The New York Times to The Defense

This is how the "New York Times" runs interference for communism.  Hugo Chavez was not a "leftist populist", whatever that is.  He was a plain vanilla, garden variety communist, like Bernie Sanders.

Chavez admired the murderer Che Guevara, he believed "the military should act in the interests of the working classes when the ruling classes were perceived as corrupt" (the ruling classes are always "perceived" corrupt, unless they are communists), and he founded the "Fifth Republic Movement" political party which merged with the "United Socialist Party of Venezuela", which Chavez also led.  Hugo Chavez was friends with Fidel Castro and other communists in Latin America, and he despised Augusto Pinochet and the United States.

Finally, consider what Chavez actually did while in power.  He nationalized "key" industries and created "participatory democratic Communal Councils".  Oh, what's that?  Participatory democratic Communal Councils are soviets.  Soviets, or workers councils, are just good, old fashion Trotskyism.

Honestly, you really don't have to go through the weeds of socialist theory, and the historical record on Hugo Chavez and Venezuela.  All you have to know is that Venezuela, one of the world's largest exporters of oil, suffers from chronic shortages of gasoline and electric power, in addition to shortages of all other kinds, like food and medicine.  Shortages are the hallmark of socialism.  Socialism fabricates shortages.

Of course, other political economies can suffer shortages from time to time.  Shortages can arise naturally from floods, droughts, earthquakes, pestilence, or whatever "acts of god".  There was, for example, the famous Irish potato famine, caused by the potato blight.  Only socialist countries manufacture shortages.

For example, between 1958 and 1962, about 50 MILLION Chinese STARVED TO DEATH in the greatest MAN MADE famine known to history.  No drought, no flood, no earthquake, no pestilence, no infestations, nothing.  They died of socialism.  Starting in the late 19th century, colonial Rhodesia was the breadbasket of Africa.  Robert Mugabe transformed post-colonial Rhodesia into communist Zimbabwe and turned a "breadbasket into a basket case".  One could go on.  And on, and on, and on.

Socialism manufactures shortages from the large and consequential, like shortages of food and medicines, to the sort of minor shortages that just grind down your will to live, like shortages of fresh fruit, toilet paper, sugar, soap, etc.

Any time you hear of shortages, absent some "act of god" the most reasonable assumption is that socialism is at work.  For a domestic example, there was no housing shortage in New York City or any other major American city, until price controls were imposed on rents.  Today, New Yorkers have the pleasure of paying inflated prices for inferior housing, if they can find housing.  This is the inevitable result of price controls, a standard socialist practice.

When Hugo Chavez assumed power in 1999, I predicted shortages.  Of course, I did not know exactly when or exactly how, but I knew shortages were coming.  And so it is.  Venezuela was no paradise before Hugo Chavez, and the people were desperate to improve their lives.  Too bad for them, they got communism, instead.

The New York Times knows all this.  So, why do they try to misdirect their readers ("Oh, look!  A leftist populist!")?  Because, dear reader, they are communists.  They will misdirect you on Venezuela and they will misdirect you on Bernie Sanders, Barack Obama, and on any other person and on any other subject to further the cause of the Revolution.

For the New York Times as for every communist revolutionary, "The issue is never the issue.  The issue is always the Revolution."