University of New Hampshire University of New Hampshire Scholars' Repository Honors Theses and Capstones Student Scholarship Spring 2018 An American Hugo Chávez? Investigating the Comparisons between Donald Trump and Latin American Populists Charlotte Blair Harris University of New Hampshire, Durham Follow this and additional works at: https://scholars.unh.edu/honors Part of the Communication Technology and New Media Commons, Critical and Cultural Studies Commons, Latin American Languages and Societies Commons, Latin American Studies Commons, Political Science Commons, and the Social Influence and oliticalP Communication Commons Recommended Citation Harris, Charlotte Blair, "An American Hugo Chávez? Investigating the Comparisons between Donald Trump and Latin American Populists" (2018). Honors Theses and Capstones. 432. https://scholars.unh.edu/honors/432 This Senior Honors Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by the Student Scholarship at University of New Hampshire Scholars' Repository. It has been accepted for inclusion in Honors Theses and Capstones by an authorized administrator of University of New Hampshire Scholars' Repository. For more information, please contact [email protected]. An American Hugo Chávez? Investigating the Comparisons between Donald Trump and Latin American Populists An Honors Thesis by CHARLOTTE B. HARRIS University of New Hampshire May 2018 Department of Communication 1 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The research and writing of this paper has been an exciting and enjoyable process, in large part due to the people who made it possible. First and foremost I would like to thank my faculty mentor, Professor Michael Soha, for bringing his guidance and wealth of knowledge, not to mention enthusiasm, to this process. The idea for this project first came about in Professor Soha’s Spring 2016 Media and Politics course and he has been an avid supporter ever since. I would not have been able to explore the topic in so much depth without the generous support of a Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship from the Hamel Center from Undergraduate Research. This opportunity was made possible through the generous donations of Mr. Dana Hamel and Dr. Adrian Kerrison, in addition to funding from the Grand Challenges for the Liberal Arts Initiative. I am proud to present my work as a testament to the power of the humanities in examining and offering solutions for society’s pressing issues. The interdisciplinary nature of my project would not have been possible without the support of the fantastic professors in the Communication and Spanish departments, where I was fortunate to have the opportunity to hone my interests and expand my knowledge of many of the topics explored in this paper. Finally, I would like to express my gratitude to my family and friends, whose encouragement and support has been of utmost importance during the course of this project. 2 ABSTRACT AN AMERICAN HUGO CHÁVEZ? INVESTIGATING THE COMPARISONS BETWEEN DONALD TRUMP AND LATIN AMERICAN POPULISTS CHARLOTTE B. HARRIS, B.A., UNIVERSITY OF NEW HAMPSHIRE Advised by: Professor Michael Soha Following the 2016 presidential election of populist outsider Donald Trump, several think pieces throughout the popular press conjectured a comparison between Trump and former Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez. Citing their populist rhetoric, brash and coarse sense of humor, and shared propensity for fiery tirades against the press, these articles made foreboding predictions about the status of American democracy. However, these short and sometimes anecdotally-based opinion pieces failed to acknowledge several important differences between Trump and Latin American populists like Chávez. This paper will address this gap in understanding by evaluating the comparison from an academic perspective. Through in-depth case studies of the political and social contexts of Donald Trump, Hugo Chávez, and another Latin American populist, Rafael Correa, the paper will consider the veracity and implications of a comparison among the leaders. Furthermore, the paper will explore how these comparisons inform the intersection of government, media, and democracy. 3 TABLE OF CONTENTS Acknowledgements 2 Abstract 3 Introduction 5 I – “America’s Hugo Chávez”: Musings from the Op-Ed Column 8 II – Identifying “The Press” 12 III – Defining Populism 14 IV – Populism in Latin America 20 V – Hugo Chávez 23 VI – Rafael Correa 26 VII – Donald Trump 30 VIII – Populists and Media 35 IX – The Role of the Media in Democracy 48 V – The Implications of Populism for Democracy 50 VI – Examining the Validity of Trump-Chávez Comparisons 55 References 57 4 Introduction “America’s Hugo Chávez.” “A Peronist on the Potomac.” “Pinochet. Chávez. Trump?” “Presidente Trump.” “El Donaldo.” These were just some of the headlines from various major news outlets in the months surrounding Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential victory, which seemed to suggest that Trump was America’s answer to a trend of Latin American strongmen with populist rhetoric and authoritarian tendencies. The comparisons attempted to offer an explanation for the great success and electoral victory of Trump, a celebrity businessman who had risen to political prominence in 2011 by questioning the veracity of then-President Obama’s birth certificate. It was a trajectory that perplexed many, particularly those with whom Trump’s message didn’t resonate. The comparison to Latin American populism was one possible explanation. The idea came from Latin Americans themselves, by foreign correspondent journalists, and also, of course, by those with no real grasp on Latin America’s political realities. As such, the articles ranged from sweeping, baseless generalizations about the often misunderstood region and its complex political trends to actually useful, informed arguments about the nature of the similarities. On the surface level, the comparisons seemed to have at least some merit: both Chávez and Trump were undeniably populist, appealing to an aggrieved base of “the people” and promising to wrest power from the corrupt elite and restore it to the rightful citizens. They were also similar in that they positioned themselves as the sole arbiters of this restoration of justice. Their behavioral conduct, too, was case for comparison. Trump’s rejection of conventional presidential etiquette likens him more to charismatic but crass Latin American strongmen than it 5 does to the mostly demure and carefully curated performances of recent American presidents. The most distinctive similarity, however, may be the simultaneous use and abuse of communication channels, a technique perfected by the Latin American populist. TV-friendly antics paired with rages against the very networks that gave him a mouthpiece; Twitter rampages that read like a disorganized stream of consciousness – these were all hallmarks of Latin American populists long before Trump ever came along. Still, these comparisons between Trump and Latin American populist leaders may obscure more than they enlighten. When it comes to presidents with such completely distinct political ideologies (Trump is a right-wing nationalist, whereas Chávez marries nationalist rhetoric with socialist economics), not to mention drastically different political contexts, equating them on the basis of some outward comparisons can hardly be considered careful, thorough research. And some of the articles’ foreboding warnings that the U.S. will imminently dissolve into economic chaos and political ruin like Venezuela did following Chávez’s leadership, is simply unsubstantiated fear-mongering and a sure conflation of association with causation. The most useful result of these comparisons, rather than assuming that the outcome of authoritarian leaders in Latin America will also happen here in the U.S., may be that they force us to confront the limits of our own democratic structures and consider the potential threats of a leader who reads more like a foreign strongman populist than a tame establishment politician as usual. This paper will address this missing academic perspective in the comparisons between Donald Trump and Hugo Chávez by analyzing the comparison from a scholarly standpoint. The 6 comparison between Trump and Chávez will be supplemented by considering another, more contemporary Latin American populist figure, Rafael Correa of Ecuador. In particular, this discussion between the similarities of Trump and Latin American populists will center on the common adversarial relationship with the media that each has cultivated. The discussion will begin by establishing a broad theoretical basis to build from. The paper will explore definitions of “the press,” summarize arguments on the role of the press in a democracy, describe the normative relationships between the media and the president and understand how deviations from this norm affect the efficacy of the political system. From there, the paper will apply this general concepts to specific case studies. The political and socioeconomic context of Venezuela and Ecuador helps to illustrate the rise of Hugo Chávez and Rafael Correa, respectively, to political prominence and the potency of his message. The paper will examine Chávez and Correa’s actions once in power, particularly in terms of their relationship with the media. Next, the paper will discuss the various factors that played into the success of Donald Trump in the 2016 American presidential election. Trump’s attitudes towards the media will be compared with those of Chávez and Correa. The paper will