The disoriented lefts

Comparison is, by definition, an exercise carried out on two distinct matters to verify similarities, but also differences. For some time now it has become common practice among the local lefts—thus, in the plural—to take the favorable or unfavorable electoral results of their foreign counterparts, make a superficial analysis, and issue a local diagnosis with a veneer of our recent history. These are quick-cook recipes, delivered in the format of streaming segments or after-dinner conversations at the Baco. The triggering element is always a striking electoral result, to which they add a couple of political communication gadgets wrapped in a catchy concept. They stretch recent national events until they fit the triumph of Zohran Mamdani in New York, or the virtual failure of the Workers' Party against Bolsonarism in Brazil's latest elections. In the same perspective they place the campaign for the mayorship of a rich city like New York, which has no equivalent within the United States itself, alongside a presidential and parliamentary election in a regional power like Brazil, a continent-country, with sharp economic and social differences between the northern and southern halves of the nation. This is not about dismissing the possibility of exploring analogies and seeking comparable points, but about the ease with which, with a quick brushstroke, they erase the confrontation of differences that would enable an analysis less fixated on short-term results—winning or losing an election—and that aspires to build a more honest horizon regarding Chilean reality. The way phenomena are automatically equated mirrors the faith in coups de théâtre in which part of the Chilean left has taken refuge to avoid the work of developing proposals more substantial than the performative display of individual charisma. The poor performance of the current governing coalition does not necessarily mean a revaluation of the left's ideas, whose most significant axis is the role of the State. For now, there is no deeper elaboration from that sector on the open flanks in matters such as, for example, the idea of patriotism, which has been captured by the Republican Party. The lightweight version of Chilean values and attributes defended by the Republicans has already been stained in its legitimacy by the actions and speeches of the current government's foreign ideological allies. A patriotism that allows questioning territorial sovereignty or that tolerates ambassadors of foreign powers meddling in domestic politics is not such. Yet the lefts offer no answer linking patriotism with the State, territorial sovereignty, national interests, and the value of the public. Nor have they conveyed a deeper economic message than opposing and criticizing the cuts of Minister Quiroz and his dismal management of the Treasury. Nor is the stature of Brazil's Workers' Party comparable to that of any national party, nor have the Brazilian neo-Pentecostal churches—used as a beachhead by ultraconservative American evangelicalism—so far achieved in Chile a weight as decisive as in Brazil. The great similarity, the most evident between both realities, is the era of profound change we are going through in the world order and the way the far right knew how to read the economic and technological transformations that were coming, sowing for the long term. Just as a generic brand adapts its message to local peculiarities, the global far right did so with its combo of fear, distrust, automatic identification of enemies (leftists, poor foreigners, scientists), and enthusiastic celebration of authoritarian international leaderships (Trump, Milei, Orbán, Bolsonaro). To achieve its goal, the far right did not wait for an opportunity: it anticipated the way technologies would shake up how people relate to one another and perceive the world. To begin to understand the impact this change of era is having on the Chilean population, one must do more than glance at foreign news to find analogies, and start looking inward. No leader of the local left can display achievements and a biography on par with the difficulties overcome by Luiz Inácio Da Silva. Here, a worker has never become president, because the culture of belonging of the Chilean left elite remains far more powerful than the discourse of equality when it comes to promoting leaderships outside a circle of kinship and class. Likewise, there are still those who prefer to remain in a portable echo chamber and blame electoral failures on so-called "identity causes" rather than accept that it was the capture of leaderships and parties by business interests that dynamited the bridges between certain lefts and their electorate. In Brazil's latest elections, Erika Hilton, a transgender congresswoman, was reelected with a historic majority, and Lula won in the nine states of the northeast, the poorest region of the country, with up to 70 percent in Piauí. Something tells us that identity causes and the working class are not mutually exclusive categories. The Chilean lefts should listen more and preach less. There are many unknowns that cannot be resolved with conventional political categories, such as the way rationality and emotionality converge when connecting with politics in an era of fragmented information, crisis of traditional media, institutional distrust, and fear of the future. A long-term mission, more ethnographic than proselytizing—something more sophisticated and complex than continuing to repeat clichés and trusting that the adversary's failure will return power to lefts that claim to represent the people, without taking the trouble to approach them to learn how they build their own idea of the world they inhabit. NEWSLETTEROpinionSaturday, AMIdeas in tension, opposing views, and clear analysis: elements to reveal the issues that divide opinions and will set the agenda. By subscribing you accept the Terms and Conditions and Privacy Policies of La Tercera.