Will we ever have a Chavez-style president?
We are very blessed here in the US to have strong institutions that would probably prevent such an outcome.
Nevertheless, listening to this clip of FDR lament the power of the Supreme Court (and the principle of private contracts) makes me wonder if the next collapse of our economy will give rise to a power mad leader like Chavez.
I wonder if our institutions are so strong simply because we’ve been lucky enough to avoid major crises more often than Latin American countries have. I mean, if we had an economic disaster every 10 years like Argentina then perhaps we would have let our leaders seize more and more power, too.
Food for thought…
6 Responses to “Will we ever have a Chavez-style president?”
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Doug:
It’s an interesting thought. If there is an economic disaster that can bring an American Chavez, I bet it will be the impending health care nightmare of aging baby boomers and the plain old unisured.
It seems like we are already heading that way, though in smaller increments than Venezuela. It will be interesting to see if there is a back-lash against socialized medicine or an embracing of more centralized power. I guess we’ll see.
Thought I might also chime in on Chavez since I was in Venezuela when he came to power. Most Venezolanos that I knew seemed to think that he was a little off, but tended to think that they had a constitution, had a congress, a separate judiciary, term limits, etc. So they figured that he may do some good, but, even if he didn’t what would be the worst that could happen?
People started to wonder when he re-worte the constitution and gave imself longer term limits, but overall it seemed like faith in their democratic system was strong. We can see what has become of the constitutional democracy now.
If the Venezuelan people choos Chavez and his style, fine. But I don’t think they meant to initially–just a thought on what may happen if blind faith is put in checks and balances as a panacea.
A “Chavez-style president”?
I’m not quite sure what you mean by that. Could you clarify what a “Chavez-style president” is?
Picture a Huey Long president.
Supreme Chancellor Palpatine is a great example.
Substituting one name for another isn’t really doing anything for me. This really can’t be defined without stating it in terms of the name of a human being?
Shouldn’t take long to drag in Hitler, I suppose.
Nope. You just did.