Editorial of the Razón de Estado program number 267

If luck allows you to still have grandparents and great-grandparents, ask them to tell you about the 20th century, its dramas, pains, advancements, and solutions. If you no longer have them, go get a good history book.

We used to think that wars and dictatorships had taught us lessons we would never repeat, especially since World War II, when, after democratic openings and thanks to freedom and respect for the law, the West, through hard work, achieved high levels of development and well-being.

But we learned nothing. Democratic values and ethical convictions in politics are losing out to the short-term interests of ambitious politicians who seek, at any cost, permanent power and easy money. Latin America, with a few exceptions, is falling into the clutches of arrogant, despotic, thieving, shameless populist politicians without scruples.

In the 21st century, we are witnessing the adulteration, discrediting, or demolition of institutions that make democratic States with a separation of powers possible. The dirty dominant political elite, often criminal, hounds the people with repression disguised as deceit, disinformation, and lies, returning them to closed societies where freedom of speech is treated as a capital offense.

Today, the world has more than 40 dictators, three of them with nuclear weapons. Three others are in Latin America. But the number of countries with a democratic façade governed by corrupt and authoritarian goons who respond to criticism with threats, imprisonment, or murder is on the rise.

That's why, if we want to avoid becoming nations subjected to tyrants, thugs, and scoundrels who readily prescribe the guillotine, the ditch, exile, or the cemetery for their opponents, we must foster a democratic awakening capable of mobilizing sufficient citizen power to reclaim the freedom that Latin America deserves.

The moral decay of the State, the democratic drift we are experiencing, and the power games of governmental mafias compel us to cease being citizens trapped in tiktoker political rhetoric.

Latin America needs its citizens in the streets, defending their rights, exposing corruption, demanding respect for the law, and shouting for freedom.