On the Bolivian Coup
What do you think of a country obsessed with hearings to impeach a dishonest president for using his office for his own political (and monetary) gain and for blackmailing another country’s leaders to enable this? Makes sense to me. But what doesn’t make sense is that the political leaders, from both parties, of this same country – our country – stay completely silent when the President and his cronies enable and oversee a coup d’etat to depose an indigenous leader who brought hope, equity, and widespread economic growth to his country, and who had just won re-election. That country is Bolivia.
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The lack of dismay among Democrats, the lack of protest against this coup, underscores the neoliberal and, indeed, corporate multinational agenda shared by both parties, and the mainstream media, including the New York Times. Indeed, the Times endorsed actions of the Bolivian military and right wing to force the sitting president, Evo Morales, into exile and to force members of the duly elected government to resign their positions under threat of violence against them.
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In the recent elections, voters for Evo’s party delivered a two-thirds majority support in the Bolivian Legislature. No one has disputed that. And yet, with all the party leaders resigning from office in the face of violence from right wing parties, a second tier opposition senator, and of course, not an indigenous person, has declared herself president of Bolivia. She has the support of the police, the military and the Roman Catholic Church.
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This is a coup against an elected government. The New York Times itself issues its own fake news in support of the coup. Consider this opening from its editorial: “The country’s growing economy and shrinking inequality propped (Evo) up for years. But its democracy and its institutions suffered, and that’s what brought him down.” This is completely upside down. It was Evo’s embrace and activation of democracy that enabled the structural changes (like the nationalization of the oil industry) which resulted in shrinking inequaltiy and a growing economy.
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And so the Trump administrations actions are roundly endorsed by the New York Times editorial board, based not on well-established facts, but on myths perpetuated by Trump’s henchmen in foreign policy and Senator Marco Rubio.
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Which Democrats have come to the defense of Bolivian democracy? Congresswoman Ilhan Omar from Minnesota was the first, Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has joined in the defense as well. Bernie Sanders has condemned this coup. These three are true patriots for democracy. But no other democratic candidates for President have uttered any reproach to Trump’s praise for and support for the coup and the coup leaders. The actions of the Administration in enabling the coup in Bolivia constitute an impeachable crime. The silence of Democrats makes them accomplices.