This text was very interesting to me, I have just written for my other class an essay about “the Kirchner”, I know that it is a very different situation in politics but it has the similarity that both of couples are interested in politics.
First of all, I think that Maria Eva Duarte de Peron was using her way to speak to attract the mass, in a few words, the people from Argentina. That’s why the author make the comparison with the populist leaders because in both situations, they take advantage by using the public to get more popularity. It is quite difficult to know if you can call someone “a populist” because one thing of the lecture that I do not agree is that at least Lazaro Cardenas, the ex president of Mexico was not that much a populist, I think he had similarities but he achieved more than the expected.
I need to mention that the program “Hora do Brazil” in Varga’s regime was quite interesting, it reminds me of a program that Hugo Chavez had when he was the president of Venezuela, I think that this is a strategy in politics because it is very effective to mix the technology, in this case a tv program to influence people’s beliefs, radio was also a very useful strategy.
On the other hand, Juan Peron was a very good leader because he was different from other political leaders, he knew how to get a good relation with the worker class, not only by talking and making agreements with the elite, like the common leaders that we have in many countries these days.
From the document “Peronists Will Head Argentine Ticket”, it seems to me that 2 persons ruling a country could be not that good for the nation, I think that in most cases is better to give the opportunity to other people, so that people could be an important part of the government. In addition to, I think Eva Peron’s final response was quite interesting, it shows how a woman is not deciding to run the elections for a simple purpose: to help her husband to achieve his goals but more importantly to not affect the interests of the country. I think in these days we need more people who loves its country in this way because most of the politicians just care about getting more power and they are not thinking on how do they can benefit the majority.
Hey Adrian, I really liked that you brought up the issues with calling Cardenas a populist, I’m curious though, does being a populist leader inherently mean you fail to do all the things you promised? I don’t really understand that term but why don’t you think he’s a populist? He was beloved by the people and respected the indigenous community more than any other president, isn’t that a populist?
I also kind of disagree with you in that Evita didn’t want to run for VP because of her husband, I thought it was more because she was going to die soon and didn’t want to stress herself out with running a country, what do you think? Regardless, I really liked your blog and it was an enlightening experience!
Angela