Many analysts are speculating that Republican presidential hopeful Donald Trump’s conviction for falsifying company documents to cover up a sex scandal could cause him to lose the Nov. 5 election. I am not that sure. Having observed the trajectory of many populist demagogues like Trump in Latin America, I have seen this film several times. And it usually has a happy ending for the villains. As soon as he was found guilty of all 34 criminal charges at the trial in New York, Trump accused the United States justice system of allegedly being in conspiracy against him. He said that “this was a shame” and that “I am a very innocent man. “I am fighting for our country, I am fighting for our Constitution.”
As I listened to him, I couldn’t help but draw parallels with a long list of Latin American populists who played the same victimization game after being convicted of various crimes, and who were elected years later. Venezuela’s late strongman Hugo Chávez was convicted of carrying out a coup in 1992, pardoned two years later, and was elected president in 1998. Much of Chávez’s campaign strategy was to present himself as a victim of the system. Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, Colombian leader Gustavo Petro, former Argentine President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, former Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa, and several other populists have also played the victimization card after being declared guilty, or disqualified from running for president. And in many cases, they were re-elected without problems.
“Fox News host Sean Hannity said Trump’s verdict was ‘a conviction without a crime.’”
Lula was convicted in 2017 on charges of corruption and money laundering committed during his government from 2003 to 2010, and sentenced to 26 years in prison. He spent 580 days in prison, until a court overturned his sentence in 2021. A year later, he won Brazil’s presidential election.
Fernández de Kirchner of Argentina and Correa of Ecuador claim to be victims of “lawfare,” a term they misleadingly use to refer to an alleged conspiracy by elites and the judiciary to persecute public defenders.
Trump, who faces three other criminal proceedings, including one for attempting to subvert the result of the 2020 elections, attacked not only the American justice system, but the judge, whom he accused without evidence of being “corrupt,” and even the jury. . But I would not rush to predict an electoral defeat for Trump, among other things because he has iron control over the Republican Party and the support of powerful right-wing media. Fox News host Jeanine Pirro said shortly after the verdict that justice had acted “to overthrow a candidate for president.”
It is worth highlighting the similarities between Trump’s criminal conviction and the recent history of several Latin American populists. In almost all cases, they present themselves as supposed victims of sinister elites, attack democratic institutions such as the judiciary, call uncomfortable journalists “enemies of the people,” and do not respect the results of the elections they lose. And along the way, they make big headlines, and often end up winning elections.
By Andres Oppenheimer
Miami Herald Columnist
