Chile Constitutional Referendum, September 4th 2022

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Hopefully Boric will be better than the terrible Millennial state leaders we've already had (Kurz, Bukele, etc.) He's a Swiftie, so that's a good sign.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

This is a temporary victory that will only make Latin America poorer and more ruined. Peru is still the same ruined country as always, Argentina can barely survive and Brazil is an endless cesspool.... I guess hunger and misery will make Chileans understand the hard way.

 Now say that without crying.

Latin America is ruined and deserves it.

For voting for political candidates you dislike? You and Josh Gottheimer should hang out and swap yarns. Maybe invite R.P. McM along as a third wheel while you're at it.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

The Southern Cone-Andean-Pacific area is turning into a real bright spot in general in terms of the global left's electoral fortunes. Who would have thought two or three years ago that that whole region would have leftist or center-left Presidents now?

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Although not quite the whole Southern Cone (Lacalle Pou’s done well with the pandemic but he did make it a crime to insult a cop), and not the whole Andean Community (insofar as that means anything, but however you slice it Ecuador doesn’t) either.

Not only Colombia, Ecuador and Uruguay don't have leftists governments but Castillo in Perú has sinking approvals and the peronists in Argentina (who are sh*t, no idea why someone outside of this country would claim them) just lost their majorities with horrid results in the midterm election.

Also I find it funny that Nathan talks about "who could have predicted this?", lol, several South American governments have been alternating between lefty and rightie governments for decades now. Not really a stretch that opposition parties might win. This pattern has been pretty obvious in, for instance, the country that this thread is about

Well, yeah, in the grand scheme of things that's obviously true (and not just in Latin America; there are also clear pink and blue tides in the Global North like, say, the late 40s and early 50s vs. the 80s and early 90s), but the tone in English-language reporting on Latin America especially after Bolsonaro's win in 2018 was very doomer for about eighteen months, mostly because of the (in retrospect perhaps somewhat racist) assumption that these guys would be at least as good at abolishing substantive democracy in these countries as, say, Orban. I'm not surprised to hear that that wasn't the case domestically, but I also just plain didn't know it, so thank you for informing me.

I'm not passing judgment one way or the other on or attempting to "claim" Fernandez (who seems like a nitwit from what I know of him), only remarking that he tends to be classified as left-of-center rather than right-of-center.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

I know that AMLO in Mexico is often described as being on the left but where is the evidence for that? He seemed very cosy with Trump and his Covid policies have been very Bolsonaro like. What has he ever done that is actually leftwing?

What has he done that is right-wing? And it needs to be something that you can’t associate to Trump.

Relationship with/Opinion on Trump doesn’t define the ideological spectrum lol

Being in denial about Covid and parroting anti-vax and anti-mask drivel that one usually associated with rightwing nutbars

"Associated" is operative here imo; vaccine conspiracy theories were a moonbat thing before they were a wingnut thing.

AMLO being aligned (ish) with Trump also doesn't necessarily make him right-wing since Trump was happy to play nice with leftist leaders in other countries as long as they were macho and strongmannish enough for him. Duterte isn't exactly a pillar of the right in his country either.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Regarding the campaign... if there are rational arguments for Reject, I have not heard them.

Here's one:

90 pages for a Constitution.

That's scary.

That's a "WHY DIDN'T BACKBENCH CONGRESSMAN #7 READ THE 3,000-PAGE OMNIBUS SPENDING BILL???"-tier "argument", Peeperkorn.