The destructive fire of socialism is quickly spreading throughout Latin America. While autocratic regimes in Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela continue to repress their people, violating and denying their most basic human rights, new radical socialist governments have taken over in Argentina, Bolivia, Colombia, Chile, Honduras, Mexico, and Peru. And just a couple of weeks ago, the corrupt Leftist former president of Brazil, Luis Inácio Lula da Silva, won the general election in that country to return to office for a third term in January of next year.
These new socialist regimes represent a serious threat to democracy and fundamental freedoms in the entire region. And that’s why this year, CPAC and the Viva Mexico Foundation are calling on conservatives from all over Latin America to join us in a regional movement to fight the radical Left, which will launch with CPAC Mexico on November 18 and 19.
The new socialist governments are committed to advancing their agenda through cultural Marxism: fostering social confrontation based on race, religion, gender, and economic differences. Their goal is to destroy the Judeo-Christian civilization of Latin America, imposing a new order that seeks to redefine the individual by undermining the individual, family, government, and religious institutions that are essential to preserving a stable and free society.
The socialists diminish and weaken the sense of patriotism in the countries across the region. They regularly disparage the history of their countries and shame their Hispanic and Christian heritage. To them, the legacy of the last five centuries in the Americas is one exclusively of racism, injustice, and environmental degradation.
Mexican president Andrés Manuel López Obrador, for example, at the beginning of his term, sent letters to the King of Spain Felipe VI and Pope Francis asking them to apologize to indigenous groups for the abuses that happened five hundred years ago. AMLO, as he is known, regularly says that colonialism continues through the modern system and that a different history of the country should be taught to Mexicans.
And, to “reset” the path our nations have taken, they argue we must adopt a series of radical progressive policies, including the legalization of abortion, gender ideology, extreme and unscientific environmental policies, so-called racial equity, and redistribution of wealth.
To that end, a Leftist controlled constitutional assembly in Chile proposed a “woke” new constitution. The proposed draft was a socialist pipedream that sought to establish Chile as a welfare state, with a “plurinational” and “ecological” character. It weakened private property rights and religious freedom, recognized that “nature” is entitled to rights, and established that indigenous groups have preferential collective rights over land and resources. While, fortunately, the draft was rejected by the majority people in a recent referendum, the hard-left Chilean president Gabriel Boric says he will continue to push for constitutional reform.
Rather than trying to seek power through an armed revolution, the new socialist strategy imposes control by co-opting democratic institutions, marginalizing anyone who disagrees, and taking away fundamental rights. They want to strip away the freedom of expression and religion. They seek to limit parents’ authority over their own children and abolish the right to private property.
In Bolivia, President Luis Acre promised an era of unity, but unsurprisingly, what resulted from his election was the marginalization of Bolivia’s business sector and a systematic incarceration of his political opposition, including that of the former president Jeanine Añez, who was falsely accused of terrorism.
Sadly, America, under the current administration, doesn’t care about what’s happening in the region. On the contrary, it has abandoned those who stand for freedom and democracy in Latin America while supporting the radical Left. President Joe Biden continues the normalization of relations with the repressive communist regime of Cuba, negotiates with Maduro to buy oil from Venezuela, and cozies up to leftist extremist leaders like the new president of Honduras, Xiomara Castro. And just this year, Biden used the Department of State to funnel thousands of dollars into Ecuador in order to fund drag shows.
Faced with the advance of socialism in the region, conservatives must be ready to fight. CPAC Mexico will serve as the beginning of an ongoing partnership among conservative leaders and activists from throughout Latin America to defend and promote democracy, freedom and the dignity of the human person in countries across the whole region
Matt Schlapp is the chairman of the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC). Eduardo Verastegui is the president of the Movimiento Viva Mexico.
The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not reflect the official position of the Daily Caller.