Bolsonaro, Anez, Trump and the racist international

The recent reverses for the left in Latin American politics (and its one apparent triumph, that of the election of Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador in Mexico has become a political cul-de-sac) are also the triumph, for the moment at least of a white backlash. Bolsonaro has made no secret of his racism ; indeed, he wears it as a badge of honour, and marks the end of a period, under Inacio Lula da Silva, when non-white people made real, if limited and fragile, gains. Ever since independence, Latin American politics has been marked by the struggle of people of European descent to maintain dominance in a continent of mestizos, people of African descent and indigenous peoples. In Bolivia, the beneficiary of the coup against Evo Morales, Jeanine Anez, is white, and replaces a leader of indigenous descent under whose tenure people of indigenous descent made progress. The same could be said of Hugo Chavez in Venezuela (no, I'm not going to defend him).

It should be superfluous to point out that Trump's political career, for many years has been marked by racism (and I mean many: Trump and his father, as a developer of 'real estate' and landlord, discriminated against African Americans in the allocation of housing, which resulted in a Federal lawsuit in 1973 , see David Cay Johnston, 'The making of Donald Trump', pages 35-36). Trump's open support of the 'birther' movement and his endorsement of white supremacists at Charlottesville, have caused the far right to endorse him as an ally, even though they regard him as almost a liberal. Indeed, as commentators such as David Neiwert ('Alt-America') and Vegas Tenold ('Everything you love will burn') have shown, he has played a crucial role in 'mainstreaming' the politics of white supremacy.

It should be noted that Trump owes his election (despite Hillary Clinton gaining more votes overall) to the electoral college system, which was never intended to be democratic ; that Anez owes her power to a coup ; and that there was a sustained campaign against Lula Inacio da Silva by corrupt Brazilian politicians , based on the ridiculous assumption that he was the source of all corruption in Brazilian politics.