President Trump’s caudillo costume is now complete. It needed just one more scary piece – his very own paramilitary goon squad – which he provided at Tuesday night’s shambolic debate.
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Even gringos who don’t know Belize from Bolivia are by now aware of the “caudillo” label Trump’s been working overtime to earn throughout his presidency. A caudillo is a dictatorial Latin American strongman – Hugo Chávez, Anastasio Somoza, Fidel Castro, Juan Perón, take your pick. Trump of course is not a homicidal tyrant like Augusto Pinochet. But, like a guy invited to a Halloween party, he loves to try on caudillo apparel – so much so it’s a wonder his suits aren’t tailored with epaulettes.
He already had a pretty macabre ensemble going: The cruel and sophomoric bullying. The Orwellian addiction to lying. The epic narcissism and self-pity. The subversion of democratic institutions for personal political and economic gain. The demand for blind loyalty and the obsession with conspiracies. Not to mention accessorizing touches like firing tear gas at peaceful protesters for a law-and-order-and-Bible photo op.
But in just the past month Trump’s caudillo couture has become so convincing I’ve found myself rubbing my eyes in front of the TV and asking, “Honey, is that Donald Trump or Manuel Noriega?”
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First there was last week’s frightening refusal to assure Americans he’ll recognize the results of the November election if he loses. That produced flashbacks to Noriega’s iron-fisted rejection of Panama’s 1989 presidential outcome. Then came Sunday’s New York Times revelation that my high school buddies and I paid more income tax after cutting lawns in the summer of 1976 than billionaire Trump did for the whole of 2016. That’s all too reminiscent of the unscrupulous spoils caudillos have enjoyed in Latin America since Columbus came ashore in the Bahamas.
But Trump’s real coup (pun very much intended) happened Tuesday night when he was asked once and for all to condemn white supremacist hate groups like the Proud Boys. He instead told the Boys to “stand by” – a quip the right-wing militia immediately adopted as its new motto.
Trump’s all but called out every neo-Nazi goon squad in the U.S. to be his enforcers — his very own Noriega-style Dignity Battalions — if the returns don’t look good for him once the polls close November 3rd.
Trump on Wednesday finally told white supremacists to “stand down.” But that was hardly a full-throated renunciation – and by now the hate’s already out of the bag. Trump has all but called on the Proud Boys and every other neo-Nazi outfit in the U.S. to be his enforcers if returns don’t look good for him once the polls close November 3rd.
Trump in fact now has what could morph into his Batallónes de Dignidad. His very own Dignity Battalions. His very own colectivos or chimères.
DING BATS AND MONSTERS
The Dignity Battalions were Noriega’s street thugs – the “patriotic” Panamanians who bloodied the opposition politicos who were unpatriotic enough to win more votes than Noriega’s candidate in that 1989 presidential race. Known derisively as “Ding Bats,” their mayhem is one reason the U.S. invaded Panama later that year, collared Noriega and jailed him in Miami.
The colectivos served the same goon squad purpose for Chávez’s dictatorial socialist regime in Venezuela – and still do seven years after his death. The chimères, or “monsters,” terrorized Haitians in the 2000s for authoritarian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, much as their even more horrifying predecessors, the Tonton Macoutes, did for Haiti’s Duvalier dictatorship.
Right-wing autodefensas in Colombia, left-wing grupos de choque in Nicaragua. More than official military or security forces, paramilitary gangs keep caudillos and other repressive interests powerful in Latin America thanks precisely to their clandestinely sinister natures.
And you only need to recall the deadly hate disgorged in Charlotesville, Virginia, three years ago to realize that right-wing hate groups like the Proud Boys – more than left-wing militants, though they need to get a grip too – have already been flexing a similar potential for political violence.
Potential that’s ecstatic about the POTUS green light it got this week. During the debate Trump blubbered about the need for “poll watchers” in places he says “socialists” are defiling ballots marked for him. So it’s all too reasonable to fear that Trump wants groups like the Proud Boys on “standby” to intimidate polling sites during the balloting — and menace non-Trump supporters after the balloting if he does refuse to accept an unfavorable outcome.
And that’s when we’ll realize: this ain’t no Halloween party anymore. It’s our democracy’s nightmare. Ask Latin America.
