As Latin America embraces a new left, the U.S. could take a back seat

[Judi Lynn]

By Samantha Schmidt
June 20, 2022 at 7:12 p.m. EDT

BOGOTÁ, Colombia — For more than two centuries, Colombia was considered a conservative stalwart in Latin America. Even as leftist governments came and went across the region, a center-right political establishment remained in control — a continuity that cemented the country’s role as a key U.S. ally.

. . .

Gustavo Petro, a senator and former guerrilla, was elected the country’s first leftist president, galvanizing millions of poor, young, struggling Colombians desperate for someone different.

His victory, unthinkable just a generation ago, was the most stunning example yet of how the pandemic has transformed the politics of Latin America. The pandemic hit the economies of this region harder than almost anywhere else in the world, kicking 12 million people out of the middle class in a single year. Across the continent, voters have punished those in power for failing to lift them out of their misery. And the winner has been Latin America’s left, a diverse movement of leaders that could now take a leading role in the hemisphere.

“Election after election, the right tries to scare people into thinking the communist monster is coming,” said Alberto Vergara, a political scientist at the University of the Pacific in Peru. “And election after election, it has lost.”

And now it has happened in Colombia, a country where the left has long been associated with guerrilla movements over decades of bloody internal conflict. Leftist candidates who dared to run for office in the past were often assassinated. This time around, the conservative establishment’s chosen candidate failed to even make it to the second round after his message about the dangers of a Petro presidency fell flat.

More:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/06/20/petro-latin-america-left/

[peppertree]

1. When it comes to Latin America's Right, 'with friends like these, who needs enemies'

Latin right-wingers are good at stroking U.S. egos - but more often than not, end up becoming a massive foreign policy liability by association.

Especially Argentina's right-wingers.

I doubt any other in the region outdoes them as far as sheer mismanagement - mainly in the form of hideous foreign debt crises that poison the economy (and U.S. standing in the affected country) for many years.

Thanks as always, Judi, for your insights into these oft-misunderstood dynamics.

[Judi Lynn]

2. It's a shame the U.S. media serve only as stenographers for the State/Defense Depts.

It surely seems that has been the arrangement from the first, considering every country in the hemisphere south of the US border as merely cheap labor, there for protecting US property still under the ground in mines, or on the ground in the form of fruit trees or other agricultural products. What a nice, large backyard!

Things only work out well for US interests if there are utterly corruptable, murderous puppet Presidents who put our interests above the well-being of their own people! If the human race endures, this situation will HAVE to change!

I always look forward to your deeply well-informed comments. It's a privilege to be able to hear from someone who personally knows the Americas, etc.