Venezuelan activist Elizabeth Rogliani Otaola has gained quite a bit of attention for a video in which she warned Americans as protesters and rioters continue tearing down statues around the country.
Otaola said she has “already lived through” what is beginning to happen in the U.S.
“When I was living in Venezuela, statues came down, Chavez didn’t want that history displayed, and then he changed the street names, then came the [school curriculum], then some movies couldn’t be shown on certain TV channels, and so on, and so forth,” she explained. “You guys think it can’t happen to you. I’ve heard this so many times. But always be on guard. Never believe something can’t happen to you.”
“You need to guard your country and your society, or it will be destroyed,” Otaola continued. “We didn’t believe it could happen to us, most Venezuelans. Cubans warned us, and we were like, ‘We’re Venezuelan. We know what freedom is like. That’s not gonna happen here.’ Yet, it happened. And there’s clearly a lot of people wanting to destroy the U.S.”
During an appearance Tuesday night on Fox News’ “The Ingraham Angle,” Otaola warned it will not just be Confederate statues that are torn down. “Just wait and see,” she told host Laura Ingraham.
There’s already evidence to suggest she’s right. Protesters and rioters in Washington, D.C., are vowing to destroy and tear down a statue of former President Abraham Lincoln known as the Emancipation Memorial, which was paid for by freed slaves and dedicated in 1876 by former slave and abolitionist Frederick Douglass. And in Milwaukee, protesters tore down a statue of Hans Christian Heg, a journalist, soldier, and staunch anti-slavery activist, and threw it into the water.
“This is a slippery slope,” she said. “The next thing is gonna be all the symbols of the United States, founding fathers are gonna be attacked, religious symbols are gonna be attacked, and probably museums. I mean, anything can be attacked if you just let it happen.”
Ingraham showed Otaola a clip of New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D), who described the destruction all around the Empire State as a “healthy expression” and said he doesn’t believe protesters and rioters have “overdone it.”
“It’s a healthy expression of people saying let’s get some priorities here and let’s remember the sin and mistake that this nation made and let’s not celebrate it,” the governor said.
In response, Otaola totally disagreed with Cuomo, arguing what we’re seeing taking place around the U.S. is “a cultural revolution” and an “attempt to change the identity of the country.”