A decade ago, Daniel Di Martino fled Venezuela to escape the socialist regime that had been in place nearly all his life.

He was only 17 at the time. 

Di Martino, who is now a fellow at the Manhattan Institute and a doctoral candidate in economics at Columbia University, saw firsthand how socialism destroyed his once-prosperous country. 

While he couldn’t be happier about the Trump administration’s recent capture of Venezuelan dictator Nicolás Maduro, Di Martino is concerned about the rise of socialist ideas in the United States – including in New York City, where he works, with the election of Mayor Zohran Mamdani, an open democratic socialist. 

I recently spoke with Di Martino about Maduro’s arrest, what life was really like under a socialist dictatorship, and his desire to warn Americans about the dangers of this insidious ideology. 

Maduro has held on to power through rigged elections since 2013. Since that time,

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