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Venezuelans backed Trump. Now some worry he’ll deport them. (archive.today)

submitted 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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DORAL, Fla. — Ronald Bellorin decided to flee Venezuela for the United States during President Donald Trump’s first administration, convinced the Republican leader would protect people like him who had been targeted by an autocratic regime. Now the university professor is worried the Trump administration is going to deport him. The Department of Homeland Security has canceled the temporary protected status given to thousands of Venezuelans who have arrived in recent years. Bellorin’s permission to work in the United States is set to expire in April, and his shield from deportation in September.

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[–] Rentlar 50 points 4 days ago (2 children)

Even if many could not vote, they attended rallies, decorated their front lawns with Trump flags, and took to social media to support the man they thought would prioritize removing Nicolás Maduro from power.

Wait what? Who gave the Venezuelans this idea that Trump would do that? He has a solid years-long record of cozying up to dictators, and Maduro is one. I did find a couple statements imploring Maduro not to mess with the opposition Machado but not much else.

[–] [email protected] 50 points 4 days ago

venezuelans who make it to the US are generally vehemently anti-communist, not fully realizing what they should be resisting from their trauma is authoritarianism, not healthcare

[–] [email protected] 27 points 4 days ago (1 children)

That's a great question. A lot of groups now feeling swindled seemed to believe the most bizarre, cockamamie nonsense, and nobody seems to know where that disinformation came from.

[+] [email protected] -8 points 4 days ago (2 children)

This comment is concerning. People believe things for a reason and to dismiss them as "cockamamie nonsense" is beyond useless; it's damaging.

For one, to believe that is to close one's eyes to the reasons that people are behaving in this way. They're not insane and if you want to simply assume that they behave this way because they are insane then you will make no progress at all in stopping the far-right from seizing more and more power while you're left wondering why a greater and greater number of your countrymen are acting "insane".

Venezuelan immigrants in the US are sympathetic to the rhetoric of Trump and other right-wing figures because the authoritarian Maduro regime in Venezuela is strongly associated with socialism. It is under the banner of socialism that Maduro has destroyed Venezuela's democracy and economy, so the strong dislike of anything even slightly resembling what was presented as "socialism" to them in Venezuela is a reactionary one.

There is a reason for people voting the way they do. And if you can understand the reason that things are the way they are, you can work to change them.

[–] [email protected] 16 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago) (1 children)

Yeah but they could just like, Google why vuvuzuela has no iPhones and think about it for one minute instead of acting on trauma instincts like some animal the way you assume they do.

Maybe I'm taking it a bit personally because I'm a Russian immigrant to the UK, I don't support Putin, and I'm not a fan of the USSR, but I do support socialism because I'm not a moron and have at least some capacity for critical thinking so I can differentiate between different things.

But even with all that, if they think that Kamala Harris is in any way representing socialism then they're insane and believe cockamamie nonsense either way.

The only thing that's clear is that democracy is showing itself to be a failure right now, having wilfully ignorant and the mentally deranged dictate the course of society was an insane idea in retrospect, all just for the vague possibility of being able to vote them out if they ruin everything which won't happen with capitalist media who exist to protect the asset class at all costs.

I'm not sure of the solution.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 4 days ago

That's a lovely strawman argument you've constructed. Please explain the logic behind then behaviors that compelled you to constructed.

In case you're confused, no one suggested these people are insane. Those are your words.