Venezuela is falling apart. The socialist economy is, like many other socialist economies before it, failing. This crumbling of a nation was predictable because centrally planned economies cannot allocate resources efficiently.

It just so happens these events in Venezuela are occurring while an avowed socialist, Bernie Sanders, is winning states in a race for the United States presidency.

As Casey Given points out for Rare, the failures of socialism haven’t stopped the left from propping up the regime in Venezuela.

“For years, many mainstream commentators have forcefully disputed the country’s staggering economic problems, praising Bolivarian policies of radical redistribution as a model for the West,” Given writes.

He goes on to cite a 2013 op-ed by Mark Weisbrot, published in the Guardian, with the sub-head “in this oil-rich country the only thing imploding is poverty,” and a Salon article titled “Hugo Chavez’s Economic Miracle.”

Some might say it is “miraculous” that the Venezuelan socialist economy doesn’t have the resources needed to even produce beer.

And that’s not all. As Given writes, infants are dying in hospitals because they don’t have access to the medicine they need, yet western leftists are defending socialism.

The evidence of Venezuela’s socialist experiment’s failure is now evident for all to see. But before it became so blatantly obvious, the left tried on several occasions to prop up Bernie Sanders-style socialism in Venezuela.

1. A 2011 article written by Sean Penn for the Huffington Post called Chavez a “flamboyant and passionate leader.” “This is not a dictator supported by the wealthy classes,” Penn wrote, “but rather, a president elected by the impoverished and at the service of the Venezuelan constitution, a document not unlike our own.”

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The failure of socialism in Venezuela is an objective fact and is indefensible. As Given concludes, “With the abomination of socialism on full display, will any of these Venezuelan cheerleaders swallow their pride and admit their error?”