Evo Morales and Donald Trump: A Troubling Comparison
Mark Cramer (author of Old Man on a Green Bike and Urban Everesting)
In exploring the deeper dynamics of power and politics, the classic left-right contrast is sometimes rendered counterproductive.
Before we get to the disturbing similarities between Donald Trump and former Bolivian President Evo Morales, let’s be clear about the differences. During his first two terms in office, Morales pursued policies that drastically reduced poverty, solidified a middle class and reduced racism. In contrast, for four years Donald Trump continued the radical transfer of wealth from the bottom to the top, while pouring oil onto the flames of racism and white supremacy.
These contrasts between the good that Morales accomplished and the evils Trump perpetuated make the similarities between the two men even more troubling.
When power feeds narcissism
The comparison begins with Evo Morales in 2016 and Donald Trump in 2020. Both presidents lost their election:
- Evo’s case was a national referendum. A “Yes” vote would have changed the Constitution to allow him to run for a fourth term. But the Bolivian people voted for the “No” option, to conserve the term limits they’d fought for over decades, following brutal dictatorships.
- The American people also voted in the 2020 election for Donald Trump to step down, not only in the electoral college but with a six-million vote margin in the Platonic popular vote.
In both cases, with narcissism fed by power, the loser retreated into denial, calling on the courts to overturn the election result.
Stacking the deck with joker judges
In both the American and Bolivian constitutions, the judiciary should be independent of the executive. As presidents, both Trump and Morales stacked the judiciary with judges who might act as jokers that could pop up to defeat the aces in the decks of their opponents.
Morales willingly triggered a constitutional crisis, by getting hand-picked judges to supersede the popular vote of the 2016 referendum. Those judges ruled in his favor, allowing him to run for a fourth term. The illegal decision is explained by Devin Beaulieu in “Evo Morales Reelection Was Always Unconstitutional.”
Trump sought judicial rulings to overturn the results of the 2020 election and declare him the winner. After numerous courtroom defeats, Trump has not given up trying to discredit the election.
Both Trump and Morales have maneuvered to invalidate election results. When such maneuvering is done by the right, it is called cheating. And when it is done by the left, it should also be called cheating.
Unflinching loyalty, or else!
Following the electoral defeat of Donald Trump, most establishment Republicans repeated in choral subservience the bogus charges of fraud launched by their Godfather. These docile servants to power seemed fearful that their tweeting leader would turn his base voters against them.
Inevitably Trump will vacate the White House, but Republican office holders fear that The Don will continue to exercise control from outside the boundaries of elected office.
Opponents of Trump can watch their plight in real time, as it currently evolves in Bolivia. Evo Morales’ political party, called MAS (Movement Toward Socialism) won the 2020 elections. The MAS candidates assured the Bolivian voting public that they would remain independent of their former leader. Numerical analysis suggests that a significant portion of the Bolivian voting population was revolted by Evo’s cheating following the 2016 referendum.
But now Morales is attempting to impose himself on his party’s elected officials, from his feudal stronghold in the coca-producing region of Chapare. It remains to be seen whether the elected president and vice president can shake off the shackles imposed on them without risking their political futures. Elected Republicans find themselves in a similar predicament.
Alleged sex scandals
Both Trump and Morales have been besieged by lawyers pursuing sex-related crimes. Twenty-six women have accused Trump of sexual misconduct. Evo Morales is being sued by feminist lawyer Paola Barriga, demanding that he pay child support in a case in which he allegedly fathered a child with a 15-year-old girl. And there are other pending cases against Morales.
Both Trump and Morales call such allegations “political persecution.” But both have been known to flaunt the power-sex connection, as Trump did with his infamous “grab them by the pussy” quote. Evo Morales competes on equal footing. In 2011 Evo declared:
“When I go to the small towns, all the women end up pregnant, and on their stomachs, it says: ‘Evo gets the job done’.” (“Cuando voy por los pueblos, quedan todas la mujeres embarazadas y en sus barrigas dice: ‘Evo cumple’.”)
Environment
Morales and Trump differ in the realm of environmental discourse. Morales presided over one of the most radically environmental constitutions in 2009, while Trump never denied that he was the fossil-fuel president. By the time Trump became Deregulator-in-Chief, Morales was deregulating his own policies:
- Providing an opening for the use of GMOs and biofuels,
- Allowing increased burning of forest lands on behalf of the beef export business
- Planning mega-dam projects
- Relying more heavily on extractivist industry (mining/fossil fuels)
For a background on reactions by Bolivian indigenous people and environmental activists to Evo’s policies, see “The Left Won in Bolivia but Don’t Rejoice Yet.”
The hidden enemy of democratic socialism
Reformers on the left need to start examining the leader behind the “socialist” label. When a leader’s characteristics start looking like the opposite of what the reform goal was, we need to face the cold, hard truth.
The democratic left lost an entire 20th century because of the narcissism and cult-of-personality of leaders put into power by legitimate revolutions. These leaders then bathed in that power, allowing it to eclipse the revolutionary principles that propped them up in the first place.
The Bernie Sanders’ motto of “Not me. Us!” could be the precondition to shut off the narcissism that can plague leaders on the right and, sadly, on the left as well.
