Much like Fidel Castro, his ideological soulmate, Hugo Chávez is fond of denouncing his critics as “fascists” and “Nazis,” regardless of whether those critics are U.S. lawmakers on Capitol Hill, heads of state in Europe, or opposition presidential candidates in Venezuela. Yet in his militarization of society, his promulgation of chauvinistic nationalism, and (above all) his persistent use of anti-Semitic demagoguery, Chávez himself is much closer to 1930s-style fascism than any of his democratic opponents.
Consider the ongoing efforts to smear Henrique Capriles, the man who will represent the Coalition for Democratic Unity (MUD) in Venezuela’s October 2012 presidential election. Capriles, the governor of Miranda state, is a practicing Catholic, but his grandparents were European Jews who escaped Nazism, and his great grandparents were murdered at Treblinka. Immediately after he won the MUD primary vote on February 12, the pro-Chávez state-run media began attacking him with a fusillade of anti-Semitic propaganda.
