The Guacamaya

Episode 29 | In the final episode of The Guacamaya, we follow the stolen election of July 2024, María Corina Machado’s resistance, and the American military operation that captured Maduro.

But with the dictator gone and his system still standing, Venezuela’s struggle for freedom remains unfinished.

Support on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/15932964/join

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/at_tvzla/

Episode 28 | Who is María Corina Machado?

Hugo Chávez once dismissed her as a fly beneath an eagle. Twelve years later, María Corina united a country that had almost lost hope. Through persecution, roadblocks, and innumerable obstacles, she led Venezuelans toward the historic election of July 28, 2024—a night that would change everything.

Support on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/15932964/join

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/at_tvzla/

Episode 27 | How did Venezuela end up with two presidents in 2019?

In this episode we look at the strategy led by Juan Guaidó, the attempt to bring humanitarian aid into the country, and the tense interview between Jorge Ramos and the Venezuelan dictator Nicolás Maduro.

Support on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/15932964/join

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/at_tvzla/

Episode 26 | As Venezuelans searched for food in the garbage, Nicolás Maduro enjoyed a luxury steak dinner abroad.

After crushing the protests of 2017, his regime tightened its grip on power while hunger transformed daily life. In this episode, we explore the desperate struggle to survive and the election that handed Maduro another six years.

Support on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/15932964/join

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/at_tvzla/

Episode 25 | Why did Nicolás Maduro survive Venezuela’s economic collapse and the mass protests of 2017?

In this episode, we examine the two strategies that kept him in power: control over the military—and turning access to food into a tool of political control. As Venezuelans struggled to change their government, the dictatorship made both its commanders and its poorest citizens dependent on its survival.

Support on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/15932964/join

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/at_tvzla/

Episode 24 | How far would Nicolás Maduro go to stay in power?

In 2017, Venezuelans filled the streets demanding democracy, food, medicine, and a future in their own country. For four months, they kept marching as the regime answered with repression.

Through the voice of 17-year-old Neomar Lander, this episode follows a generation’s struggle to reclaim Venezuela—and the devastating cost of a government’s determination to hold on.

Support on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/15932964/join

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/at_tvzla/

Episode 23 | What happens when a dictatorship loses an election?

In December 2015, Venezuela’s opposition won a sweeping majority in the National Assembly. Millions celebrated, believing change was finally within reach. But Nicolás Maduro’s government was already preparing its response. Through the Supreme Court, chavismo began dismantling the opposition’s victory—setting Venezuela on a collision course with the streets.

Support on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/15932964/join

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/at_tvzla/

Episode 22 | Why did Venezuela’s 2014 protests fail to force Nicolás Maduro from power?

As students filled the streets and opposition leaders rallied behind La Salida, the government responded with repression, propaganda, and a strategy to contain the unrest. This episode explores the power behind the 2014 protest movement, the divisions that weakened it, and the human cost of searching for an exit that never came.

Support on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/15932964/join

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/at_tvzla/

Episode 21 | When Nicolás Maduro inherited Venezuela, the country was already dangerously fragile. Then came empty shelves, blackouts, spiraling inflation, rampant violent crime.

This is the story of how Venezuela began to fall apart, and how a state too hollow to protect its citizens remained powerful enough to punish its enemies.

Support on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/15932964/join

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/at_tvzla/

Episode 20 | Nicolás Maduro was easy to underestimate.

He was mocked as a bus driver, an idiot, and dismissed as a weak successor to Hugo Chávez. But behind the jokes was a far more experienced political operator—one shaped by Cuba and increasingly dependent on an informal alliance with Diosdado Cabello.

This episode looks at the man Maduro really was, the crisis he inherited, and how the alliance that would define Venezuela’s next chapter began to take shape.

Support on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/15932964/join

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/at_tvzla/

Episode 19 | In March 2013, Venezuela faced a question it had never confronted before: could chavismo survive without Hugo Chávez?

In this episode we follow Chávez’s massive state funeral, the extraordinary ten-day campaign that turned the dead president into Nicolás Maduro’s most powerful electoral weapon, and the razor-thin and deeply disputed 2013 presidential election against Henrique Capriles Radonski.

Support on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/15932964/join

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/at_tvzla/

Episode 18 | For nearly three months, Venezuela's president had disappeared.

After Hugo Chávez left for Cuba in December 2012, he missed his own inauguration and left the country trapped in a growing mystery over his health—and whether he was even still alive. In this episode, we follow the weeks of uncertainty in a country gripped by one growing question: Where is the President of Venezuela?

Support on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/15932964/join

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/at_tvzla/

Episode 17 | In the final episode on Hugo Chávez, The Guacamaya explores the mysticism, charisma and improbable fortune that carried him from a failed coup to the presidency—and kept him there.

From Bolívar’s Delirium on Chimborazo and the exhumation of the Liberator’s remains to Chávez’s final campaign, illness and death, this episode examines the tragedy of a leader who had the power to unite Venezuela, but chose division, personal rule and an eternal revolution instead.

Support on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/15932964/join

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/at_tvzla/

Episode 16 | What was actually “Bolivarian” about Hugo Chávez’s revolution?

This episode examines the Liberator Chávez worshipped, the historical Bolívar hidden beneath Venezuela’s national mythology, and the political ideas the two men truly shared. Bolívar was no socialist—but he may have had much more in common with Chávez than either man's admirers understood.

Support on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/15932964/join

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/at_tvzla/

Episode 15 | How did elections become one of Hugo Chávez's most powerful weapons?

This episode traces how Chávez manipulated Venezuela’s electoral system from 1999 to 2012—rewriting the rules, blacklisting opponents, coercing public employees, gerrymandering districts, and stripping rivals of power. This is how Venezuela became a dictatorship through the ballot box.

Support on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/15932964/join

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/at_tvzla/

Episode 14 | How did Hugo Chávez’s socialist revolution create a new class of millionaires?

This episode explains how CADIVI, Fonden, and Venezuela’s historic oil boom became engines of corruption—and how loyalty to Chávez gave insiders access to cheap dollars, government contracts, and impunity—giving rise to a new oligarchy in Venezuela: the Bolivarian bourgeoisie.

Support on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/15932964/join

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/at_tvzla/

Special Report | More than ten days after back-to-back earthquakes devastated the country, the Venezuelan regime has blocked rescuers, controlled aid, monitored journalists, and persecuted victims who have spoken out.

In this episode, we examine the aftermath of this tragedy, exposing the true nature of the Venezuelan dictatorship.

Link to verified organizations providing assistance in Venezuela can be found here: https://donarseguro.com/en

Support on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/15932964/join

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/at_tvzla/

Special Report | On June 24, two massive earthquakes—magnitudes 7.2 and 7.5—struck Venezuela just seconds apart, destroying hundreds of buildings and leaving tens of thousands of people dead, missing, or homeless.

In this episode, I examine the scale of the destruction, the regime’s disastrous response, and the ordinary Venezuelans who were forced to dig through the rubble and organize relief efforts themselves.

Link to verified organizations providing assistance in Venezuela can be found here: https://donarseguro.com/en

Support on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/15932964/join

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/at_tvzla/

Episode 13 | How did Chávez’s expropriations destroy Venezuela’s economy?

In this episode, we examine the mass expropriations at the heart of Chávez’s socialist project—from banks and supermarkets, to factories and farms. We explore how worker “co-management,” price controls, state ownership, and corruption devastated domestic production.

Support on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/15932964/join

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/at_tvzla/

Episode 12 | What was "Socialism of the 21st Century"?

After winning reelection in 2006, Hugo Chávez claimed Venezuela had voted for "socialism." But what did that actually mean?

In this episode, we explore how Chávez came to adopt socialism. How he turned a vague slogan into the blueprint for a new political order built around the "Communal State"—a new, terrifying alternative to the state outlined in the Venezuelan constitution.

Support on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/15932964/join

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/at_tvzla/

Episode 11 | How did the United States become Hugo Chávez's enemy?

After the failed coup of 2002, Chávez transformed a Venezuelan political crisis into something much bigger: a global battle between his revolution and U.S. imperialism.

And it worked.

Around the world, Chávez became famous for standing up to American power. But inside Venezuela, that same rhetoric was used to persecute the opposition, silence the media, and intimidate civil society.

This is the story of how Hugo Chávez turned anti-Americanism into a weapon for his "Bolivarian Revolution."

Support on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/15932964/join

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/at_tvzla/

Episode 10 | What was the Tascón List?

In 2004, Hugo Chávez faced a recall referendum that threatened to remove him from power.

But as millions of Venezuelans signed to demand a vote, their names were turned into a political weapon. The infamous Tascón List exposed citizens—and helped transform democracy into a system of loyalty and fear.

This is the story of the 2004 recall referendum, the Bolivarian Missions, and the blacklist that divided Venezuela.

Support on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/15932964/join

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/at_tvzla/

Episode 9 | How did Chávez take over Venezuela’s oil industry?

After the failed coup of April 2002, Venezuela entered a new phase of confrontation. Chávez purged the military, the opposition occupied Plaza Altamira, and the battle moved to the heart of the Venezuelan state: PDVSA.

This is the story of the national strike that was meant to bring Chávez down—and turned into his greatest victory.

Support on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/15932964/join

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/at_tvzla/

Episode 8 | How did Hugo Chávez return to power after the 2002 coup?

In this episode, we follow the chaotic hours after Chávez was removed from power, the rise of Pedro Carmona’s short-lived interim government, the disastrous Carmona Decree, and the reversal that brought Chávez back to power less than 48 hours later.

April 2002 would become one of the great founding myths of Chavismo.

But the real story is more complicated.

This is the story of how Hugo Chávez rose from the ashes.

Support on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/15932964/join

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/at_tvzla/

Episode 7 | How was Hugo Chávez removed from power in 2002?

On April 11, 2002, more than half a million Venezuelans marched through Caracas toward Miraflores Palace. By nightfall, people were dead in the streets—and Chávez had fallen.

But the president's dramatic fall didn't come out of nowhere.

In this episode, we trace the months of escalating confrontation that pushed Venezuela to the brink. As Chávez moved to impose his will on the institutions he did not control, both he and his opponents grew more radical, more organized, and more desperate.

The pressure was building—and in April 2002... Venezuela exploded.

Support on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/15932964/join

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/at_tvzla/

Episode 6 | Was Hugo Chávez always a socialist?

Not exactly. When Chávez first came to power, he rejected socialism and communism—but embraced another label: revolutionary.

In this episode, we trace the ideological roots of Chávez’s "Bolivarian Revolution," from Simón Bolívar and Ezequiel Zamora to Fidel Castro and Norberto Ceresole. We look at how Chávez’s vision evolved, and how it began shaping Venezuela.

We also revisit one of the earliest warnings against Chávez’s authoritarian turn: Jorge Olavarría’s dramatic 1999 speech denouncing the president to his face.

By 2001, Venezuela was not yet the authoritarian state it would later become. But the logic was already there: the enemies, the language, and the revolutionary fervor.

This is the story of what Chávez’s “revolution” really meant—before the world came to know it as "socialist."

Support on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/15932964/join

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/at_tvzla/

Episode 5 | Why didn’t the Supreme Court stop Hugo Chávez?

In this episode, we trace the moment when Venezuela’s democracy began to unravel—not through tanks or coups, but through legal decisions, political strategy, and the quiet collapse of institutional power.

We follow Chávez’s first months in office: his push for a Constituent Assembly, the Supreme Court’s fateful rulings, and the electoral system that allowed him to dominate the body that would rewrite the Constitution. What emerged was not just a new legal order, but a transformation of how power was exercised in Venezuela.

Support on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/15932964/join

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/at_tvzla/

Episode 3 | In this episode, we trace the collapse of the political system that ruled Venezuela after 1958—and how it gave rise to Hugo Chávez.

For decades, Venezuela seemed to be one of the most stable and prosperous countries in Latin America. Oil wealth fueled the rise of “Saudi Venezuela,” while the political parties promised democracy, order, and progress. But beneath the surface, the system was beginning to rot.

We follow the decline of the Punto Fijo era: the failed guerrilla movements of the 1960s and 70s, the rise of corruption and patronage, and the explosion of the Caracazo. As the country unraveled, old conspiracies inside the military began to grow—and a young officer named Hugo Chávez was watching.

Support on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/15932964/join

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/at_tvzla/