NOW THAT’S REAL SOCIALISM: Nicaragua is unraveling.

Nicaragua is showing all the symptoms of a failed state. At the center of the storm is the corrupt minority government of Daniel Ortega, the former revolutionary leader who now acts more like a cartel boss than a president. Over the past seven weeks, Ortega’s police and paramilitaries have killed more than 120 people, mostly students and other young protesters who are demanding the president’s ouster and a return to democracy, according to a human-rights group. Police hunt students like enemy combatants. Sandinista Youth paramilitaries, armed and paid by Ortega’s party, drive around in pickup trucks attacking protesters. Gangs of masked men loot and burn shops with impunity. Cops wear civilian clothing, and some paramilitaries dress in police uniforms. “This is starting to look more like Syria than Caracas,” one Nicaraguan business leader told me.

The asymmetrical fighting has claimed the lives of at least 120 people, including one U.S. citizen, and injured more than 1,000, according to the Nicaraguan Center for Human Rights (known by its Spanish acronym Cenidh). Most of the fatalities have reportedly been unarmed young people, including a 15-year-old shot in the neck for bringing water to student protesters.

Reagan was 100% right about the Sandinistas.