United States in elections: and Latin America?

By: Ricardo Israel - 15/08/2023

The presidential election is already unfolding in the United States, with issues very present and others very absent. Among the latter, Latin America hardly appears, except negatively and in relation to illegal immigration or drugs. Sometimes China is added, but there is no reaction strategy in the face of an economic penetration that is also becoming geopolitical. Not even the growing importance of Latinos or Hispanics changes the situation,

It is not something new, since the irrelevance takes decades and the blame is shared. On the one hand, a power like the USA lacks a State policy, so it is subject to fluctuations that change from administration to administration, but along with the new century, Latin America told the USA to let it solve its problems alone, and nothing has really improved without Washington.

What has happened is well understood when comparing two Summits of the Americas. The first of Miami 1994 witnessed the ultimate expression of state policy, as Clinton went ahead with his predecessor Bush's Sr. Bush's Americas Initiative and presented Latin America with a free trade agreement. Politically, the USA then offered democratic institutionalization through the OAS Inter-American Democratic Charter, whose approval had the misfortune of coinciding with the terrorist attacks of September 11 and a very abrupt change in US priorities.

In any case, except for countries such as Chile that took advantage of it individually to sign their own treaties, as a whole the region evaded and/or rejected the offer, and politically, despite the existence of the Charter, dictatorships increased in the region. , without Latin America or the United States doing anything about it.

The fragility of the current relationship was visible to everyone at the last Summit in Los Angeles, which in June 2022 showed that there are no major common elements today, except for specific issues or historical ties, but nothing similar to what was offered in Miami . Furthermore, some countries simply did not attend and other governments, friends of the region's dictatorships, gave a lecture on who should be invited by the homeowner. Even more striking was the fact that nothing came of this Summit and that it was visible to all that with diplomatic impunity, the White House suffered some slights that in no way would be done to President Xi Jinping of China, if he had invited them.

And if we mention this mutual situation of lack of interest in the other, it is because it can only get worse with the current electoral process, since not even the successful Chinese penetration seems to awaken Washington from its lethargy, except for statements that, in some cases such as that of the current head of the southern command, arouses more suspicion than support in the region, since they speak of control of raw materials, with which ghosts already surpassed by history reappear.

An additional problem is the deterioration of politics and public life in the United States, where everything indicates that this presidential campaign will not improve, and, on the contrary, the polarization shown in 2016 and 2020 could worsen.

This is what I have allowed myself to call the “Latin Americanization” of US politics. In effect, the USA has imported some of the worst politics south of the Rio Grande, not the best, although, by the way, since its independence, the USA has had neither revolutions nor coups, so much so that the English language does not has words to define the latter, using French.

In exchange, today we find an abundance of confrontation, polarization, culture war, lack of agreement in Congress, virtual disappearance of the political center, rejection of institutions, absence of consensus and dialogue as mechanisms to reach agreements, political groups that distrust each other. the police, others from the electoral system; impoverishment of debate, biased media, with a predominance of activism over information, etc.

Apparently, there has also been added some of the worst that can happen to a healthy democracy, the judicialization of politics, and even more dangerous, strong pressures for the judiciary to become politicized.

What happened in the USA has all the characteristics of being a cultural war, not a simple political dispute, such a polarization that it has led to the loss of some of the best it had, a shared vision of the past, so it is difficult for today to have a shared vision of the future. It is in this context that the facts lose importance and are replaced by a narrative of good and bad, more typical of religious stories than of a healthy democratic debate.

Elections used to define winners and losers and prioritize or place public policy alternatives on a waiting list, but in the current climate ideological visions predominate that are proving immune to the evidence of the facts, and even if they are defeated, some ideas they do not lose importance for their followers, who not only maintain their enthusiasm, but apparently it increases, even in the worst moments.

If Latin America did not appear before, the current internal polarization of the USA finds its mirror in the region, where without counting dictatorships, many governments seem not to have an international policy that considers a special relationship with the United States, and insist on historical errors. that they will further impoverish their countries and move them away from the trends that seem to set the post-Ukrainian invasion world, with the almost certain result of new missed opportunities and even greater inconsequentiality in terms of political and economic power.

In other words, little or nothing seems to come from Latin America in terms of stimulating bipartisan interest, since, on the contrary, there are too many governments that seem to enjoy this distance, although without really having a proposal in this regard, neither good nor bad. just non existent.

The US could have changed its path towards polarization if it had moved away from Trump and Biden as candidates, but it seems they have done the exact opposite, with the Republican and Democratic bases preferring to support both, to repeat the election in 2020.

The internal division is a tragedy where the absence of State policy towards Latin America is really a minor issue, since the lack of unity makes it difficult for the USA to better face the great geopolitical challenge of the 21st century, China as the only and great world rival. A reality where the USA continues to be number 1, but the distances are reduced year by year, every year, and where China, apparently, already has a symbolic date for the intended replacement, which would be October 1 for the Communist Party. of 2049, on the centenary of the proclamation by Mao of the People's Republic of China.

Perhaps a periodic consultation of the World of Statistics would be required to see the variations in the position of the USA, since in some where it was comfortably located at number 1, today it appears in the average range in various indicators, sometimes replaced by less powerful countries. , but with very good governance such as, for example, the Scandinavians or New Zealand, especially in social issues or quality of life.

The problem in the USA is doubly serious, since with the current polarization everything indicates that the issue of the politicization of justice is here to stay. By the way, we don't know what will happen to former President Trump and his numerous lawsuits, but today everything indicates that he will win the Republican nomination and with a good chance of returning to the White House.

By the way, there may be changes in a context where there is not a majority system but rather an Electoral College, where whoever wins a state can take all the electoral votes in many of them, so that, in reality, there are no more than 8 states where the occupant of the White House is defined, being those where it is not known who can win. There the campaign and its resources are concentrated, since in other states the winner can be anticipated with some accuracy. Finally, third candidates could be added that could complicate life for the two main ones, as happened in the year 2000 in Florida.

However, there is no way that the image of the USA is not affected by the situation where the courts of justice appear to be used to define what usually corresponds to the voters in a democracy. For now, the denunciations even seem to help candidate Trump, but there is no doubt that it is unpresentable for the election to be decided in that place, and it also puts the USA on a comparative ground even with non-democratic countries in the region. where the courts are used to avoid electoral competition, another element of Latin Americanization.

The case of President Biden could also be considered an attempt to distort the popular will, where everything indicates that a constitutional accusation is being prepared by the Republican majority of the House of Representatives, in a country where, due to the high standard required, only This instrument has been used five times, two of them against President Trump during his tenure.

The novelty is that it is intended to use an indirect path to reach President Biden, investigating suspicions of crimes and fraud committed by his son Hunter, who is a private citizen, neither a public official nor a candidate. That is to say, another sign that the institutions, for or against, are being used in a different sense than what the norm provides.

The tragedy of the USA is that the institutions are not working in a good way, so they are being manipulated. Now, with justice, a new phase would be reaching, from which countries usually do not recover.

The USA was not always a democracy. Not only because of the issue of slavery, but also because of the founding fathers' distrust of uncontrolled majorities, so much so that they bequeathed us checks and balances as protection from excesses, so much so that the name democracy does not appear in the original constitution or in the declaration of independence.

What the United States has always been is to have been a republic, and they are not synonymous. The tragedy is present when the institutions do not work well, to which is added the fact that significant percentages of citizens today mistrust, some of the electoral system, others of the FBI, some of both.

Will Trump and Biden go all the way? In the case of Trump, it does not seem that the assorted trials prevent him from doing so, they can even help him in the Republican nomination, but the accusatory strategy can go on the side that a couple of undecided states can define and with this, defeat him in the presidential election. In Biden's case, the problem may be his obvious health problems rather than her age, and an uncertain outcome may motivate pressure. But how is it done if there are no Democratic primaries? Is that where the name of Michelle Obama appears?

For now it is Trump versus Biden, but on issues like Latin America there is no doubt that its little relevance will remain, even with Chinese penetration in the region. And as a conclusion, the particular characteristics of this presidential contest may accentuate that absence.

@israelzipper

PhD in Political Science, Lawyer, former presidential candidate (Chile, 2013)

«The opinions published herein are the sole responsibility of its author».