Bernie Moreno, the candidate backed by former President Donald Trump running for the U.S. Senate in Ohio, has long intimated that his family decided to immigrate to America from their native Colombia to escape the economic landscape created by "socialism."
However, the Guardian's Martin Pengelly writes that, at the time Moreno's family left Colombia in the early 1970s, there was nothing at all resembling socialism running the country.
"When Moreno was born, on 14 February 1967, Colombia was nine years into the 16-year period of National Front government, in which conservative and liberal parties alternated being in power as a way to avoid violence between the two factions," writes Pengelly. "Furthermore, the first leftwing Colombian government in modern times is the current one, headed by Gustavo Petro and in power since 2022."
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What's more, Moreno has reason to know that he didn't grow up in a "socialist" country given that his father reportedly served as "secretary of health under Misael Pastrana, a conservative and the last National Front president between 1970 and 1974."
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Moreno also at times boasted of the luxurious life he lived in his former homeland.
“We had a very, very, very, very incredible lifestyle in Colombia," Moreno told a business group as recently as 2019.
According to the Guardian, Moreno said his mother moved them to the U.S. in spite of his father's initial wishes because she “didn’t want us to be raised as pampered indoor cats.”
In a statement provided to the Guardian, a Moreno spokesperson emphasized that Moreno never specifically said that he was fleeing socialism in Colombia, but merely that "he very clearly was stating that many South American countries fell to socialism and his parents came to America to ensure their kids would grow up in a free society, out of fear that Colombia would eventually move towards socialism."
Nonetheless, Pengelly argues that Moreno's statements about his family's history "do not withstand historical scrutiny."
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