Race and populism on the left: political rhetoric in Hugo Chávez’s Venezuela

Scholars generally accept that populists on the left are inclusionary while their counterparts on the right are exclusionary. We question that assumption and ask if populists of the left are also capable of inflicting exclusionary attacks on their opponents. In this paper, we examine the racial dimensions of Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez's rhetoric. Analysts who are accustomed to blatant expressions of racism on the right may overlook the subtleties and passive-aggressive style of Latin American racial rhetoric, including Chávez. Throughout his presidency, Chávez's rhetoric shifted from ignoring race to eventually attacking all things Europeans as imperialist and threatening. In keeping with most racial jabs in Latin America, his attacks were passive aggressive. We suggest that scholars should reexamine their assumptions regarding what populists can do, whether they are on the left or right.