If there’s one thing Diosdado Cabello knows, it’s manipulation, and narrative is one of his tools, as his speeches are aimed at stifling critical thinking among the public. A psychological study reveals how he employs mental control mechanisms to manipulate the Venezuelan audience.
The Chavista leader relies on strategic humanization and constant repetition to turn political events into an emotional narrative of love and family. This allows him to activate deep-seated fears, such as the fear of separation from loved ones or a perpetual external invasion, with the goal of silencing criticism in the population.
The analysis highlights a narrative duality that fluctuates between aggression towards a common enemy and protective tenderness towards the internal group. These tactics aim to consolidate a collective identity under surveillance, where loyalty to the regime is presented as the only guarantee of peace and security.
Control Mechanisms in Diosdado Cabello’s Discourse
We reflect on the analysis by Spanish psychologist specializing in hidden fears, Menchu Moreno, who studied Diosdado Cabello’s speeches and identified the mental control strategies used by the Chavista leader.
The specialist warns that Cabello does not seek to inform, but rather to construct an emotional reality designed to hijack the audience’s capacity for critical thinking. To this end, he uses a series of mechanisms, namely:
Strategic Humanization: Utilizing romantic narratives to generate empathy and protect the image of leaders.
Activation of Visceral Fears: Particularly, the fear of family separation, perpetual invasion, and exclusion from the group.
Dehumanization of the Adversary: Use of absolute moral labels to eliminate political nuances.
Saver-Protecter Duality: Fluctuation between hostility towards the enemy and tenderness towards the “innocent people,” including the use of children as tools for indoctrination.
Power Symbolism: Physical transitions in staging to communicate surveillance and absolute control.
Strategic Humanization and Affective Transfer
Menchu Moreno noted in her analysis that Diosdado Cabello employs a narrative that intertwines political drama with romance, focusing on the relationship between Nicolás Maduro and Cilia Flores. Through this mechanism, he seeks deep emotional identification.
The “True Love” Narrative: By portraying the leaders as a couple who choose to stay together even in the face of traumatic events, he aims to invoke a tenderness that clouds judgment about their political actions.
Affective Transfer: Emotions from a personal story are transferred to political situations. The goal is for citizens to feel that an attack on the leader is an attack on the family itself.
Identity-related Fear of Family: Activates the fear that an external power will destroy the sacred core of the home. The implicit message is that the Venezuelan people can likewise become victims of the same aggression suffered by Maduro and Flores.
Rhetoric and Linguistic Persuasion
The specialist explains that Diosdado Cabello structures his discourse using repetitive patterns and absolute qualifiers that aim to plant specific ideas in the receiver’s mind.
She indicates that Cabello employs the triple repetition as a “hammer” to emphasize key concepts and nullify doubt. For instance, he repeats phrases countless times that evoke an anti-American sentiment in the listener. He also repeats words or phrases that he wants to cement in the audience’s mind: “real, true, true,” “bad, bad, bad.”
She also explains that instead of presenting political arguments, Cabello’s discourse resorts to linguistic dehumanization, portraying the adversary as mistaken, “bad,” or a “lying scoundrel,” aiming for moral reduction.
Cabello creates two moral factions — a dichotomous thought process — without nuances, where one is either a revolutionary, equating to being part of the love camp, or part of the “bad,” which generates conformity pressure designed to make the listener feel that if they don’t hate the enemy, they are a traitor or naive.
Architecture of Fear and Helplessness in Cabello’s Discourse
In her analysis of Diosdado Cabello’s discourse, Menchu Moreno identifies a comprehensive list of fears that the Chavista leader deliberately activates to maintain social control:
Type of FearPsychological MechanismGoalFear of Perpetual InvasionAccumulation through repetition of historical attack dates.Create a state of constant alert and hyper-vigilance.Fear of Cognitive VulnerabilityAssertions of “they are lying to you” and “information paranoia.”Invalidates any source of information external to the regime.Fear of Group ExclusionNormalization of collective hostility.Forces the individual to feel hate towards the enemy to belong to the group.Fear of DefeatAbsolute assertions of victory (“we will achieve it”).Nullifies doubt; those who doubt are seen as weak or traitors.
Power Symbolism
She notes the physical disposition of Diosdado Cabello, saying that during his discourse, he communicates subliminal messages of authority and stability.
Standing next to Bolívar’s portrait: Seeks historical alignment. His physical stature attempts to match that of the painting, presenting himself as the heir and defender of the threatened legacy. Projects an image of an active and vigilant leader for immediate mobilization.
Sitting at the desk with the hammer: Represents a transition to calm and order after chaos. The desk functions as a “throne” from which it is communicated that the command structure remains intact.
The hammer: Acts as an anchoring element that symbolizes justice and punishment against traitors.
Signs of anxiety: Despite the overwhelming verbal assertiveness, Menchu Moreno warns that Cabello displays physical indicators of uncertainty, such as hand tremors while holding papers.
Love as a Tool of Indoctrination
Closing her analysis, Menchu Moreno emphasizes that Diosdado Cabello’s discourse completes the emotional circle by linking the figure of children with political ideology.
Use of Childhood: Cabello mentions that teachers must explain “lovingly” to children the traumas caused by the enemy. This is identified as a mechanism of indoctrination under the umbrella of protection.
Intra-group/Extra-group Duality: Establishes that with “ours” — the people, the children, the leaders — there is love, while with “others” there is war.
Emotional Disengagement: Uses the premise that hatred towards the foreign is “provoked” by the enemy’s actions. The message is: “We don’t choose to hate, we are forced to do so.”
Menchu Moreno concludes by warning that Diosdado Cabello’s discourse operates as an emotional cage, constantly oscillating between hostility — war — and tenderness — love/protection, seeking to evoke automatic reactions in the audience towards fear and belonging, nullifying the possibility of independent and critical thought. In doing so, the construction of unyielding heroes and absolute enemies serves to provide a false sense of control in contexts of high uncertainty.