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At a certain point for a long time in the 20th century most of humanity lived in socialist/communist countries. There's a reason why that isn't the case today, but it would be naive to think that after years of a socialist regime a country can forget that with no lingering influence.
LatAm kind of goes in waves. There certainly was a huge group of left-leaning rulers in the heyday of Chávez, but a lot of those countries have gone in a different direction now. I guess Nicaragua and Venezuela are the left-wing authoritarian countries stuck using tactics inherited and adapted from the Right in the bad old days, but many of the nations in the "pink tide" era did right by their people. I really admire Evo Morales and Pepe Mujica, for example.
I am still hoping that a social democracy-style candidate wins the presidency one day in Colombia, but I think I´ll stay hoping for a while. Someone like Gustavo Petro may be able to win one day, but (s)he can´t have any sort of "ex-guerrilla" baggage. Given the abuses of the FARC and ELN and the still-heavy presence of paramilitaries, people will never wrap their heads around the idea that someone from that background can reform. We voted for Fajardo though, so I guess I´m a centrist on the political stage here.
Trump and his followers remind a lot of right wingers in Central America. The same mentality. His followers won't admit or seem to excuse all of his BS. I have seen the samething in Central America, right wingers are always willing too look the other way and pretend everything is great.
I've lived in South America and know racism, police corruption, bureaucratic government & harassment. The U.S. people have it easy and always cry about this and that. The babies need to experience real poverty and impossible barriers to rise economically.
Tip: you are not changing the definition of fascism just because your opinion is posted with some brief history.
: very harsh control or authority, include forced suppression of ideas
: a political system headed by a dictator in which the government controls business and labor and opposition is not permitted.
I agree both democrats and repubs leaders in the US have helped put in puppet leaders in latin american govts. and destroyed millions of lives around the world. However, is Maduro really helping his own people?
I attended a public high school in Chile almost 50 years ago, in 1971. At that time, the country was led by a Marxist-Socialist elected President, Salvador Allende. Political division within the country was sharp, deep and very polarizing. About half the people I knew or associated with at that time had a mostly favorable opinion of Allende and socialism, and the other half had a very strong dislike of Allende, Marxism and socialism. Some of my teachers in high school were members of the Communist Party. Fidel Castro came for a one month visit in November 1971, and attracted big crowds at rallies held in a dozen or more cities in Chile. I attended one of the rallies and listened to Fidel for a few hours.
Things in Chile started to go downhill after the first 2 years that Allende was President. Some were due to his policies and heavy spending (like what happened later in Venezuela), some due to external pressure from the US and some other countries. His support started to weaken, and in Sept. 1973 he was gone in a military coup, with a dictatorship that followed for the next 17 years. After that, the appetite in Chile to create a full blown Marxist / socialist society based on the Cuban model almost evaporated.
Chile now has had 3 decades of democratically elected governments following the dictatorship. Most have been liberal or left leaning coalitions, but none have sought to impose sweeping socialist inspired expansion and takeover of the means of production that occurred when Allende was President. Sure, all sorts of social support programs and bringing people out of poverty, and that has helped their country a lot. The current President Pinera is a conservative, serving his second term, although his support is currently in the gutter. Protests have been fierce the past year, forcing new constitutional reforms to be adopted. I don't know if those reforms will actually result in a reduction of the big income inequality that still hits hard in Chile and most other countries of the Americas (including the USA!).
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