"On December 14th, the ultraconservative politician José Antonio Kast won a runoff election to become Chile's next President. With his victory, the growing club of right-wing leaders in Latin America acquired a new member. Viktor Orbán, the Hungarian autocrat, sent Kast effusive congratulations. So did Elon Musk, who has fought a running battle with left-wing politicians in the region. President Donald Trump took credit for his win, adding, "I hear he's a very good person.""
"But, for observers of a historical bent, the outcome of the election presents an uncomfortable irony. Kast's father, a German émigré, was a former Nazi officer, which means that the country that once gave refuge to the war criminal Walther Rauff—who oversaw mobile gas vans that killed roughly a hundred thousand Jews in the Second World War—has elected the son of another Nazi as President."
"The news from Latin America has been dominated by Trump's efforts to impose his version of the Monroe Doctrine-an ethos of blatant interventionism that includes endorsing electoral candidates, then crying fraud if they underperform; imposing his will through sanctions and punitive tariffs; and deploying the U.S. Navy off the Venezuelan coast to threaten President Nicolás Maduro's regime."
On December 14, José Antonio Kast won Chile's presidential runoff, representing an ultraconservative turn and adding Chile to a growing group of right-wing Latin American leaders. International praise arrived from Viktor Orbán, Elon Musk, and Donald Trump. The regional context included aggressive U.S. interventionism characterized by candidate endorsements, sanctions, punitive tariffs, and naval pressure toward Venezuela. Chilean political figures responded with conciliatory acknowledgments from Kast's opponent Jeanette Jara and incumbent Gabriel Boric. The election revived controversial historical questions because Kast's father was a German émigré and a former Nazi officer, raising concerns about far-right legacies and historical memory.
Read at The New Yorker
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