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A woman will lead the country for the first time in history. President López Obrador’s successor has won a second term for the National Regeneration Movement and stifled the conservative coalition’s aspirations
Mexico has a new president. Claudia Sheinbaum Pardo, 61, is the firstwoman to win a presidential election in the 200 years since the country’s independence.
It was a historic election day in many ways. With a turnout close to 61%, the successor of President Andrés Manuel López Obrador achieved between 58.6% and 60.7% of the vote, according to the quick count, a mathematical extrapolation based on voting records collected throughout the country that usually yields accurate results. The percentage obtained by Sheinbaum exceeds the 53% achieved by Andrés Manuel López Obrador in 2018, quite an achievement for a candidate with less political charisma.
Many questioned whether a sexist country like Mexico was ready to have a female president. The results at the ballot box proved that it is.
It’s very cool. The race was between a climate scientist and a software engineer, both women. The climate scientist was much more liberal and won by a huge margin. Really good news all around, I’m jealous.
If by more liberal, you mean literally a socialist (at worst a social democrat) who outright states that neoliberalism is the cause of Mexico’s current problems.
“Neoliberalism” is one of those terms that’s starting to lose meaning because different people use it to mean different things. I’m not an expert on her, but from what I’ve read, her views seem pretty vanilla progressive to me. Here’s what Wikipedia says about them:
It’s a well-defined term. But it’s one not really discussed much or talked about in america. And largely used in propaganda when it is used. Which is only aided by people not understanding and knowing the definition.
Liberal is basically a shortening of economic liberal. Think founding fathers, Adam smith, invisible hand circle jerk off the economy. Free markets yada yada yada. Basically that is what liberal means in the rest of the world. And still means in the United States even though it’s misused heavily. You might also comment to yourself that that sounds an awful lot like people who call themselves libertarian. Which is because they are not libertarian they are economic liberals. They’re just masquerading.
In the early 20th century, the glaring problems with economic liberalism we’re becoming impossible to ignore. Robber barons exploiting labor en mass and running roughshod over government. It was pretty blatantly apparent to most people what economic liberalism always was. It wasn’t about free markets for everyone. You can ask Black Wall Street about that. And it wasn’t about creating free societies for everyone. You can ask Black Wall Street about that. It was clear that they needed to abandon the hands off social policy of economic liberalism and apply pressure socially to achieve better outcomes. Which the market abhorred. And post world war II the violent oppressive Leninist/Stalinist/Maoist revolutions combined with fascistic rhetoric convinced them that capitalism was still the only answer. But hands on capitalism.
Enter neoliberals. Republicans and Democrats both are neo-liberals. Their current stances decided by who passed the civil rights act. Democrats solidified themselves as the party of limited social assistance. Republicans taking the opposite stance socially. No longer just socially “neutral” in pursuit of free markets and non wasps to exploit. They became punitive and actively socially oppressive.
And no Democrats are in no way socialist. Work requirements are antisocialist. Little poison pills that Democrats and Republicans both have worked into every single social assistance program ever implemented in the United States. As a mechanism to keep control and power over labor. Leaving them distinctly vulnerable and easily exploitable as father for the factories and businesses of wealthy capitalists. If an unemployed person had social protections and guarantees. Capitalists have no leverage over them. They could be discerning about what jobs they worked and what jobs they didn’t. Without having the fear of starvation and death hung over them. And that doesn’t work for capitalists.
Ah, yes, extremely educated people must not be using a word correctly because it would go against my worldview if they were, big think.
Wow, where did that come from? I said I feel that word is losing meaning, not that you used it incorrectly. Instead of discussing what neoliberalism is/isn’t, I just posted a reference to her main ideals, which I thought would be more helpful. Not sure why you’re responding with claws out.
She is one that is using it, the incoming president of Mexico, and you lead with “that word is losing all meaning.”
I don’t believe that being a literal authority figure makes her honest or even trustworthy, but can you see the problem with that being the first thing you bring up, at least without having specific criticisms of her usage in mind?
I understand she’s the one using it, that doesn’t change the fact that, in my opinion, it’s not a good word for communication because different people been different things by it. For purposes of this discussion, I thought it would be better to avoid it. It’s like “conservative;” by itself it’s almost useless because people mean so many things by it.