Once Elected, Can Tyrants Be Dislodged? July 9, 2024 You saw the good outcomes in Europe. Progressives won in Britain. In France, Trump-like nationalists finished third. (Watch what Le Pen says about being allied with Trump/Putin — 40 seconds.) Normal, free and fair democratic elections. But of course that’s not how it works in Putin’s Russia or Kim’s North Korea — or lots of other places around the world. A friend writes to say: We must not forget about the upcoming presidential “election” in Venezuela on the 28th. It would be following the now typical Nicaraguan model of democratic pretense, except that down here, we are all learning a lesson in charismatic leadership. Lo and behold, Maria Corina Machado (MCM) is spearheading the democratic opposition to the current authoritarian and quasi-brutal regime. They disqualify her, threaten her, put innumerable obstacles in her way, and she responds brilliantly and her movement only grows. Everyone now knows that in an even vaguely equitable election, she (or since they disqualified her, her surrogate candidate Edmundo González) would win in a landslide. All of a sudden, this stolid, dense authoritarian regime has an unanticipated and non-trivial problem on its hands. Chavismo wants to pretend to have a democratic election, but they have no intention (ZERO) of giving up power except in a few carefully negotiated instances for appearance’s sake. (Where would they go, if not to jail?) So they have long been training in the techniques of the heavy-handed regimes of Cuba and Nicaragua, which have demonstrated real success at staying in power at whatever cost. But now they find that they have MCM all over them, and it is increasingly unclear how they can fake it. This is the stuff of Nelson Mandela on a local, Latina scale. So keep an eye on what is coming in Venezuela and pray for the best. (If you should want to say anything publicly to call attention to this, please keep me completely anonymous. The heat is on down here.) For more on this, watch Thor Halvorssen’s conversation with the bravest woman in South America. Whether it’s Joe or someone else, we have to win or else Trump (and then his son) will never leave. And then what? The Lincoln Project: “For those who can’t imagine the death of American democracy, we imagined it for you” (4 minutes).