Like Trump, Mexico’s leader demonizes journalists
When I read that Mexican president Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador called me “a fascist, fascist, fascist” at his press conference on Monday, I found it hilarious, considering my background and consistent criticism of both leftist and rightist dictatorships.
But Lopez Obrador’s insult was a perfect example of how populists across the political spectrum — from left-of-center Lopez Obrador to self-proclaimed conservative Donald Trump — are trying to distract us. They want to shift the political discussion away from the defense of democracy, and focus it on outdated ideological labels.
Lopez Obrador, Trump and other populists want us to believe that the world is divided between “fascists” and “socialists,” as if there is nothing in between. By doing so, they are not only further polarizing our societies, they are obscuring the fact that the real division in the 21st century is not between the right and the left, but between democracy and autocracy.
Lopez Obrador’s tirade against me came after my interview with Argentina’s libertarian President Javier Milei. The Mexican president claimed I induced the Argentine leader to attack him.
“The interviewer is fascist, fascist, fascist, so I think he trapped him (Milei.) They went with that purpose. It’s because that journalist from Miami...I have more than 20 years of not agreeing with him. So our dislike for one another is mutual,” the Mexican president said.
In fact, the question I had asked Milei about Lopez Obrador was almost incidental, and came amid several others on a wide range of international issues during the nearly one hour interview.
More than half an hour into the conversation, I had asked Milei for his reaction to Lopez Obrador’s claim, a few days before Argentina’s presidential elections in November, that Milei was an “ultra-conservative fascist.” Milei responded, “It’s a compliment that an ignorant person like Lopez Obrador speaks badly of me. It honors me.”
In the same interview, Milei told me that Colombian
President Gustavo Petro “was a communist assassin terrorist,” referring to Petro’s past as an M-19 guerrilla member. Petro had criticized Milei during Argentina’s presidential campaign last year, comparing him with Argentina’s late military dictator, Jorge Rafael Videla.
The Mexican president often attacks journalists who don’t agree with him, labeling them as “conservatives” or worse.
I found Lopez Obrador’s insult against me absurd, because I left my native Argentina as a young man in 1976 when a right-wing military dictatorship took power, and I wrote, in international media, against that regime from the very start. I later wrote hundreds of columns and several books in which I criticized the Cuban, Venezuelan and Nicaraguan dictatorships, as well as of Trump’s effort to stage a de facto coup by trying to illegally reverse his 2020 electoral loss.
Interestingly, while Lopez Obrador prides himself on being a “leftist,” he has not hidden his sympathy for Trump. Lopez Obrador in 2023 publicly expressed support for Trump in the former U.S. leader’s legal battles in various U.S. courts, and made a rare visit to Washington for a meeting with Trump during the 2020 U.S. presidential race in what was widely seen as a show of support for the former U.S. president.
The Mexican president has also been an ally of the dictators of Venezuela and Cuba. In 2023, Lopez Obrador decorated Cuba’s dictator Miguel DiazCanel with the Order of the Aztec Eagle, Mexico’s highest medal for foreigners.
Which brings me back to my main point: Don’t get confused by populists’ efforts to distract us with ancient political labels. In today’s world, in which China claims to be “communist” while offering no rights to its workers, the concepts of right and left, or fascism and communism, have lost much of their meaning.
The real political division nowadays is between democracy and dictatorship. Now, more than ever, we should remind ourselves that there is no such thing as a good dictator, and that absolute power corrupts absolutely.
Don’t miss the “Oppenheimer Presenta” TV show on Sundays at 9 pm E.T. on CNN en Español. Blog: andresoppenheimer.com.