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18 - We Latin Americans Know a Messianic Autocrat When We See One

from Part IV - Language, White Nationalism, and International Responses to Trump

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 September 2020

By
Norma Mendoza-Denton
Edited by
Janet McIntosh  and
Norma Mendoza-Denton
Janet McIntosh
Affiliation:
Brandeis University, Massachusetts
Norma Mendoza-Denton
Affiliation:
University of California, Los Angeles
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Summary

This chapter opens by exploring how Trump’s self-aggrandizing political masculinization is connected to his racism. As Trump elaborates his identity as a White supremacist strongman, he implies that only he can emasculate brown maculinities through the tools of White ethnonationalism. Trump has also praised and admired despots across the world, preferring the trappings of cold-blooded brutality to the trope of the White civilizer. The chapter goes on to discuss how Latin American leaders have responded discursively to President Trump, as each adopts a particular stance to respond to his supremacist strongman masculinity. The stances of former Mexican president Enrique Peña Nieto, for instance, precipitated anxiety about Trump’s political humiliation of Mexico and his gendered humiliation of Peña Nieto. The current president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, has opted for a dignified posture, rebuking Trump while championing the revalorization of indigenity, rurality, and the Mexican common folk. Meanwhile, Jair Messias Bolsonaro, President of Brazil, plainly admires and vociferously parrots Trump’s white ethnonationalism, echoing almost word for word the text of Trump’s campaign speeches. These Latin American leaders thus by turns vilify and emulate Trump’s posturing, whether to counter, contain, or amplify the unpredictable power of the elephantine neighbor to the North.

Keywords

Mexican politicsBrazilian politicsmasculinityracismWhite supremacyinternational relationsstanceautocracyethnonationalism
Type
Chapter
Information
Language in the Trump Era
Scandals and Emergencies
 , pp. 250 - 264
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2020

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