...just about everything a president could want: popular support, a marginalized opposition, congress firmly on his side and a booming economy...

Think about which president doesn't have those advantages...

I easily found both the words "totalitarianism" and "dictatorship" in the article. I share the concerns of those who uttered them. I wonder why the Chavistas think a strong-man government with a 'socialist' mask will work in Venezuela after it has failed everywhere else it's been tried.

Overall, I think Lee is predictably seeing what he wants to see regarding the way the article was written. And I can't discern which part of it he makes his inference from.