The Government and The People

Guillermo Garcia Machado

When Thomas Aquinas wrote to the prince, he counseled him to avoid the obsession to brag and be arrogant. When monarchs feel that they are powerful and invincible due to their past successes, the praise and adulation from his fans will merge with his pride. This attitude will lead the prince to look down on the enemy and overestimate one's own capacity.

When this happens, the opponent will become resentful and will seek to become ruler, becoming happy with the mistakes of the prince and even laugh out loud at seeing the arrogant prince fall due to inevitable human errors or by virtue of bad luck. Even worse, his pride will expose the prince to unnecessary risks and lead to silly failures. One is never weaker than when one believes he is stronger than his opponents.

The winner of a thousand battles automatically believes he will win the next one. He will trust his virtue and earlier luck in excess which will lead to an inexplicable defeat and perhaps the end of his reign.

Since the triumph of the French Revolution to the present day, all governments have sought to legitimize their power through the will of the sovereign people, and they have resorted to the magic of democracy, either because it indeed exists, or because they apply it artificially. A "democratic" Constitution brings respectability to any regime. Hitler himself tried, through his Minister Goebbels, to disguise the Third Reich as an "ennobled democracy". The dictatorial regime of Gamal Abdel Nasser imposed on the new Arab Republic, composed of Egypt and Syria, a new constitution that was deemed “democratic”. Through this dying century, Latin America has been fertile ground for growing autocracies disguised as constitutional governments.

Venezuela has not escaped these farces that Venezuelan Ambrosio Oropeza has defined as "paper constitutions", those that are not followed, but they serve very well for the ruler in shift to make out with the title of Constitutional President of a Republic that they believe to be "theirs" and not shared with anyone else. This is without a doubt the dominant vocation of the origins of Chavismo. That hard line, challenging, aggressive, vulgar, uncompromising, violent, exclusionary, and avenging that characterized Chavez’s electoral profile and pointed unquestionably to a brazen autocracy.

Over time, the apparent threat of a country that would explode into pieces sweeping everything away, including Chavismo, lead to the actions of the government relenting. That is why now we hear talk of "Chavismo light" led by the president, who has found a way to disguise his undeniable authoritarian inclinations. Jose Ortega and Gasset would surely suggest for the ruler to accomplish the task of inviting his people to do great things alongside him. It is true that to fulfill common goals, the nation must be united. A great nation is one that has values, emotions, goals and shared efforts. It's great when it is united by a large common object of love, knowing that one does not live just to be together, but to do things together.