TED Talk Proposal

  Everyone makes mistakes, both big and small. Yet many times, they are so large that they are unfixable. These mistakes are commonly political, whether it is a misallocation of funds or resources, or an election of an official. The election and presidency of Donald John Trump is a complete embarrassment and disappointment of the United States of America. My bias is very small, as I am not a supporter of any of the political parties that the United States has to offer, so this is not a liberal rant. Nevertheless, I am obviously biased, being an immigrant from a Latin American country.

  There is a famous saying which says: "History repeats itself", and the Venezuelan people are unfortunately all too familiar with this. Of the 46 presidents which have been sworn into office, 5 have gone on to establish dictatorships, because of this frequency we have developed a keen eye on political leaders and affairs.

  The current dictatorship has been in place since 1999, and the similarities between Hugo Chávez, a man who ran a great country into the ground, and Donald Trump are eerily similar. Although Chávez was never elected into office, he staged a various coups until succeeding in 1998, The way he gained support from the people is the exact same as how Trump does it. Where as Latin America is no stranger to populist leaders, the United States has yet to learn their dangers. What both of them do is act unpolitical, showing their supporters, who are usually the common people, that they are just like them. They often use informal language and speech while at a rally, and unite against a common enemy. In the Venezuelan case, Chávez would accuse the United States whenever something was amiss or in contrary to his policies, again, eerily similar to Trump's approach to the media.

  Since it has only been little over a month since Trump has taken office, I cannot give concrete statements of what he will do to the country. However I can show what happened during the 15 years of Chávez's rule. This horrible man seized control of the country with the largest oil reserves in the world, with the potential to be one of the greatest in the world, and ran it into the ground because of his personal interests and ignorance to the people. Hugo Chávez died of cancer in 2013, and left behind a predecessor which had never had a political office. Now, 4 years later, this failed country has one of the worst economies and a blighted society.