The Americas’ Virus of Nationalism
The continent of America is hopelessly strapped to the wheel of Samsara, doomed to endlessly repeat its karmic cycles of colonial servility and political theatricality. For the aggressively patriotic readers up in the United States, let us clarify: we’re referring to the entire continuous landmass named after the Italian explorer Amerigo Vespucci, not just the hyper-militarized slice situated between Canada and Mexico.
Unfortunately for the nationalist purists, this massive stretch of earth, historically partitioned into major colonization kingdoms by the British, Spanish, Portuguese, and French (the Dutch didn’t do much here), ostensibly won its independence between the 18th and early 20th centuries. Yet, the legacy of those European settlements remains glaringly visible today. We’re left with a neatly curated Creole society, a modern Caste System, where the descendants of colonizers maintain an iron grip on the land so the old colonial system can masquerade as a modern democracy.
Throughout the decades, both Latin and Anglo-Saxon societies across the hemisphere have contracted the virus of nationalism. We’ve transitioned seamlessly from outright military dictatorships to unhinged populist presidents who turn political victimhood into a divine right to rule. It seems staging a near-death experience or capitalizing on a highly convenient accident is the fastest way to bewitch a numbed electorate incapable of differentiating manipulative theatrics from actual statesmanship. In our modern political circus, we witnessed the miraculous, widely televised imaginary bullet that grazed Donald Trump’s ear during a rally and the opportune stabbing of Jair Bolsonaro right before he ascended to the presidency of Brazil. Blood, it seems, is the ultimate campaign currency.
Historically, the right-wing monopoly has been nearly absolute. Take Colombia, a nation that spent over 200 years of its independence without a single left-leaning government. Yet, after four years of Gustavo Petro’s progressive administration with more corruption cases than real progress, the traditional elites practically hyperventilated at the thought of structural reform. Thus, the nationalist populist voice, increasingly championed by figures like the bombastic right-wing lawyer Abelardo De La Espriella, began to woo the dull minds of a nation eternally exhausted by violence, drug cartels, and catastrophic inequality. What message does it send to the mob when political rallies must be conducted from behind a bulletproof armor cabin? It whispers that peace is impossible, and only an armored strongman can save you.
Moving forward, the American continent is already deep into its nationalist fever dream. The roster of right-wing messiahs is extensive: the US with Trump, El Salvador with Nayib Bukele, Ecuador with Daniel Noboa, Argentina with Javier Milei, and Paraguay with Santiago Peña, José Antonio Kast in Chile and Keiko Fujimori in Peru. Do you know what they all share? They all gleefully praise the United States’ imperial hyper-consumption culture and its penchant for destructive military endeavors. In their worldview, there’s no room for dialogue or welfare reform. The State is simply a corporation that must generate profit for the same historical Creole elite, while the rest of the population is presented with a simple choice: obey the rules or die.
However, the wheel of Samsara does offer a slight ideological counterweight to this nationalist contagion. There’re exceptions: Mexico with Claudia Sheinbaum, Brazil with Lula da Silva, Uruguay with Yamandú Orsi, and Guatemala with Bernardo Arévalo. (We will politely exclude Bolivia, Nicaragua, and Venezuela from this democratic roster for obvious reasons: they’re failed states and blatant dictatorships playing dress-up). But this delicate balance could shift violently. With upcoming elections, the karmic wheel has already cast its eye on Brazil, waiting to see if Flávio Bolsonaro can reclaim his family's throne from Lula.
Why do the masses fall so easily for the nationalist virus? The answer lies in the short-term survival mindset bred by the continent's staggering, highly volatile inequality. The Gini coefficient across Latin America remains among the highest in the world, largely thanks to the ruling elite’s absolute refusal to share their hoarded wealth with their compatriots. This is the true colonial legacy: an eternal class warfare where mixed and Afro-descendant communities are systematically left behind from the country's development.
This massive socio-economic gap is the petri dish where the nationalist virus thrives, as inequality breeds the very violence, guerrillas, paramilitaries, cartels, and gangs that right-wing populists promise to crush. Consequently, empty promises of lower taxes, brutal military crackdowns against rebels, and institutionalized corruption become the anesthetic pills handed to a dying patient. They numb the pain of the disease, but they’re light-years away from being a cure.
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