associating Trump with, not champions of the dispossessed.

(BTW, the opposition now has a solid majority in the Venezuelan Congress and has proposed no measures at all to help anyone other than the country's plutocrats. If they haven't done that with a congressional majority, they will never do it if they win the presidency there. They care only about "property rights" and other tools of the privileged). Nobody in the Venezuelan opposition alliance stands for anything Democrats or progressives agree with.

[Foggyhill]

1. Chavez destroyed his country by "helping" the poor

By borrowing from their future
These people are way worse off now than they've ever been and will get even worse

They took a nation's wealth and instead of investing it to produce more for the poor, they delapidated it
Chavez' says policies have been catastrophic for the poor and middle class; as usual, the rich can escape

so, did he really help them or did he use them...
If he wasn't dead Chavez would be in the same place as Maduro

Castro is less democratic but I still respect him more than Chavez.

Trump exploits populist rage by promising the impossible, that's how he is like Chavez

[bluedye33139]

2. Wrecked economy hurts poor Venezuelans terribly

[Bernardo de La Paz]

3. Both are (were) Authoritarian; one LW other RW.

As to current Venezuelan politics, it is very polarized. US politics is very polarized.

Polarized politics does not lead to the best government for the governed.

Reducing polarization does mean working with the opposition and vice versa. Unfortunately the "take no prisoners" attitude of the Republicans has been more polarizing than the Democrats when the Ds have had power.

[NCTraveler]

4. Chavez will be ok.

The people of his country he left in ruins will not be anytime soon.

[Ken Burch]

6. Chavez is dead.

And the economic problems weren't his fault.

Also, Chavez never sowed hatred.

[NCTraveler]

7. Really? I wasn't aware he was dead.

He shares a huge part in their economic problems. Extremely flawed man. Some of the better moves he made were completely overshadowed by the disaster he was a part of.

[MyNameGoesHere]

5. Defending Chavez to capitalist americans

And progressives is a futile effort. The complexities take more than a sound bite to understand.