What irony! Just when Latin America is beginning to despise messianic autocrats, the United States and Europe seem to be embracing them.
It’s as if the world had been suddenly turned upside down. Judging from the recent New Hampshire primary results, US voters — generally known for electing responsible leaders — may be falling for a narcissist demagogue with no political experience like Donald Trump, whose entire campaign is based on his untested claim that “I will make America great again!”
It’s not just Trump in the United States. Whether it’s President Vladimir Putin in Russia, Hungary’s Viktor Orban, Turkey’s Recep Erdogan, or rapidly rising opposition leaders such as Marine Le Pen in France, charismatic nationalists are popping up across the northern hemisphere.
Perhaps because of a growing gap between the super-rich and the not-so-rich, many people are angry, and turning to xenophobic populists. In most cases, these leaders blame foreigners for their countries’ problems, oppose free trade deals, promise to bring back a real or imagined golden era of the past, demonize the free press as an alleged arm of shady oligarchs, and present themselves as saviours of the fatherland.
In Latin America, on the other hand, people are getting tired of charismatic leaders, at least for now.
In oil-rich Venezuela, late President Hugo Chavez and his successor Nicolas Maduro have not only curtailed fundamental freedoms, but have turned one of the world’s richest countries into a state on the verge of a humanitarian crisis. Annual inflation has surpassed 500 per cent and supermarket shelves are empty.
In Argentina, Bolivia, Ecuador and Nicaragua, other nationalist-populist autocrats have in recent years weakened their countries’ democratic institutions. The net result has been fewer checks and balances, and more corruption.
But Argentines recently elected President Mauricio Macri, a soft-spoken engineer who candidly admits that he can’t solve his country’s problems by himself. In Venezuela, the centre-right opposition won the December 6 legislative elections by a landslide, and vows to end the country’s 17-year-old populist cycle. The nationalist-populist cycle seems to be waning across the region.
When I called several well-known Latin American political figures last week to ask them about Trump’s proposal to build a wall on the Mexican border, and to force Mexico to pay for it, most laughed. Several of them said that’s the kind of bravado that used to be typical of Latin American strongmen.
“Trump has the typical style of the Latin American caudillo,” former Colombian President Cesar Gaviria told me. “He tells people what they want to hear, scares them, and then says, ‘Don’t worry, I’ll fix it.’”
Indeed, there are many similarities between Trump and Latin America’s charismatic leaders.
First, Trump is running a headline-centred campaign, making outrageous statements almost daily to draw media attention, and to put rival politicians on the defensive. When commentators show, usually a day later, that Trump’s statements are half-truths or outright lies—as with his claim that most undocumented Mexican immigrants are criminals or rapists—he accuses the press of misquoting him, and then comes up with the next outrageous statement. Just like most Latin America’s autocrats did when they rose to power.
Second, like most nationalist populists, Trump constantly agitates the spectre of foreign threats, as when he claims that there is an avalanche of undocumented immigrants despite the fact that all serious studies show that the number of undocumented immigrants has declined over the past seven years. Nationalist populists need a foreign enemy, so they can present themselves as leaders of a national cause.
Third, like most populists, Trump is an ego-maniac. He has no concrete plans, nor political organisation to carry them out. His favourite word is “I” (In his campaign opening speech last year, he said the word “I” 220 times.) He wants us to believe that he’s the smartest, and that — as he constantly tells us — his rivals are “stupid,” “idiots,” or sold out to special interests.
My opinion: If Trump were to become president, more than making America great again, he would make America look more like Latin America. Or, rather, he would make America look like much of Latin America was until recently, before several countries realized how irresponsible narcissist demagogues can be.
