The worst 2020 campaign | Chaos in Bolivia
Hello friends,
In this week's newsletter:
(1) As of last week, I'm a twice-a-month columnist for VICE — I'll be writing analysis and commentary about American politics for them. For last week's column I wrote about how Beto has taken solipsism in political life to new heights and is running the most toxic 2020 campaign of any candidate.
(2) Ever since Bolivia's election two weeks ago, the country has been on a razor's edge. I reported for The Nation on what to make of the allegations of fraud that have fueled strikes, blockades, protests and street fights (some of which have caused a few casualties) across the country. For bigger picture context on why this election holds such enormous importance for Bolivia — and the Americas as a whole — check out my recent feature for The Nation evaluating Bolivia's successful experiment with socialism.
(3) A quick note on something funny and revealing that happened over the course of reporting my most recent article for The Nation as I was connected the the vice presidential candidate for the opposition.
(4) What I'm reading.
Beto's campaign is worse than pointless. It's destructive.
An excerpt from my piece in VICE:
What is Beto O'Rourke doing?
I’ve asked myself this question countless times since last winter. I asked it when Beto O’Rourke began to tease the idea of running for president as a former backbench congressman whose main selling point was that he almost didn’t lose his bid for a Senate seat in Texas. I asked it when he chose to publish meandering journal entries about his feelings and the weather as he road-tripped across America, attempting to give literary weight to his eventual decision to enter the race. I asked it when he live-streamed a dentist cleaning his teeth. And I asked it as he revealed early on that he lacked a coherent policy vision or unique proposition—other than his recent social media stardom—that would justify entering a race teeming with talented candidates.
But lately I’ve tweaked the formulation of my question—now it goes: “What the hell is Beto doing?” O'Rourke has veered from mere self-indulgence to recklessness. In his desperation to repeat the viral glory that followed his spontaneous soliloquy defending NFL players kneeling during the national anthem in his Senate race, he’s become increasingly inclined to shoot from the hip. In the past month, he’s made shocking pledges to enthusiastically seize people’s assault-style rifles and strip churches of tax-exempt status for opposing same-sex marriage. These provocative remarks haven’t helped him in the polls or improved his standing on the left, but they have made him a conservative boogeyman and provided nightmare fodder for right-wing ad campaigns designed to fuel turnout.
In light of this, there is a case to be made that O'Rourke is running the worst 2020 campaign of any candidate in the race. Lacking a clear sense of purpose, he’s scrambling to find a way to stand out from the pack by creating new wars, which members of the Democratic Party—moderates and left-wingers alike—are not trying to wage in this political moment. Just as importantly, these inflammatory moves are obliterating his chances at a real shot at pivoting to a 2020 Senate race against John Cornyn, a powerful but vulnerable Republican, in Texas. Given how hard it will be for the Democrats to retake a majority in the Senate in the next election—an essential condition for passing any Democratic president’s legislative agenda—that’s no small sin.
Had O'Rourke mounted a thoughtful campaign to shift the Overton window (the spectrum of acceptable ideas in public discourse) on issues like gun control from day one, and presented his ideas with care, his recent antics could’ve made some sense. But that’s not the case. As with virtually everything else in his campaign, the engine is what his gut feels is right on any given day, and the fuel is a thirst for social media approbation.
Read the rest here.
Bolivian ballot boxes are burning.
An excerpt of my piece for The Nation:
Ever since Bolivia’s presidential elections were held last Sunday, the country has been on a razor’s edge.
After an unusually protracted vote-counting process, Bolivian election authorities deemed Evo Morales the victor on Thursday, extending the iconic leftist president’s tenure for a fourth term.
But the announcement has been overshadowed by massive protests, street fights, and strikes in towns and cities across the country, prompted by strange irregularities in the vote-count operation that have been perceived by critics as a cover for fraudulent behavior.
More than a dozen Bolivians in several cities reported an atmosphere of extreme tension and anger rippling through the nation because of suspicion of government misconduct. “After the elections, there was absolute chaos. I have never seen elections like this before, never,” N.W. Villanueva, a 36-year-old progressive activist based in the capital, La Paz, told me over the phone.
Complicating things further, rioters have set fire to buildings run by the country’s electoral tribunal, creating concerns about lost votes.
The second-place finisher in the race, centrist Carlos Mesa, has denounced the results as fraudulent and called for “permanent mobilizations” nationwide to force the government to hold a second round of elections. “The only way that the Bolivians can solve social unrest is going to a second round to finalize these elections as the law says, and as the European Union and the Organization of American States recommend,” Gustavo Pedraza, Mesa’s vice presidential candidate, told me.
The OAS has called for Bolivia to wait until the completion of its audit of the votes before announcing the results as legitimate, and has also recommended that Morales and Mesa enter a second, runoff round.
Political analysts say that despite the emergence of serious questions about the electoral process, there is currently no compelling evidence that the Morales administration committed fraud. “It’s not clear yet if there was fraud or if it was a very messy or mismanaged process,” Calla Hummel, a political scientist at the University of Miami, who is currently based in La Paz, told me. Three other experts I spoke to echoed this position of uncertainty.
The bigger issue, however, is that many Bolivians feel Morales’s decision to run in the first place was an act of antidemocratic fraud. Despite losing a referendum in 2016 over extending constitutional term limits, he chose to run anyway, after getting sign-off from a politically sympathetic court. He’s been in power for almost 14 years—and if he does ultimately stay on for another term, he will have spent about two decades as president.
Read the rest here. [Also an update: the OAS has begun its audit as of Thursday.]
A Harvard boy
A funny thing happened while reporting my piece on Bolivia's disputed election. One of my Bolivian contacts who supported the opposition over incumbent Evo Morales mentioned that they could try to connect me to the opposition's vice presidential candidate to discuss the situation. And when making the offer, they mentioned that he attended Harvard. As I was rapidly handed off from contact to contact through WhatsApp messages and calls, I heard this biographical detail mentioned again and again. "He's a Harvard boy, and he speaks perfect English," one of the contacts told me with great pride. (In reality, Gustavo Pedraza doesn't speak English particularly fluently, even by his own admission during our brief call.)
I couldn't help but chuckle every time I heard the attempt to sell him as a Harvard grad. I think there were a few factors that explained the emphasis on it. One was the belief that it makes him sounds intelligent and accomplished. But the other was the hope that he'll come across as more relatable and credible to a US journalist covering the situation. He's not just any Bolivian, he's a Harvard grad! Of course he understands what Democracy is all about.
The irony is that this whole pitch only increased my suspicion of Pedraza. Latin American policymakers who have gone through the circuit of elite US academic institutions have a dark history of working as some of the most zealous implementers of shock doctrine ideology on the continent over the last several decades.
There was something particularly clueless about emphasizing this point when Pedraza is running alongside Carlos Mesa (the presidential candidate). As I discuss briefly in my longer Nation article that I linked to at the top of the newsletter, Mesa once served as vice president under a University of Chicago-educated president who spoke Spanish with an American accent — and he was pushed out of power after he massacred scores of Bolivians protesting against privatizing the country's natural gas supplies.
Many Bolivians believe that Evo has stayed in power for far too long now, but still find the opposition unreformable and pathologically out of touch. I got a glimpse into why.
What I'm reading
Rising seas could affect three times more people by 2050 than previously thought.
Gen Z's "OK Boomer" meme signals an end of patience.
Does the future of public housing lie in these cozy London projects?
In a throwback to the Mao Zedong era, Chinese universities are deploying students as watchdogs against their teachers.
The competing visions behind Bolivia's conflict.
Did Emma Sulkowicz, the woman who went viral for dragging her mattress around Columbia University for as long as she had to attend school with her alleged rapist, get redpilled?
Jonathan Safran Foer and the limits of liberal climate politics.
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