The Karol Markowicz Show: She Escaped Socialism, Then Voted for Bernie Sanders

Karol Markowicz (0:05)

Hi, and welcome back to The Karol Markowicz Show on iHeartRadio. My guest today is Germania Rodriguez Poleo, Venezuelan American journalist and activist. Hi, Germania, so nice to have you on.

Germania Rodriguez Poleo (0:17)

Hi, Karol. Thank you for having me. I'm such a fan.

Karol Markowicz (0:21)

Oh, thank you so much. I read your piece that came out in June called My Family Fled Socialism, Then I Voted for Bernie Sanders. And it literally made the hairs on my body stand up from fear. It is, I mean, it was a beautiful piece. I loved your reading about your journey. You know, you take it to the radical left and back. And the fact that you came back is obviously the most amazing miraculous part about it. But I want to start off with you talk about going to NYU and really falling into the grips of far left mania.

What was that like for you coming from Venezuela?

Germania Rodriguez Poleo (1:01)

Yeah, it's a bit embarrassing to talk about, but it's an issue that I see happening all the time, perhaps not with people that are immigrants like me, but with first generation Americans, the kids of Cubans, etc.

I think in my particular experience, as I say in the story, it was part of the immigrant experience of trying to assimilate. When I arrived in Miami, I was 11 years old. So I understood what had happened in Venezuela through what had happened to my mom. I wasn't thinking in terms of socialist policies, currency exchange, private property rights. All I knew is that my mom and my grandpa were journalists and that the government came after them because they were reporting on them trying to establish a dictatorship.

So, you know, then I grew up from 11 years old like any American kid, and I was susceptible to all the regular things that all other American kids are. As I say in the story, in high school, I was more just a Democrat. My first vote was for Obama in 2012, I believe. But it wasn't until I reached NYU that the far left was kind of presented to me as the obvious intellectual right path. You know, I have, first of all, getting into NYU for me was such a dream.

Karol Markowicz (2:29)

Sure.

Germania Rodriguez Poleo (2:29)

So I'm thinking if these professors are saying that what's wrong with the world is unchecked capitalism, and you know, if they are focusing on only the wrongs that the US has done, it starts creating a very specific view of the world. That again, I was only 11 when I left Venezuela. So it's as simple as I fell for the same things that everyone, that any other American young person is falling for right now. Yes, I had this experience, but as I tell in the story, I kind of saw them as having a blind spot for Venezuela.

And I believed, again, no one says, yes, I want to be like Cuba. That's not what happened, and that's not what Chávez said, and that's not what the DSA says. They claim they want to be like Norway, and I brought it to the misinformation.

Karol Markowicz (3:20)

Yeah, Michael Malice has this great line, like, what do you think? Venezuela didn't want to be Norway?

Germania Rodriguez Poleo (3:25)

Exactly. Do people think that Chávez was like, hey, I'm going to make the next miserable communist dictatorship, and that people voted for that? No, Chávez was way more moderate in his speech in his first campaign than the DSA types today, much more.

Karol Markowicz (3:40)

Yeah, absolutely. So you get to NYU and you start to experience this change. And, you know, I so relate to that because I look, I say, I always say I was a lifelong conservative, always. I mean, you know, my parents, I was just raised very conservative. I would say I'm too there, right?

Germania Rodriguez Poleo (3:57)

How old were you when you?

Karol Markowicz (3:58)

I was under two. So I was raised in America, but I grew up with this, you know, the stories of the Soviet Union and what was done to Jews there and how bad it was and my great grandfather dying in the gulag and all that. And so I wasn't going to be a liberal. But I have to admit that there was this little time in my late teens where people would be like, America sucks, America sucks. And I'd be like, yeah, America sucks. And then I'd be like, I actually don't think it sucks. I think it's really good here.

So it takes some effort not to conform.

Germania Rodriguez Poleo (4:32)