Before there was Chavista Venezuela, there was Sandinista Nicaragua.
If you’re younger than 45, you probably have little or no memory of the decade-long battle that took place in the 1980s over support for the Nicaraguan contras. The contras were rebels fighting against the Soviet-backed Sandinista regime led by a Marxist revolutionary named Daniel Ortega. The Reagan Administration believed it was essential to back the contras. The Democrat-controlled Congress loved Ortega and constantly tried to kill funding for any effort to support the contras.