I happened to run across a Fox News article from 2010 titled:
What socialism? Private sector still dominates Venezuelan economy despite Chavez crusade

Yet creating a socialist economy is one of Chavez's most elusive goals — a stark example of the disconnect between the president's rhetoric and the reality on the ground. In fact, the private sector still controls two-thirds of Venezuela's economy — the same as when Chavez was elected in 1998, according to estimates by the Central Bank.
...Since 2007, Chavez has nationalized and expropriated companies in sectors he deems strategic, including the oil industry, cement, telecommunications, electricity, steel and food. But economists note that those businesses make up a relatively modest share of the economy.

And the balance between public and private sectors remains nearly identical to when Chavez took office in part because the private sector grew faster than the government between 2003 and 2006, when the economy was booming.

Last year the private sector accounted for 70 percent of gross domestic product, including 11 percent in taxes paid on products, according to Central Bank estimates. The public sector was 30 percent, a slightly smaller share than when Chavez was elected in 2008.

By international standards, Venezuela has long had a large public sector because it includes the oil industry. By comparison, the public sector in Sweden accounts for 25 percent of GDP, and in United States less than 14 percent.

So in 2010, Venezuela had a booming economy, and it wasn't a socialist economy, according to Fox.
Why wasn't it socialist? Because 70% of the economy was in the private sector.

He has repeatedly said he would not use Cuba or the collapsed Soviet Union as an economic model, noting that even his mentor Fidel Castro has advised him: "Chavez, remember this isn't 1960."

Victor Alvarez, an economist and former mining minister for Chavez, said the aim is to build a new sort of "social economy" sector made up of worker-managed companies, farming cooperatives and other community-run businesses.

Nothing like the Soviet Union. Nothing like Cuba. Nothing very scary. This is according to Fox.

Now Venezuela's economy is collapsing, and everywhere the blame is placed on socialism.
So socialism must have taken over the economy, right?

CEDICE economists have attributed the economic calamities in Venezuela to “the policies implemented in a country where there exists total [state] control of the economy, along with a total absence of capitalism, thus generating poverty and unemployment”.

Much of the organized opposition accepts this unambiguously neoliberal line. Former Central Bank economist Jose Guerra, now a national deputy and the opposition's main spokesperson on economic policy, told Televen news recently that “21st century socialism has ruined the Venezuelan people”.

Notably, this anti-socialist narrative ignores the fact that Venezuela's economy continues to be more than 70% privately owned.

So what was proof that Venezuela was not socialist 8 years ago when things were going well, is now irrelevant when things are falling apart.
How can a nation be "socialist" when 70% of the economy is capitalist? You have to question what their definition of "socialism" is.
Either facts are irrelevant, or any amount of socialism is an equal sin like a religion.

Of course there is the political side too.

“Hugo Chavez was a tyrant who forced the people of Venezuela to live in fear. His death dents the alliance of anti-U.S. leftist leaders in South America. Good riddance to this dictator."
- Rep. Ed Royce

“Sic semper tyrannis. After the welcome news of Hugo Chavez’s death, I hope that the oppressed people of Venezuela will be able to live in freedom, not under miserable tyranny. I look forward to working in the House to promote a free, democratic, and pro-American government in Venezuela.”
- Rep. Tom Cotton

Yes, Hugo Chavez was a tyrant and dictator. He left a legacy of socialist dictatorship that was so bad, that this happened right after he died.

Venezuela’s opposition has won a key two-thirds majority in legislative elections, according to final results, dramatically strengthening its hand in any bid to wrest power from President Nicolás Maduro after 17 years of socialist rule.

More than 48 hours after polls closed in the mid-term election, the National Electoral Council published the final tally on its website, confirming that the last two undecided races went the opposition coalition’s way, giving them 112 out of 167 seats in the national assembly. The ruling socialist party and its allies got 55 seats.

The outcome, better than any of the opposition’s most optimistic forecasts, gives the coalition an unprecedented strength in trying to rein in Maduro as well as the votes needed to sack supreme court justices and even remove Maduro from office by convening an assembly to rewrite Hugo Chávez’s 1999 constitution.

What sort of "socialist dictatorship" allows the non-socialist opposition party to control it's legislature?