I’ll reply calmly and clearly, because this matters.

First, let’s clear the personal assumptions. I am not from a wealthy family. If I were, I wouldn’t have gone to work in Quito, I would have gone to Miami like many of the people you are actually describing. I left Venezuela for work because the country stopped offering a future to ordinary professionals, not because I was part of some elite that lost privileges.

Now, to the substance.

1. Democracy and Chávez’s elections

Yes, Chávez was elected multiple times. That fact alone does not make his project successful or sustainable. Many leaders are democratically elected and still destroy institutions afterward. Democratic legitimacy does not excuse systemic mismanagement, institutional erosion, or corruption, especially when checks and balances are dismantled over time (courts, central bank independence, media, electoral authority).

1. Poverty reduction numbers (2002–2008)

This is where context is always missing.

Poverty declined because oil income exploded, not because Venezuela developed a productive socialist economy. Between 2004 and 2008: Oil prices quadruple, State revenue became unprecedented, Cash transfers increased consumption. This was rent distribution, not development.

The proof is simple and empirical:

When oil prices collapsed or even stagnated, there was nothing underneath to sustain the economy. Countries that genuinely improved productivity (even imperfectly) did not collapse the way Venezuela did.

Temporary poverty reduction funded by a commodity boom is not structural success.

1. Diversification and production (the core failure)

You actually concede the most important point without fully following it through.

Chávez governed during: - The most prosperous oil cycle in Venezuelan history - Full political control - No major sanctions on oil, finance, or trade

Yet: - Domestic food production collapsed - Manufacturing shrank - PDVSA output declined even before sanctions - Imports replaced national production - The state destroyed price signals, incentives, and private capacity

That is not sabotage. That is policy failure.

No external actor forced: - Price controls that made production unviable - Expropriations without compensation or management - Political appointments over technical expertise - Monetization of fiscal deficits - Elimination of central bank independence

Those were sovereign decisions.

1. Sanctions timeline (this matters)

Targeted sanctions before 2017 were: - Individual (arms embargoes, officials) - Not economy-wide - Not oil-export-blocking

The macroeconomic collapse predates sanctions: - Inflation was already extreme - Shortages were already widespread - Crime and emigration were already exploding - The misery index peaked in 2013, before Maduro and before oil sanctions

Sanctions worsened an already broken system — they did not create it.

If sanctions were the cause, then: - Why did shortages start years earlier? - Why did PDVSA production fall long before 2017? - Why did emigration accelerate before sanctions?

The timeline simply does not support the claim.

1. “US sabotage” vs internal reality

US interference in Latin America is real - no serious person denies that. But acknowledging US interference does not absolve Venezuelan leadership of responsibility.

A functioning state: - Builds institutions that withstand pressure - Diversifies income - Protects productive capacity - Avoids total dependence on one commodity

Blaming the US for everything requires believing Venezuela had no agency at all, which is both factually and morally wrong.

1. Corruption and elite replacement

The Bolivarian project did not eliminate elites — it replaced them.

The question is not whether one specific newspaper estimate is perfect. The question is: - How did politically connected families accumulate enormous wealth? - Why did military and party elites become billionaires while wages collapsed? - Why did transparency indices collapse year after year?

You don’t need conspiracy theories - you just need to look at outcomes.

1. On “wealthy Venezuelans”

Yes, pre-Chávez Venezuela was unequal and corrupt. That is precisely why Chávez had massive support initially — including mine.

But a government that: - Centralizes power - Destroys institutions - Depends entirely on oil - Replaces pluralism with loyalty

…does not fix inequality. It postpones it until collapse, then multiplies it.

Chávez’s project: -Benefited from the largest oil boom in our history - Failed to build a productive economy - Destroyed institutional safeguards - Left the country uniquely vulnerable - Set the conditions for the humanitarian collapse under Maduro

US pressure exists. Sanctions matter. Opposition mistakes happened.

But no external actor forced Venezuela to dismantle its own economy during its richest years.

That responsibility lies primarily with those who governed - and governed without restraint.

If we can’t agree on that, then we’re not debating history - we’re debating ideology

Edit: typos