Source: “The Cult of the Caudillo”

This is an article published in the Wall Street Journal in 2009, written by David Luhnow, Jose de Cordoba, and Nicholas Casey. It talks about the ousting of Honduran president Manuel Zelaya in 2009 by his own government and military, and how this was a sign of the ongoing worry over “caudillos” in Latin America. Zelaya, like many of his contemporaries, was looking to change the constitution so that there would be no limit on how many terms he could be president. To quote the article, “When democracy took root in Latin America in the 1980s and ’90s, nearly every country opted to bar re-election as a way to ensure caudillos would never return… [with Mr. Zelaya] Honduran power brokers decided not to take any chances. In booting him out at gunpoint, they showed what little faith they had in the country’s institutions to check Mr. Zelaya’s ambitions.” The article gets into more details about the situation, and also discusses other “caudillos” in Latin America, such as Hugo Chavez and Evo Morales: “Both men used populism and disappointment with existing political parties to cast themselves as their nation’s saviors.” This was an interesting read, and gave a modern perspective on Caudillos, who today may not fit the traditional mold but certainly seem to still be around in some capacity.

Source: “Could Latinos actually warm up to a caudillo candidate like Donald Trump?”

This is an opinion piece, written by Peter Weber, published in “The Week” on August 21st of this year. The question the article is asking seems quite ridiculous, given Trump’s stance on immigration, among other things. Even the article itself acknowledges this towards the end: “Every caudillo is different, just as every country has its own political and social culture. But will U.S. Latinos somehow respond to the caudillismo of Donald Trump, even if they have lived in the United States since birth, or their families have been here for generations? The question seems absurd, even insulting.” I agree. But where the article does get interesting is with the next point it brings up: “‘What’s surprising about Trump is that he has attracted such a wide following,’ Ignatius writes in The Washington Post. ‘Americans have had flirtations with demagogues…. But the bullying authoritarian personality — the Putin style — usually doesn’t work here.’ In the end, if they get the chance, Latinos probably won’t vote for Trump in any great numbers in 2016. But if Trump does somehow make it to the general election, is the rest of America ready for its first caudillo president?” Thinking of Donald Trump in terms of a “caudillo” may be deeply flawed in many ways, but it is something interesting to consider. To quote the article, “He’s rough and he doesn’t care about fine things like legal rights, but that very roughness means he can get things done.” I don’t know how useful this will be for our video, but at the very least it is perhaps something interesting to think about. (just for the record, I will most definitely not be voting for Donald Trump)