← Going Big! with Kevin Gentry
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- [00:00]
A
This country has endless opportunities. And if people are willing to take advantage of them, unable to and talk to others, you know, seek advice, there's so many good people who are willing to help you. There is no limit to what you can achieve in America. The only limit is yourself. And I think that's still the case. And that will be the case even more in the future.
- [00:23]
B
Welcome to the Going Big Podcast. I'm your host, Kevin Gentry, and this is the place where we celebrate bold moves and big ideas. Each week, I sit down with inspiring leaders, entrepreneurs and change makers who are making a significant impact in their careers and in their communities. Whether you're looking to level up your leadership, pursue your passion, or just get inspired to take your next big leap, this is where those stories come to life. Now, if you're listening on iTunes, YouTube or anywhere else you tune into podcasts, be sure to hit that subscribe button so you'll never miss an episode. Now let's dive in to what it means to truly go big. Well, welcome back to another episode of the Going Big podcast. I'm your host, Kevin Gentry. About a year and a half ago, Daniel DiMartino joined me as my guest for a conversation that I will never forget. Daniel grew up in Venezuela, which experienced during his time there, one of the most significant spectacular economic and political collapses in modern history. And Daniel had a front row seat to seeing what happens when a society descends into fear and repression, authoritarianism, scarcity, and a lot to understand about how we don't want to go that route. No country wants to go that route. Well, since that conversation, a lot has happened further. And many of you know that in January of this year, Nicolas Maduro was captured and arrested. And a lot has changed since then. But not everything has changed. I wanted to have Daniel back. And I wanted to have him back not just to talk about the politics of what's going on, but really what has happened in Venezuela. What does that tell us about freedom? What does it tell us about socialism? What does it tell us about human nature? And what can we learn from it? Because we see so often free societies descend into a different space. And sometimes it's too late before something can change. So I'm really pleased to have as my guest Daniel DiMartino. He's an economist, a recent PhD economist from Columbia University. He is the founder of the Dissident Project. He's a fellow at the Manhattan Institute. Daniel, it's great to have you back on the Going Big podcast.
- [02:55]
A
Thank you, Kevin, so much. Yeah, this is all very timely so I'm very grateful to be back and check in on what's happening in Venezuela and what we can learn from it.
- [03:04]
B
All right, well, with respect to that, you grew up there. What memories do you have as a child, as a young person, when you sensed or you knew something was going wrong?
- [03:18]
A
Well, the very basic things, right? Like not having electricity at home, sometimes having blackouts, or not having water, you know, that we would have to fill up containers with water so that we could shower. Right. Very basic things that we didn't used to suffer from, that we began suffering on safety in the streets. Let me tell you, Kevin, you know, I was very privileged in the way I grew up because I, you know, my parents were married, you know, I was an only child. My parents both, you know, had. My dad had an associate's degree and my mom had a bachelor's. So they were both educated relatively right to the country. And we had a good business. My parents had a gas station that they ran. And then we went from having a really high quality lifestyle in a great part of Caracas that we lived. I remember a beautiful view, we had two cars. I went to a private school because my uncle worked at the school and I went for free. I loved my classmates. Really an ideal life that turned into a nightmare over time because of shortages, inflation, crime, inflation in my cafeteria, shortages that I would have to line up for hours with my mom. And that really changed the the country to one that was unrecognizable.
- [04:39]
B
Well, when did you realize you also needed to get out? I mean, what were the circumstances that have you today in the United States?
- [04:50]
A
I think I always point out to when I was 12 and I started reading Milton Friedman when I read Free to Choose because he was talking about the situation, the policies that destroy Cuba, the USSR and then different examples of that in the United States and kind of like connecting the ideas of economic freedom to the practice and the reality. I just thought this is exactly, I mean, the socialist policies are exactly the thing that are destroying Venezuela right now. It's the same thing the Venezuelan regime did with the same result as in Cuba, as in the Soviet Union. And therefore, it means it's just a matter of time until people starve to death in Venezuela. It's just a matter of time until there's a massive refugee crisis. And that means several things. One thing it means is that if you look at this crisis throughout history, the people who manage to survive or thrive the most from it are the people who leave early enough, right? Who don't lose the value of all their possessions. And that's when I thought, well, I mean, at least for me as a young man, my only way out is to go to college abroad, right? And then get skills buried there, then maybe move to another country. I don't know what the future would be, but certainly to leave Venezuela. And then for my parents, it would be sell everything you have as soon as you can, because it's going to be worth less every single day that passes. And so I really managed to pressure them to leave as well.
- [06:18]
B
Well, I applaud you. And there's a lot we want to talk about today that you today are very active in the media. You write a lot, you speak, speak a lot. And what I've seen you say is that for immigrants who come to the United States, they have a different sort of appreciation and understanding for the opportunity that exists that maybe many lifelong Americans don't readily see. What was that moment that when you came here to school that you said something a little different here?
- [06:56]
A
Well, there were many cultural shocks, right? Some of them were very casual things like there's a lot less physical touch in the United States relative to Latin America. We are hugging people in Latin America. We are kissing people, men and women and women and women kiss each other when we greet each other in Latin America. So that was the first thing that actually I immediately made that mistake. And so things like that. But those are cultural, more cultural, tiny aspects. One thing that really did shock me was how many people who I considered and still consider obviously America an amazing, great country, but they really disliked their own country. They hated their own country. I met students in my university in Indiana who were ashamed of being Americans and wish they hadn't been born here in Venezuela. You can understand that sentiment now because it's truly a miserable place to live, right? But Venezuela before socialism, nobody hated the Venezuelan. We all loved the Venezuelan. It's a great country, great weather, great people, amazing economy. What would you hate about it, right? Same with the United States. Yet I think, and I fear that the education system, parents, the movies, culture really created this culture of self loading among a lot of Americans, among minorities, on the account of their race, you know, making them believe that they're oppressed and among white people as if they hate themselves. So that one really shocked me.
- [08:30]
B
Yeah, I've struggled with that. I think many people do today, you know, we're about to celebrate the 250th birthday of the United States on July 4th, declaration of independence. And I remember 50 years ago celebrating the American bicentennial and there was just a different spirit. We had a lot of things going wrong and we had this big enemy, the Soviet Union, that was pretty scary. But there was a sense that you were proud to be an American. There were even songs like that. And that has shifted. I want to get into that a little bit more. But before we do that, let's talk a little bit more about the founding because you've studied a lot of this. And also with by comparison, in contrast to Venezuela and other Latin American countries, other countries in the world, what do you think America's founders got right about human nature and power that other countries have never quite understood with the manner in which their governments have been formed?
- [09:33]
A
I think that part of the founding success, obviously it's the ideas, but also there's a lot of circumstantial things. A lot of things have to go right. The French helping the American revolutionaries. A lot of things have to go right and they certainly did. I happen to think that the founding was in many ways providential. I think that America has a God given mission in the world as a country that maybe other countries actually don't share in the same divine way. And I think that's part of why it succeeded. It was really a founding based on, on natural rights, on what God intended. And that really sets you up for success, right? Religious people who believe in God trying to advance that on earth. I think that that's very unique. And I think the other thing is just that freedom works, right? And economic prosperity was the driver that made America powerful, that allowed it to fulfill this mission on. The founders conceived of America as an economically free nation, as a trading republic. Right. And that is what set America apart in a way, was very similar to Britain during its heyday in which it was very much a trading hub, the home of the Industrial Revolution that then spread to the United States. And America really carried the mantle for Britain as Britain declined. And then America obviously became a much bigger nation, unable to fulfill that mission of being the most economically free country, the inspiration for the world.
- [11:16]
B
So the New World, when it was discovered by the Old World and settled by the Old World, we have certainly the American experiment. Lots of countries in Latin America went a different route. You had a very different situation with respect to Spain and Portugal, especially as a sort of a very top down approach from the Spanish governments relative to us winning our freedom from Great Britain and America. What do you think? So socialism wasn't a theory per se at the founding of the United States, but collectivism versus freedom. I'm interested first in your perspective coming from Latin America and that sort of exceptional element of America about our independence, our self reliance. Is that something to you that's noticeable and special and unique? And if it is, tell me your thoughts on that.
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A
Well, I think that a fundamental difference between the Latin country colonies and the British colonies was also the method of colonization and who came to colonize, to settle. And in the British colonies it was settlers who were seeking freedom in many ways. And it was a corporation, an individually led settlement. Right in Spain, in Portugal, in the French colonies, it was all a government led settlement. It was the government who were there to colonize and it was their property. They managed it directly. The American colonies and the British colonies were very different. And there were also a lot of differences. I will say you have to give credit to the Spaniards. They were much more opposed to slavery, I guess, than the Portuguese, the French or the British. And I would say that the racial situation in the Spanish colonies was much better than in the other ones. But certainly the Portuguese probably got the worst of all worlds because they had the government led colonies and then the worst, worst enslavement of them all. And the Brits in many ways were better because they banned the slave trade worldwide. But I think that with respect to the system of government, the Latin colonies inherited a much more centralized system of government than the American colonies and the Canadian ones. Even Canada today is a much more economically free country than the Spanish, French or Portuguese speaking nations.
- [13:53]
B
All right, well, let's talk about that. And I think you're bringing up Canada is a good point. And we referenced of course, the old world in Western Europe. Okay, for you, socialism is not an ism. It's not a theory, it's a reality. You saw the harsh truth of what happens when you pursue those policies, that it leads to scarcity, ultimately repression and fear and authoritarianism. What do you think wealthy societies like the United States, Canada, Western Europe misunderstand and get wrong? That allows them to slip into ultimately scarcity, worse situation and ultimately repression.
- [14:41]
A
Well, Kevin, you also have to remember the American settlers already tried socialism too in the Plymouth Colony. Isn't that what the entire story of Thanksgiving is? They had collective land ownership and as a consequence they ran out of food and they were starving to death because there was no incentive to actually make food because you didn't keep it, what you made. This isn't a new concept. Marx didn't invent the concept of socialism, he just put it down in writing. But that concept has been with us for centuries. The Roman Empire tried price controls, that is 2,000 years ago. These policies have led to the same results for thousands of years. I think your question, I believe, was about what do wealthy societies need to know? I think that what they need to know is learn from their own experience and learn from the experience of others so that they don't repeat the same mistakes.
- [15:44]
B
Okay, great, that's awesome. Because I guess it was Thomas Hobbes who says that for most of humanity, life is nasty, brutish and short. And we look at that, we look back over time. You don't want to look back to the past fondly. It was pretty bad. And you had capricious rulers who did bad things to their subjects. And you had to be on the good side if you had any hope. And then, boom, we have this American experiment and it flourishes. But yet the natural tendency of things, we've seen this around the world and we saw it in Venezuela firsthand. The natural tendency to things is when you ultimately get to abundance, it leads to elements of envy, it leads to elements of desire to want to redistribute. And then you use the power of government to step in and ultimately it kills the goose that laid the golden egg. Is that fair? I mean, that's my view of the theory. That's my view of what I've observed. But you lived it firsthand in Venezuela and you've come to the United States and continue to study it.
- [16:53]
A
But you know what I find interesting about American socialism today is that it's very different from socialism in Latin America in many ways. Even in Europe. It is not high income people who are voting for socialists in Europe or in Latin America. It is in the United States. If you look at the voting patterns in Spain, in Germany, in Peru, in Argentina, in Mexico, it is not the upper class that votes for socialists. It was not the upper class who voted for Hugo Chavez in Venezuela. It was the poor. It was the classic class warfare, right? The poor versus the rich. The rich are rich because the poor are poor, which is all false. But in the United States, I think we're experiencing what you mentioned, which is that the children, because it's really the young generation, but it's the children of the upper middle class that are leading the way in supporting socialism in this country. And the sad thing, Kevin, is that those are exactly the people who stand to lose the most from socialism because the very wealthy get to escape the country very quickly and save their wealth. The very poor are already very poor. They're going to be worse off. It's true. But they're not going to fall as much as the upper middle class is going to fall. And it's the young upper middle class that is going to be harmed the most because they're going to lose their prime years of life under these policies and system. It's people like myself, right, that I never voted for these people. I was born into this system. Chavez got elected a month before I was born. Right. And I paid for the price of somebody else's choice.
- [18:40]
B
Well, why do you think that is happening in the United States?
- [18:44]
A
I think that we are part of a huge collective brainwashing project that in part is self inflicted, but also in large part, I have to say, it is a foreign influence operation to destroy us from the inside. And I know that sounds like really evil, conspiratorial, but look, the Soviet Union has been trying to subvert the United States since it existed. It just fell apart. But the Soviet Union is not the only country trying to do this. Cuba. A U.S. ambassador is now about to be denaturalized because he was for 40 years a Cuban spy. The Cubans fund programs all over this country and nonprofits. So do the Chinese. The Chinese have police stations in this country. Come on. They had centers and universities, funded the Confucius Institutes. The Russians, they fund social media propaganda campaigns in both parties, in both sides of the political spectrum to promote these things. What is the goal of the enemies of the United States? The goal is to beat us. They cannot beat us militarily, so they try to beat us through the democratic system. Right. They fund nonprofit groups, social media campaigns. They try to polarize the country. They try to stop our economic progress. Right, and how do you stop our economic progress? With socialism? Because socialism works to destroy countries. It's the most effective ways to destroy your country. Therefore, what kind of policies are other countries going to promote in America? It's socialist policies.
- [20:13]
B
All right, my friend, well, I'm going to challenge you back a little bit on this, okay? So I certainly agree with you that socialism is bad and it's not. The theory is bad and it's not that Venezuela is somehow an imperfect example of socialism. There's no perfect example of socialism. That's why no one has actually seen it really manifest its greatness and all that stuff. It's bad because we can make better decisions on our own as part of a voluntary marketplace. Then a collective government entity can make decisions for us for a variety of reasons. That's why it fails. All right? And I agree, it's very possible and likely that we know we have foreign enemies and they don't have our interest at heart. And it's very possible that there could be conspiracies that are working against us. Maybe what has happened in our educational system is a conspiracy. I tend to think instead it's just the fallen nature of man and it's human nature we envy. We want what others have produced. They're just elements. And we need sometimes to restrain those urges, have those urges restrained. So I don't know. I don't know whether I'm going to completely agree with you, but I want to tease it out a little bit more because I think as we speak, see with Venezuela, as we are seeing in places recently, not completely like Chile, Peru and Latin America, certainly as we are seeing in Western Europe, especially the most western part of Western Europe, the most industrialized part, the part that was not part of the old Soviet Union, in Canada especially, and in the United States, and within the United States, places like California, Chicago, New York, these engines of prosperity descend into a collectivist view. Why is that? Why does prosperity slip into this?
- [22:17]
A
So I'll tell you about that too, but also I want to say, yes, I do think that the, even if it's not the catalyst, it's the mechanism that these foreign regimes are actually helping this. Kevin the mayor of Los Angeles, Karen Bass, was trained in Cuba as a teenager with terrorists who were planting bombs in this country. A lot of the staff of Soren Mamdani are DSA members who travel to Venezuela to learn from the Venezuelan regime. The most important left wing political party in Spain is involved in a huge corruption probe with the Venezuelan regime. And Podemos, the most left wing party in Spain, was funded with millions of euros from Venezuela. This is just Venezuela. Cuba sent troops all over Africa. They propped up dictatorships in other countries, Somalia, Ethiopia, Angola, Congo. Right. The Cubans have been intervening everywhere. So I think that that certainly has contributed and they've been very smart about it. I do think that the way we have allowed that to be effective in America is because we took our guard down, because this isn't new. The Soviet Union tried to do it before, but this wasn't a problem in the 70s, as you say, as much as it is today. And I think that the difference was, number one, we had a big enemy in the Soviet Union that had nukes pointed at us. And because of that, a lot of people were very wary about the Soviet Union, no matter whatever they read, because they were a mortal enemy. Doesn't feel like America has such a moral enemy anymore, even though it really does in the form of China and other regimes. And then the other way, I think, is also about the family and the education system. And with that, I mean, the family has broken down. In the 1960s, maybe 80, 90% of kids were growing up in a married household. Now it's a minority and declining. And more of the views of kids are being shaped not by their family, but by the education system. And the education system has gradually become captured by the left. And the consequence, I think, is young people are graduating into beliefs that are very left wing.
- [24:35]
B
Well, there's no doubt surveys show that that is the case and we may just agree to disagree. I'm not disagreeing with everything that you're saying. I just think that while there may be many of our enemies who want to see harm to us, I also just think it's the nature of man to slip into this. I think the founders were aware of that and tried to set systems in place. But as government has grown, it has grown, as Thomas Jefferson warned us it would, at the expense of human liberty. Well, let me touch on one more thing and then I want to switch back to the United States. So in Latin America, we've seen this back and forth. At one point, many of these countries are authoritarian on the left, maybe finally they'll have free elections and then there'll be a swing back in a different direction toward economic freedom. And then ultimately it will swing back again. And maybe we're seeing more of those swings in the United States than we used to in our older history. Maybe we're seeing it more broadly around the world, but it seems like it happens a lot in Latin America. Do you have an explanation for that?
- [25:43]
A
Well, several factors, I think. Also Latin Americans do watch each other's happenings very often, and it's almost as if it was the great United States, but a Spanish speaking countries. And certainly there are a lot of global trends going on. Social media really helps the breakdown of the language barriers. But I come back to the fact that the Cubans were very involved in Latin America throughout its history, or the Cuban regime. Not the Cubans. The poor Cuban people are victims. If you look at organizations like the Forum of Sao Paulo, which were founded by Chavez, by Lula and by Fidel Castro, the ultimate goal of these groups is to turn Latin America into communist regimes. The hope is that not only can we exit the tide that has been happening in the early 2000s and late 90s, we had what was called the pink tide, meaning Chavez gets elected in Venezuela and then suddenly Lula in Brazil, the Kirchners in Argentina, Bachelet in Chile, all of these things. All of the governments of Latin America were essentially left wing, except Colombia, under his name is Alvaro Uribe. That's right, Alvaro Uribe. And so that was a big setback for Latin America that, lucky to the leftist, it coincided with the greatest booming commodity prices in Latin America's history. And so they at least were able to fund a lot of their social programs through that, even though they still bankrupted their countries and things got worse. So they lost. We had a partial comeback around the time that also President Trump got elected, but that was very short lived. And I hope that we're seeing a full comeback and defeat of the far left in Latin America, which isn't like a regular far left. We're talking about a criminal far left tied with drug trafficking, thanks to Javier Milei's victory in Argentina. Because a lot of people over Latin America are seeing what's happening in Argentina and if it's successful as it has been so far and it continues to improve, then they're going to say, I want that for my country. That's why the right one in Chile, the right one in Ecuador, the right one in Paraguay, and they're winning in more countries in Dominican Republic, Panama, Costa Rica, El Salvador. The crime issue is another big one. It really depends on, on whether these leaders can deliver. If they can't, the left is gonna come back and they're gonna come back to steal and do everything they can. We have two very important elections coming up, the presidential election in Colombia and the presidential election in Brazil, that if the left loses and both of them are actually very close, then I think that's it for the far left in Latin America. And that is especially thanks actually to the Trump administration capturing Maduro in Venezuela. Because with Maduro captured, with the Cubans surrounded, neither Cuba nor Venezuela has the chance to influence elections in other countries. And I know that we disagree over the extent of the influence of this in other places, but look, I think there is no doubt that Chavez was using the oil money to fund leftist allies all over Latin America and the world. It's how so many of them have been convicted of corruption. So I do hope that part of the Trump administration's success in Cuba and Venezuela will be to bring so much more prosperity to the rest of Latin America.
- [29:29]
B
Yeah, well, look, I don't disagree with you at all. That, and we know the sort of axis of evil is broader, but when you consider Iran and North Korea and Cuba and then Venezuela and how they were funding each other and helping each other and doing all those things that they do and sponsoring terrorism, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. No doubt about any of that. I think you can take that argument too far and fail to acknowledge that the natural tendency of things is for government to grow at the expense of personal liberty.
- [30:00]
A
Yes.
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B
And it is remarkable that the United States has survived for 250 years because so many wealthy societies ultimately go through this cycle where they descend into poverty as a result of the changes in power dynamics. But. All right, we may come back to that. I want to touch on something else based on your field of study. I mean, you came to the United States legally, you fully assimilated the United States. You're very much a part of our culture. You're part of our national media conversation. Many times you mentioned the nature of Latin America being, with the exception of Brazil and a couple other very small places united in language, in Spanish. There are what, 670 million, I think, Spanish speaking people in Latin America. And then you have about 67 million, about 10% living in the United States. There's been assimilation and then there's not been assimilation. Yes, you have strong views on this. Why is assimilation important and what can you recommend or encourage us to consider?
- [31:11]
A
Yeah, there are ways in which assimilation is very good and we need to encourage it. Among them is what you mentioned, language and language. It isn't just important for immigrants to learn the language of their host country. I'm not talking about just the United States. I'm talking about immigrants in Germany should learn German. Immigrants in Spain should learn Spanish. Right. Just like immigrants in Venezuela should learn Spanish too. My grandparents were from Italy. They speak Spanish. Yeah, so they speak Spanish with an Italian accent, but they speak Spanish and, you know, decent one. So that is important because it's also good for the immigrants. You cannot make social relationships, you cannot get a good job if you don't speak the language of the place you go to. And so that is why language assimilation is important, because it leads to assimilation in every other aspect of life. Now, one of my recent papers is actually about one way in which assimilation in America is a bad thing. And among them is actually marriage norms. If you, you've read anything about the marriage crisis in America, you probably have read that immigrants marry at a very high rate. That didn't used to be the case. In the 1960s and 70s, the Immigrant and native born marriage rate was the same. It's only been since then that it's declined for both groups, but it's declined by twice as much for native born than for foreign born residents in this country. So I decided to look at that question and think, is this because it's true that natives are just marrying less, or is it that immigrants are coming through marriage and therefore the numbers are skewed? So I looked at immigrants who came before age 18 to exclude those people. Right. And what I find is that the marriage gap still persists and has grown, but it's only because of immigrants who come after age 10 and before age 18. Meaning if you're an immigrant who spent your childhood here before age 10, you look just like other native born Americans. And it is the immigrants from other cultures that haven't been exposed as much to America who marry more. The other finding I find that is more concerning to me is that the children of immigrants are the worst performers. The children of immigrants not only fully assimilate into the native born norm, but they actually go below it. So perhaps the most stark example is that this happens by race and education. So Asians assimilating to native born Asian norms, Hispanics into Hispanic norms. But then blacks think about black immigrants. African immigrants come with a very high marriage rate, higher than native born whites. Their children marry at a lower rate than native born blacks. So the question is America is assimilating immigrants, but it's assimilating into what? What is the education system doing to immigrants and their children? What is the culture doing to immigrants and their children? That can be a good thing, it can be a bad thing. If we're assimilating people into becoming Sora Mamdani, then that would be a bad way to assimilate immigrants.
- [34:32]
B
Wow, that is really interesting. We may have to have you back on a whole new deeper conversation on that, because I know anecdotally you hear so much from first generation immigrants who bemoan what has happened to their children and certainly their grandchildren once they kind of their minds get polluted in the United States. So what kind of an immigration system do you think leads to stronger assimilation rather than sort of fragmentation or any of these other negative consequences?
- [35:00]
A
Yeah, I think one of the ways is you need to select immigrants who are more likely to assimilate and who are already assimilated. One of those characteristics is that people speak English, that they have a higher education. So that is especially the case when immigrants are selected through employment. Even for immigrants who already speak English, those who come here because an employer sponsored them perform much better economically and are less likely to be on welfare than immigrants who come here because a family member sponsored them, even if they have the same educational language ability. So employer sponsorship is a very good way to select immigrants. Family ties are actually not. And that actually leads to another thing that I'm investigating on this topic of assimilation, and that is if you're a parent, an immigrant parent who already speaks English, then your children are less likely to be influenced by the culture and the media, and the schools are more likely by you because you can transmit that to them. And a big struggle that many immigrants parents have that lead to this disconnection and this kind of like, leftism among their children. I fear it's that the parents just don't understand what's going on and they leave it up to the school because they don't know the language, they're not assimilated, and as a consequence, the school assimilates their kids rather than their parents. And I think that having immigrants who speak English can. Can really help prevent that.
- [36:25]
B
Wow. No, that is really interesting. And again, it certainly matches what I've heard anecdotally. But you're the PhD. You're the one who's doing the research on this. Well, Daniel, you came here from Venezuela, you immigrated, you went to school here. You're thriving. You're still a young man, but you're really excelling in so many ways in society, yet you still have this memory and a connection to Venezuela. You've also devoted a big part of your life. This is what's always attracted me from the going big standpoint, is to make sure, to the extent you can effectively warn people about what happens when socialism prevails. When did it become, as a part of your time here in the United States, personal to you, that you wanted to speak out in the manner that you have?
- [37:18]
A
Do you know, I feel like as soon as I arrived, Kevin, because I met students and I met professors, even in Indiana, who actually thought that the Venezuelan regime was good and everything bad that was happening was the United States fault. And that was really baffling to me because I understood how the Venezuelan regime said those things. And that's when I understood that the reason the Cuban regime and the Venezuelan regimes blame American sanctions and attack America is not because the domestic audience is the real audience. They did not intend to persuade Venezuelans about that. None of us believed it, which is why we were so baffled that they kept saying it. It's because we were looking at this from the wrong lens. The audience was not us, it was you. They wanted to persuade the Americans who did not live it, that it's the American government's fault. Therefore lift the sanctions on us. Therefore we are not the bad guys. America is the bad guy. We need to self destroy. Right. It was all intended to a different audience. And that's when I thought, I need to debunk these myths in America before, number one, these people end up voting for people who will help the Venezuelan regime. And number two, they will vote for people who will not only help the Venezuelan regime, but will help turn America into Venezuela. Right. Because remember, Venezuela was the only socialist country that elected socialism into power, that elected a socialist dictatorship. The Cubans did not vote for Castro. Neither the Soviets vote for Lenin or the Chinese for Mao. The Venezuelans did vote for Chavez, and then they couldn't vote him out.
- [39:00]
B
All right, well, you have chosen to speak out to American high school students, college students, you founded the Dissident Project to, to give voice to others from other countries who have suffered in the same way. Are you hopeful about the future of Venezuela? I mean, Maduro's gone, but socialism is still there. Horrifically, there's still very many people in these terrible prisons. Are you hopeful about Venezuela?
- [39:29]
A
I am hopeful about Venezuela. I'll say a lot of good things are happening even more recently, and things are changing very fast by the day. They're releasing more political prisoners right now. As we tape, Zapatero, the former Spanish prime minister, was indicted. He has been a thug who has collaborated with the Venezuelan regime for years. And I'm very hopeful that a lot of the foreign allies of the Venezuelan regime are going to be brought to justice and that the Venezuelan regime is collaborating to do this. Just like Alex Saab was extradited back to the United States. He is a Colombian, Lebanese, Venezuelan financier who helped Maduro launder money and run PR operations in America. And Biden gave him a presidential pardon after he had been convicted. And then now President Trump was able to secure his extradition for a second time to the United States from Venezuela, which really signals that the Venezuelan regime is really being tutored by the US and doing what they're being asked. And I think those are good signs. I think that I really trust Secretary of State Marco Rubio. I think he understands the situation on the ground. I think he has a plan. I think he has more information than we do. And he also has the same goals that we do, which is freedom for Venezuela. And that freedom is key to achieve everything else, the economic recovery. Right. Because oil companies aren't going to invest in the long term. In a country that can't secure their property rights. For example, the Venezuelan regime said they are willing to do full foreign arbitrage for their oil claims with foreign companies. And that's great if a US Court has jurisdiction. But jurisdiction for what? If there are no assets as collateral in the United States, the jurisdiction is meaningless. The court can rule in favor of the American and oil company. And then how are they going to confiscate the assets in Venezuela to get paid back? They have no jurisdiction in a foreign country. So you see how democracy and prosperity really matter so that everything else works out.
- [41:40]
B
All right. Well, as we begin to celebrate America's 250th July 4, 2026, are you hopeful about the future of America?
- [41:51]
A
You know, I am hopeful about the economic future of America. I think that we are going to be the leaders in the world for the entire century. I am not worried any other country or power is going to overtake America for many reasons. Among them demographic, because of population, immigration, among them the AI race. I think America is really so well positioned to lead the world and win. And I think that the next generation is going to be, including myself, honestly, in the future, so much richer than we imagine we will be. I am not so sure about the social future of America. How optimistic I am. There are some things that I'm optimistic about. I'm actually very optimistic about race relations in America. I think that intermarriage and race mixing are going to solve all the racial problem in the United States because you can't be racist if nobody has a race similar to Venezuela with mixing. But I'm not as sure about the technological side. Right. I think that like the Internet, AI is going to be really good for us financially and really good for us socially in many ways. But it also threatens to isolate us even more. And there are always negative side effects to these technologies. I'm not saying that we need to ban them because of that, but I'm saying we have to deal with them. Right? There are people killing themselves because an AI chatbot told them. There are people falling in love with an AI chatbot and we already have bad pre existing trends in these things. And so I don't know how we're going to deal with the social consequences of all this dopamine, of all this technology.
- [43:37]
B
All right, well, now it's time to close out. It's going big podcast. Daniel, there are a lot of people who are cynical about the future, more cynical, much more cynical even than you are about some aspects, although you remain Hopeful in other areas for a young person today who might be listening. Maybe similar to how you are spreading your message among high school students and college students. What message would you close us out with respect to how we all can lead a meaningful life? Find that contribution that we have and ground this in your own experience. Compare it to Venezuela. Talk about it from the standpoint of living here in the United States. What do you tell a young person today to encourage them to have that hope in the future?
- [44:26]
A
I mean, Kevin, this country has endless opportunities and if people are willing to take advantage of them, unable to and talk to others, seek advice, there's so many good people who are willing to help you. There is no limit to what you can achieve in America. The only limit is yourself. And I think that's still the case. And that will be the case even more in the future. So I really am optimistic about, you know, if you're a normal person, a smart person, I think you can really become anything you want in this country. The question is finding out what you want. And I think that that's really the challenge that Americans are facing is that a lot of people don't know what their purpose in life is. And I think that that comes from God. And maybe that's part of why we're facing a crisis is that we have a huge decline in religiosity. So I think that if people find God, I think that if people try to understand what is my God given purpose. America as a country has a purpose, but also all of us individually, especially all of us individually. And I think that if you try to force find that and you make that your life's mission, that's. That's going to really lead to happiness.
- [45:38]
B
Well, Daniel DiMartino, it's always great to be with you. Always learn something. I'm sure there are many occasions in the future we will have you back because there are many more topics I know you will dive into. Thank you for joining us today.
- [45:49]
A
Thank you, Gavin. Great to see you as always.
- [45:52]
B
Thanks for tuning in to the Going Big podcast. I hope today's conversation left you feeling energized and ready to tackle your biggest goals. Don't forget to subscribe and leave us a review on iTunes, YouTube or wherever you listen to podcasts. It really helps spread the word and it gets these inspiring stories out to more people. You can also find more content, resources and updates at our website goingbigpodcast.com Remember, the only limits are the ones you don't challenge, the limits that you impose on yourself. Keep pushing, keep growing, and above all, keep going big. See you next time on the Going Big podcast.