While the U.S. has worked well in the past with Venezuela, since the last three policies are the opposite of the U.S. foreign policy ideals, this has generated some hostility between the two countries. Not only has Venezuela gained more conflict with other countries but also a large part of the animosity has been coming from within the country. Many Venezuelans have become angered by the ways Chavez has started running their country.
Although I am discussing the Bolivarian Revolution, I thought some background information on the type of person Hugo Chavez is, might help to understand this revolution better. "While Chavez's verbal incontinence, his predilection for undemocratic means and his obsession with power have been visible since he became a recognizable figure in Venezuelan politics, some things changed dramatically after he seized power," (Clark 2009). A major example of how things changed was his respect of political life. Before Chavez came into power, being in the opposition was not a problem but once he ruled, anyone who was against Chavez being a leader, was thought of as a traitor. He uses the word "squalid" as a synonym for "opposition," basically saying that anyone in opposition is morally repulsive and filthy (Cannon 2009). Soon after, the opposition learned about Chavez's plan to disassemble democratic institutions, they began to look for ways as to how they could stop him. They found a section in the Bolivarian Constitution that interprets the possibility of "general referendum," which meant that people could have a say in matters important to national significance. The opposition took that as a way to terminate the president's term, so they began to collect signatures to activate the referendum. Even though, before Chavez took office he stated that he would leave office if people were not happy with him but even after the opposition collected over four million signatures, the Supreme Court ruled in favor of Chavez because of a technicality in the constitution.