Atlas / Comparisons / Chavismo vs US Democratic Party
Chavismo and US Democratic Party
Measured distance across six axes
Opposed programmes with little shared ground. No axis places them within three points of each other. They diverge by eight points or more on AU, ID, CH.
Axis by axis
| Axis | PSUV | US Democratic Party | Gap | Reading | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| EC · Economic organisation | −08 | −03 | 5 | Differs | Real difference, but not the dividing line. |
| CU · Social and cultural order | +02 | −05 | 7 | Differs | Real difference, but not the dividing line. |
| AU · Organisation of power | +09 | −02 | 11 | Diverges | Carries the disagreement. Any claim that these two are alike has to explain this. |
| SC · Scale of decision | +08 | +04 | 4 | Differs | Real difference, but not the dividing line. |
| ID · Rule of membership | +03 | −06 | 9 | Diverges | Carries the disagreement. Any claim that these two are alike has to explain this. |
| CH · Method and tempo | +04 | −06 | 10 | Diverges | Carries the disagreement. Any claim that these two are alike has to explain this. |
Each axis runs from −10 to +10; the distance is the straight-line separation across all six at once, out of a maximum of 49.0. How the scoring works →
The evidence behind the widest gaps
A distance figure is worth nothing unless the scores behind it can be checked. These are the artefacts supporting the axes that separate these two most.
PSUV · AU +09
Trajectory rather than starting point. Early elections were genuinely competitive and internationally observed.
- Documented act or statuteThe 2015 opposition legislative majority was superseded by a Constituent Assembly in 2017.
- Documented act or statuteLeading opposition candidates were disqualified from the 2018 and 2024 presidential elections.
US Democratic Party · AU −02
Negative but not strongly so: the party has expanded federal authority repeatedly while defending procedural constraints on it.
- Programme textSupported statutory federal standards for election administration in 2021–22.
- Documented act or statuteParty leadership declined to abolish the legislative filibuster in 2022 despite holding a majority.
PSUV · ID +03
Coded mildly positive: membership of the political community defined by loyalty to the movement.
- Documented act or statuteThe Tascón list circulated the names of recall-referendum signatories and was used to deny public employment.
US Democratic Party · ID −06
Universalist on the formal membership rule.
- Programme textPlatform commitments to a path to citizenship for long-resident undocumented migrants have appeared in every cycle since 2004.
What this comparison does not establish
Proximity means similarity of stated position. It carries no claim about competence, circumstance, scale of operation, or what either organisation actually did to the people under it. Two organisations can sit close together and produce entirely different histories, because those things are not on any axis and could not be.
Chavismo
1999– · Venezuela
Bolivarian socialism of the twenty-first century, anti-imperialism, popular power organised from above.
US Democratic Party
1828– · United States
Regulated capitalism, expanded health coverage, civil rights, climate action, and defence of existing institutional procedure.
Distance is not the whole answer. Two organisations can sit the same distance apart for entirely different reasons, and the reason is the content of any claim about them. Open the comparison in the atlas to weight the axes yourself.
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