What's Going On in Latin America and Grace at the Grammys

TOPICS DISCUSSED

  • Latin America: Elections and Political Trends

  • Outside of Politics: The Grammys

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EPISODE RESOURCES

In addition to our Quarterly Book Club (starting in February) where we’ll be reading The Big Break by Ben Terris* and Her Country by Marissa R. Moss*, we’re returning to the basics with Democracy in America by Alexis De Tocqueville.* We’ll be reading Democracy in America slowly (it’s dense) over the next six months and discussing monthly on our Premium Channels on Patreon and Apple Podcast Subscriptions.

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TRANSCRIPT

Sarah [00:00:07] This is Sarah Stewart Holland.  

Beth [00:00:09] This is Beth Silvers.  

Sarah [00:00:10] You're listening to Pantsuit Politics.  

Beth [00:00:12] Where we take a different approach to the news.  

[00:00:14] Music interlude  

Sarah [00:00:29] Thank you for joining us here today. During our conversation about the southern border on Friday, we mentioned several countries in South America in passing, and we didn't want to do that. We want to spend more time with the people in countries of Latin America here today. We're going to have a lot of elections in that continent over the coming months. So we want to talk about that. We want to talk about some of the reforms. Lots of very interesting things happening in Latin America that we think are relevant to your life. We have a country using Bitcoin as legal tender. We have a country going through multiple constitutional referendums that we think is applicable to us here in the United States. We have some threats about, oh, you want to send migrants back to our country? Well, then you better leave us alone on this front. So we got lots to share. We think you're going to find it interesting. And then, of course, at the end of the show, we'll talk about what's on our mind Outside of Politics. And we're going to talk about the Grammys.  

Beth [00:01:22] Before we get into all of that, we are celebrating an anniversary here. We wanted to share that with you. Somehow, our first book I Think You're Wrong, (But I'm Listening). A Guide to Grace-Filled Political Conversation is five years old as we're recording today.  

Sarah [00:01:36] It's going to kindergarten, Beth. Can you believe? Can you believe our book is starting school?  

Beth [00:01:39] Our little book that was the impetus for me to quit my full time job. When we signed the contract for our book, that's when I felt like, okay, I can really commit to this. This is legitimate. It is a thing. And now we have had former Secretary of State and First lady and Senator Hillary Clinton call it a book club staple. And thousands of people across the country have read it, and we've had the honor and privilege to connect with many of those groups, to speak about it on college campuses and in businesses and civic organizations across the country. And a lot has changed since we wrote that book, but we remain very proud of it. And I really feel like the 10 principles that we set out in that book continue to be a guidepost and accountability measure for me as I continue to do this work here with you, Sarah. So happy birthday, I Think You're Wrong, (But I'm Listening). And if you have not read it, we think this year is the perfect time to come back around to how do we sit with one another through a lot of disagreement and find ways forward in ourselves and in our relationships?  

Sarah [00:02:45] Agreed. All right. Up next, we're going to talk about Latin America.  

[00:02:48] Music Interlude  

[00:02:57] All right, Beth, let's start at the beginning. As the famous musical says, a very good place to start. We're going to talk about Latin America. What do we mean by Latin America? Well, we mean a broad region of the Americas where languages derived from Latin are spoken. There's really not a precise definition about this region. Central America, South America, Mexico, Islands of the Caribbean. It's an all encompassing term that we're going to use here today.  

Beth [00:03:23] Ellen and I watched another Julie Andrews movie this weekend. It was her first time really sitting down paying attention to Mary Poppins, which she loved. And I was thinking about that as you were kicking us off, because this region can feel to me a little bit like the nursery where things have not been put away. I don't have a good system for organizing what's happening here. I just know that it's important. I know these are our neighbors. I know that everything that happens here affects our policies. I think sometimes we feel that we can come in and snap our fingers and put all the things away, and we forget how much agency and history and passion exists around the issues that we're going to discuss today. So I'm looking forward to trying to build some new scaffolding in my brain to organize what's happening in this very diverse region of the world.  

Sarah [00:04:12] I struggle in the same way to sort of organize how I want to think about this, how we should talk about this. We started by saying we want to talk about the elections because there have been several major elections in Latin America. And then, of course, we keep saying here at Pantsuit Politics that a majority of the world is going to vote in elections, some more free and fair than others. But many of those elections are going to take place in Latin America and I don't want to just say that as like, this is what's going to happen and then never revisit, like, how's that rolling out? And so we wanted to talk about some of these elections that happened. But even when I got into that, I thought, wait, wait, wait, how am I placing this country? So I went and looked and said, okay, wait, what are the biggest countries in Latin America with regards to GDP and population. Number one, Brazil. It's a behemoth. It's the seventh largest country in the world. It's a big, big country. Then of course you have Mexico, Colombia, Argentina. And three of those four have had big elections recently. Mexico has one coming this year, so I thought we'd start there. But even as we start to talk about the countries, you're going to see similar trends when you read about these elections, when you read about the struggles for reform or the struggles with gang violence or whatever, you see the same things come up over and over again.  

Beth [00:05:38] I think the hardest thing to take in as you watch this patterns is there just isn't a lot of optimism in Latin America right now because you have weak governments overall. And sometimes the reaction to a weak government, as we'll talk about as we go along, is to put in an authoritarian person. But an authoritarian person is not the same as building a strong, durable, sustainable government. And those authoritarian people facilitate another gigantic issue for this region, which is corruption. That corruption blends with slow economic growth, high inflation and unemployment. And that means that you have constantly growing income inequality here. And again these are recipes for instability in a country. It's kind of a self-reinforcing cycle.  

Sarah [00:06:29] Yeah. You have a real powder keg with regards to corruption, with regards to gang violence, with regards to strong military who often have greater authority than we would recognize here in the United States. And Latin America's birth rate is falling, which is a demographic energy source. A lot because people are leaving and coming to the United States, which we talked about on Friday's episode. And so when you look at these trends and then you start to see how they're playing out in some of the biggest players in the region, I'll start with Brazil, they kicked out Bolsonaro and elected Lula in 2022. And since then, Lula has come in and tried to do exactly what he said he was going to try to do, which was make massive, massive economic reforms. And for the most part, they seem to be working. Brazil is a bright spot in the region, which is good because it's also the biggest player in the region.  

Beth [00:07:29] If you need a little bit of review on those names. Bolsonaro is the sort of Trump figure in Brazil, actually explicitly tied now to the Trump family. Has spent time in the United States to escape potential prosecution in Brazil. And Lula is a former president of Brazil who was re-elected to come in as a reformer. And as Sarah said, he has focused on taxation and constitutional strength of the government to build a foundation that can continue past his term.  

Sarah [00:08:02] What's so interesting is when I was reading about some of these reforms, Bolsonaro did it too. He had a congressional approved pension reform. They raised the retirement age before him. There was a center right candidate who modernized the labor laws. And I was reading an expert that said the state ran out of money, so something had to happen. So it's really interesting to me that I think in Brazil, across different types of candidates, you see these really dramatic economic reforms. Here's what caught me off guard, Beth. So under Brazil's constitution, which was enacted in 1988-- listen, I could get real nerdy on constitutions across these countries and the different ways they're organized. I think it's really, really fascinating. So in Brazil and their constitution, all three levels of government have the power to levy taxes. Can you imagine? And so what happened was, they got a lot of taxes. When you have 27 states and over 5000 municipalities that have the power to tax, it gets wild. We have the power to tax here, but it's not value added taxes. It's not consumption taxes. And so that's what they're really trying to rein in. They're trying to say like, look, this is too much. I read a statistic from the World Bank that they said it took companies 1500 hours a year to comply with Brazilian tax law, compared with a global average of 234 hours. So they just had this proliferation, this overactive tax system. And so he's trying to pull that back in. But, of course, even that you have parties that thrive. I think that's what you see across the countries in Latin America. Any reform is going to affect the status quo. And the people with power under the status quo, they don't like that. And so they're going to fight back. And you're seeing that even with some of these tax reforms in Brazil.  

Beth [00:09:48] When you are thinking about how to increase confidence in government, I think that simplifying these tax rates is a really smart way to go. I see in my Facebook feed here in the United States constantly people complaining about the fairness of taxes. About why is it that the government taxes our money when we earn it, when we spend it, and when we die? There are like lots of memes that show up for me. And I think on the one hand, we need to more clearly articulate to people the importance of taxes and stability. You don't want to be a country that runs out of money. Look at what happens when a government runs out of money. But on the other hand, I do think there is something really valuable in simplifying the way that taxes are paid so that people can understand that more clearly and see a more direct tie of my contribution and what it is contributing to. It gets hard, and we've made it very, very hard here in the United States, trying to deal with every way in which that taxation scheme can be manipulated, trying to make sure that it isn't regressive and increasing inequality. So it's a delicate balance, and I'm interested to learn what we can learn from this attempt in a totally different context to find that balance.  

Sarah [00:11:05] Yeah, because the bigger and more complex the system is, also the more rife it is for corruption. You can hide a lot in a system that's that big and that complicated. And, look, I think what's so interesting when we talk about the next biggest player in the region, Colombia, is you have a far left wing president, the first left wing president in the country's history, Gustavo Petro, who was elected in 2022. Same thing, trying to push through tax reforms. He kind of got off to a good start. He had a moderate coalition. He was doing some of the reforms he wanted. He was modernizing the tax system. Now he's struggling. He's got a lot of scandals, a lot of corruption. They're seeing his son is being charged with having some narco money. And that's really affecting his approval rating. It's tanked and he's getting very defensive as people are rife to do. And his party just took a beating in local elections at the end of 2023. So he's really, really struggling.  

Beth [00:12:02] I think that's something for us to learn from as well. You try to elect someone who is a reformer, you have to give them some runway. And the next election almost always comes before they've had enough runway to do everything that they need to do. But you also need accountability. I mean, I see the potential for abuse of the reformers. That's a historic trend. People come in saying, I'm going to clean this up, and it's all projection, and they end up just contributing to the same problems that predated them. Which I think is an interesting transition to Argentina. I am watching with interest what happens here.  

Sarah [00:12:39] Endlessly fascinated by Argentina. So if you didn't follow it last year, at the end of 2023, Javier Milei was elected. Okay, so if you're just kind of following the big picture of the election and you're fitting it into your box, you'd be like, I don't like him. Because he's libertarian. He's a right wing populist. He was sort of very inflammatory. And he was going up against the Peron party. And what was super interesting to me at the time, is the reporting was like basically the Peron party candidate came out and be like, I'll increase all the money the government gives you and pays you. I'll just give you some more money. Almost like a bribe was sort of the campaign proposal. Still lost because of the inflation. Again, this is a theme across Latin America. Inflation had soared in Argentina. Over 140% inflation. Poverty was getting terrible. And so Javier Milei came in and said, elect me, I'm going to change everything. And sometimes people over promise. He in fact did not. He has come in with massive changes. He put in a package of over 300 measures to deregulate many sectors of Argentina's economy. He's bringing in a ton of privatization, which global economists like. He's trying to link their currency to the dollar. It's wild. I mean, he is making massive changes. And maybe it's just because he's an economist. So he's like, you're not going to terminate me. I'm ready.  

Beth [00:13:59] I don't know that we have the right words for this guy. I think where I have struggled-- I don't automatically dislike a libertarian. I think we learn a lot from libertarians. I think libertarians are really usually interesting thinkers, but libertarianism and populism tend not to go together. And you see in these measures anti populism in that use of the dollar versus an Argentinian currency. There's just a lot of things here that feel contradictory, and all I can do is sit and wait and see how they turn out. And what can we learn from this experimental approach to government? I am skeptical of someone who comes in thinking, no, I've got this figured out, and I have a prescription for what ails us. Just in my old age I'm becoming increasingly skeptical of people who believe they really understand and they have the key, and if only everyone would do what they want, things would be fine. But I hope that he has some successes here for the people who have put their trust and faith in him.  

Sarah [00:15:01] Well, he's trying to do a lot very quickly, and people don't like it. Again, the people with the status quo, the people who have power and money under this old Peron party focused form of government where you had a lot of state owned companies, where you have a lot of regulations that sort of pick winners and losers. Because that, to me, is the theme. It seems like we're going to stop. We're not picking winners and losers anymore. The market can do that, which in theory I agree with. But you have the trade unions are putting forth a fierce opposition to him. There's lots of nationwide strikes. He does not seem to be intimidated by that, but I think it will only get worse. I mean, that's a lot of change very, very quickly.  

Beth [00:15:45] I think (not to bring everything back to American presidential politics) if you are struggling to understand demographic trends of voters in the United States, understanding that there is a surge of interest in a free market in Latin America should help you understand why Hispanic voters are more and more trending to the Republican Party in the United States. The Republican Party has very effectively mobilized on a message that compares Democratic policies here in the United States to failed policies throughout Latin America. And I hope that becomes clear the more that we talk, that we have to find a healthy way to advance ideas about income inequality, for example, in the United States, without walking into a context that is anathema to a whole lot of people because of the places that they're coming from.  

Sarah [00:16:42] Well, and what's interesting to me about Javier Milei, I think shows a micro trend. Because if you look at Guatemala, you have another outsider candidate, a reformer, Bernardo Arevelo, who is a part of the Seed Movement party that was founded by academics. So I think that's super interesting that you would have political movements that are, like, we're done with the politicians. We need some academics to come in and say we have ideas that we think might be applicable. You have an economist in Argentina. And, look, Arevelo swept. He got 61% of the vote. He was running against a former first lady who was like on her third run and he swept. He was the son of the Guatemala's first democratically elected president. So it's not like he didn't have any experience in politics, but he was a career diplomat and an academic. He's a part of this party. He's vowing-- again, central theme-- to tackle corruption. So I think that's another very interesting trend.  

Beth [00:17:43] The way that countries across the world just keep reaching for who can we trust? Who does feel credible to me? Who does feel like a problem solver to me? We don't want to do politicians. Okay, we'll try a businessman. Okay, let's try some academics. I think it'll be interesting to see countries start to gravitate towards more religious leaders. I think that's what you do see in people like Viktor Orban, for example, people who speak at least the language of religion to try to pull people's trust in. But this is a very experimental time.  

Sarah [00:18:12] Well, and I have to say, we're going to talk about elections that are coming up. But I wanted to mention Ecuador. Ecuador was one of the countries that I think has just been in the news a lot, and it's hard to understand what's going on there. It's hard to put a framework about what's happening there, because there are some very scary stories coming about Ecuador. Massive amounts of violence. You had terrorists taking over like a news broadcast. And so I did want to spend a minute talking about what's happening there. Again, they had another outsider candidate. Noboa who'd been a lawmaker but was really part of one of Latin America's richest families. His father had ran unsuccessfully several times, but it looked like people were ready for kind of a newer face. He's very young. And then his attorney general, Diana Salazar, comes in with this metastasis. This is what they called the investigation. Because they got this big drug lord, he was convicted and they got 16 of his mobile phone. So they had this trove of information about the gangs in Ecuador, and so they launched this massive investigation. And from what I've read, what really kicked off the violence recently was that they were going to put two of the big leaders in the one of the main high security prisons. One of them escaped. The other one really fought back. They didn't want to go to the high security prisons. They were afraid for their own lives. And so the gangs just full force went out. And there's just been a massive upsurge in violence. And the homicide rate has quadrupled. It was already on the upswing since2018. It's higher rate than Mexico. It's a higher rate than Colombia. And so even before their election last year, they had this reformer candidate and he was shot and killed 11 days before the election. So lots of scary, violent stories coming out of Ecuador. And when you see that it's really centralized around this fight against the gangs, you realize how powerful those parties are in this country and a lot of other countries across Latin America.  

Beth [00:20:20] And, again, how self-reinforcing that is. So even as the government is trying to do work to clean that up, if you are not just baseline keeping people with some feeling of safety, how are they to trust leadership? How are they to trust that the next election will be free and fair? It's just a really difficult hole to get out of once you're in it. And so you see people coming in promising to see change, and then you see the difficulty of seeing change. And that just is a pattern over and over with these countries.  

Sarah [00:20:49] A hole you can't get out of. I think it's a great transition to Chile.  

[00:20:52] Music Interlude.  

[00:21:03] Beth, have you been following this constitutional vote and reform in Chile? 

Beth [00:21:08] I really have not.  

Sarah [00:21:09] I hadn't either. Luckily, I subscribed to The Economist last year and they do lots of sort of world embrace. And I had seen that they were voting on constitutional reforms, but I had not tracked the whole process. You guys, this is fascinating. Listen again, I don't want to put everything through the lens of our American experience. But so often we talk about like a constitutional convention. What would this look like? And I think that there is a lesson here for us from Chile. Okay. So they kicked off this discussion around constitutional reforms in 2019. They had these violent protests over inequality. Again, another theme. So politicians in Chile said, okay, let's rewrite the Constitution. This constitution had been in place since Pinochet. People didn't like it. Let's rewrite it. Everyone was like, cool, let's do it. Okay, so the first assembly to rewrite the constitution was dominated by far left politicians, and they really alienated people. There was language around culturally appropriate food and all this sort of culture war stuff, global culture war. You think we're the only ones fighting this? We're not. And so people hated it. So that went to referendum in 2022. Nearly two thirds of Chileans voted against the charter. So they had the first round. Then the politicians were like, okay, let's try again. Let's try another symbol. But before they did that, this is the part I thought you would really like. They're like, let's find some moderation just built into the formula. We'll have 12 principles that we'll agree will be maintained in the new charter, including independence of the central bank. They had 24 legal experts. Again, bringing in the academics. Let's get them in to write a first draft. So they had 24 legal experts come in and work on this first draft. One of the [inaudible] president for this part of the process called it, it was defined by political realism. I thought that would speak to your heart, Beth.  

Beth [00:23:01] Everything about this so far speaks to my heart. I like getting the academics involved from across the ideological spectrum. It made me think instantly of the report that was done on our Supreme Court. That seems to have just had a lot of energy behind it, and then was put in a drawer because it's so difficult to implement things that are created in this way. But I like it.  

Sarah [00:23:23] Yeah. I wish that had a happier ending, and I wish that's where we were headed. But, unfortunately, so then they still had to elect an assembly, so then it swung all the way back the other way. And this assembly was dominated by the far right. And they did not edit that draft based in political realism. They just rejected it. And they basically brought in a lot more ideas from the culture war only on the right. And this time 56% of voters rejected its proposed text. So now they've had a far left and a far right constitutional reform rejected. And they have to decide, what are we going to do? I think the president is like, we're not doing that again. I want to get back to some of the economic reforms and the pension reforms I think that he was working on, and I think they have an election coming up. But, I guess, they'll have to decide if they want to do it again. But it's so discouraging because basically the voters are like, this is pointless. It basically tuned people out of the process. Only 52% of those polled said that democracy is the best form of government after both of these rejected reforms. It's so sad.  

Beth [00:24:29] It Is sad. Big things are hard to do. That's why so many of our US laws have been built one tiny provision at a time. And when you read them all together, you're very unhappy with what you read. But you get why it's easier to go bit by bit instead of proposing an overhaul. Because while everyone says, I want an overhaul, I want an overhaul. Either that totally reflects my views or that is very moderate and pragmatic, once people see it, it's too much change at one time for the public to embrace. Kind of reminds me of how I think we've had a similar dynamic unfolding around comprehensive immigration reform here in the United States. And I feel like we are now in the phase of this ideologically diverse group of senators, put a lot of work into trying to find something that balanced all the interests, and the ideologues are rejecting it outright and rejecting it both in substance, but even more in process. It's like we don't want to balance the interests. We don't want a diverse group of thinkers on this incredibly complex problem. It is really discouraging. It does make you think like, man, democracy requires more patience than we have sometimes.  

Sarah [00:25:42] Well, yeah, because you're looking at something and you're like, we have to have big changes. How are we going to get at corruption? How are we going to get at gang violence a little bit at a time? But then you come in there and you-- this is a good transition to El Salvador, which we're going to talk about next. You come in there with a hammer, but you can't do anything until you basically share the processes that keep you from making big changes, which people don't like anyway. But how do you get to actual reforms without big changes?  

Beth [00:26:06] We do have a hammer at work in El Salvador that the people of El Salvador have decided to keep in place for now. The president, Nayib Bukele, has been very popular because he came in and said, I'm going to deal with these gangs. And he has. National homicide rate has decreased significantly from 51 per 100,000 people in 2018 to 3 per 100,000 people last year. Very big deal.  

Speaker 3 [00:26:33] Wow.  

Beth [00:26:34] But to make that happen, he has suspended due process rights for tens of thousands of people. Eight percent of young men in El Salvador are incarcerated right now. He has fired judges. He decided to run for president again even though El Salvador's constitution says you cannot serve consecutive terms. And the judiciary is backing him up, probably because they've watched him fire a lot of their colleagues.  

Sarah [00:27:02] Because they're cronies.  

Beth [00:27:03] But he ran again, anyway, with the backing of the judiciary and with 31% of the votes. And he is sitting at 83%. And his party New Ideas is on course to get almost all 60 seats in a very slimmed down national legislature, which is up from 56 of 84 seats in the old one. So you can see people do like an autocrat to come in and deal with one specific situation. And when that specific situation is so desperate, it's hard to get everyone to step back and say, at what cost is this happening? The bill will come due on all of these autocratic changes that he has made, but for now, the people are happy that their primary issue has been addressed.  

Sarah [00:27:49] Yeah. He's fascinating. He's kind of slick. Pretty young. And you hear him say, like, the people want me to keep serving. Why should I be term limited? And there's a part of me that's like fair. It's fair. But when you're using the system to prop yourself up in the way that he is... And I read this heartbreaking interview with this family whose sons had been all arrested. And they were, like, they went to school, they didn't do anything, but they're just sweeping through arresting everybody. You don't have any due process rights. You can't get out. And he's got to run out of room because the economy in El Salvador is not great. It's not growing enough to pay for all this investment in education because he built this big, fancy library and he's giving all the kids laptops, but they don't have enough money to do the things that he wants to do. And so what I think is super interesting about El Salvador is he's really pushing hard on cryptocurrency. So it became the first country in 2021 to make Bitcoin legal tender. And at first they really pissed off the world banks. The World Bank was like, we don't like this. Please stop. But he's kind of double down. They have this freedom visa, which is a 10 year tax holiday to anyone who invest $1 million of cryptocurrency in the country. He's issuing Bitcoin bonds, he's doing all this bitcoin stuff trying to prop up the economy, which I just I'm going to tell you, Beth, I don't think it's a great long term plan. I'm just going to be honest.  

Beth [00:29:04] I also feel some red flags coming up in my mind around the corruption potential of that. It's hard for me to take on good faith that this is just a brilliant idea that he has, that he really thinks is going to do the most good for his country.  

Sarah [00:29:18] Yeah, because all his top advisors are basically his brothers. He has doubled the size of the army. Another red flag that I don't love. And he's done all this interesting election machinations around the diaspora. So, I mean, 740,000 of the 6.2 million registered voters in El Salvador live out of the country. And so he takes all of their ballots from abroad and puts them in San Salvador, where the number of undecided seats are the highest. So there's just so much manipulation here. I'm glad he's dropped the murder rate. And this election was on Sunday guys, and he swept. So it's just interesting to watch, like you said, do people just want a strongman? But the people whose children are in jail that they can't get out, I'm sure don't. And you have no legal recourse at this point. And even if you did, he's fired so many of the judges. It's a lot to take in.  

Beth [00:30:12] It's the answer to your question why can't he serve again if he's super popular? The question that he seems to be posing. Because our protection is in the process. Our protection is in saying, hey, you may have done a really good job, but you can't be a forever president because, again, a government is more than one person. And if you have, at the end of your term, accomplished a political priority, good for you. But if you have done it at the expense of the whole, that will be your legacy. Ultimately, unless you manage to degrade the whole so that you hang on to power forever. And that to me is the risk. I have a real bad feeling about Nayib Bukele. I'm going to watch and hope for the best, but I fear the worst there.  

Sarah [00:30:57] Same. Don't feel great about him. So we just had this major election in El Salvador, and of course, we have a presidential election coming up in June in Mexico, which is getting a lot of press coverage, Beth.  

Beth [00:31:08] It's very unusual for Mexico and the United States to have presidential elections in the same year. It's also interesting in Mexico that two women are currently leading the polls. One of those women is Claudia Sheinbaum, who is really the protege of the current president of Mexico president. His supporters call him AMLO, President Obrador. His leftist Morena party, which he created, has been very popular. And Sheinbaum is saying, just let me keep doing that job. We've reduced poverty. Let me continue to work on that. The argument from the primary opponent here whose name is Xochitl Galvez, who is an indigenous leader and tech entrepreneur, is that maybe you guys have reduced poverty. You have not reduced violent crime, and more importantly, you're hurting the system in the process of doing what you want to do. Galvez is leading a three party coalition focused on democracy, and they say President Obrador has so consolidated power that it has enabled him to increase social spending by 25%. And yes, for now, that has reduced poverty. But in the long term, what's that going to do? The Economist Intelligence Unit has downgraded Mexico from a flawed democracy to a hybrid regime. And we've talked about some of these measures on the show before. President Obrador stripped funding from Mexico's election watchdog. He has significantly harmed the independence of other portions of government. Now, the Supreme Court struck down part of that election watchdog funding issue. But, overall, Obrador has some short term gains at the cost of the long term. At least that's the argument from Galvez and the three parties that she's representing.  

Sarah [00:33:05] Yeah, I think open doors are really a mixed bag. And I think that he represents this trend of like they get in there and they take the power and they degrade the institutions and try to prevent competition or try to prevent criticism or try to prevent any sort of transparency or accountability. And I think if you want to go all the way to the extreme and see how that plays out, then you just have to go to Venezuela, where we've had Nicolas Maduro in office since 2013. So he gets in there, he becomes a strongman. We've talked a lot on this show about the suffering caused by Maduro in Venezuela and the massive migration out of Venezuela as a result. And so when some of this happened originally, we did a lot of sanctions and punishing economic measures to get Maduro back in line. And as a part of like getting rid of the sanctions, he said, "I'll hold an election" so he's supposed to hold one. He does not seem very committed to this, nor should he be if he wants to stay in power. Because one poll said that 70% of those surveyed said they would elect his opposition leader, not him. So he's really, really unpopular. And so he's using all the bars and levers available to him to prevent any election, much less a free and fair one. And so the judiciary upheld this ban on his main rival, who's very popular. And so the United States said, listen, we're going to put these sanctions back in place. And here's what I thought was so interesting, Beth, is that the vice president of Venezuela said, well, if you do that, we will stop taking repatriated Venezuelan migrants that you keep sending back to our country in huge numbers. I thought that part of that got my attention, because it just shows you like this is not some abstract exercise. These are our neighbors. This is relevant when they're failing. Huge numbers of migrants try to come to the United States. When we try to interfere, they have this power lever. This is definitely true of Mexico as we're having remain in Mexico policies in place, it's relevant. It's very, very relevant.  

Beth [00:35:12] Yeah. And I think as we talk about these issues from a campaign perspective, they do come across like, well, U.S. policy is all that matters. And it is not. You and I are reading a book called the Commander in Chief Test that is almost making me feel like foreign policy is always and forever just a crapshoot. Maybe you make the right decisions, maybe you don't. He talks about how a good commander in chief is always in such a reactive position in terms of foreign policy, because of things like this. That you can advance what seems like a really sound policy, but you cannot predict always or account for the reactions to that policy or how another country's going to prioritize different issues. So the best that you can really do is try to mitigate risk, not take unnecessary risk, and not set the United States up as a doormat that other countries can push around. And so how you respond to that kind of clap back from Venezuela's vice president around this issue that is very, very serious for the human beings involved, the people trying to leave Venezuela and who are not being allowed to come here, I don't know what the right course of action is.  

Sarah [00:36:29] But I think these courses of action have incredibly high stakes. Whether you're talking about strongmen who are just manipulating elections, you're talking about strongmen who are denying elections or you're talking to play out a place like Haiti, which is a failed state at this point, which after the assassination of the president in July of 2021, the congressional terms have expired. They have no elected political leaders right now. Zero elected political leaders. There was a plan for Kenya to come in and bring troops to try to make that happen. The Kenyan judiciary said, absolutely not. So now there's really no plan in place to help the people of Haiti who are also flooding into the United States in large numbers. So to say the isolationism of like they're on their own, no aid, no help-- not that the people of Haiti are crying out from the help of the United States, which has often made the situation worse there. But just to say, like, it's not that simple. When you have a failed state, it raises the stakes for everyone across the globe. It's a huge, huge issue, and Haiti is an excellent example of that.  

Beth [00:37:33] And it presents again that negative momentum, because a lot of experts think that the only way to reset the dynamics in Haiti are to hold elections and put people in office and empower them and see what they can figure out. At the same time, when you have gangs in control of so much money and so much physical property, it's hard to imagine that anyone in the country will believe that this is an election being conducted fairly and with integrity. And, again, I don't know how you get out of that cycle. I believe that it can be done and I hope the best. The people of Haiti deserve so much better than what's happening there right now. It's a really complex problem.  

Sarah [00:38:16] They're all complex problems. All these elections taking place across the globe are in the context of these hugely complex problems, and that's what we wanted to do here today. We have done a very, very high level view of an entire continent of people, cultures, histories. But I think it's important to just keep in mind, when we say all these elections are taking place, the stakes are high-- not for the people that live here and the regions in the continents, but for the United States, for the entire globe. All of this matters enormously. Democracy matters enormously. And also at the same time, it's incredibly, incredibly difficult. It's a difficult task. And that's what we try to hold here at Pantsuit Politics.  

[00:38:52] Music interlude.  

[00:39:06] Beth, let's talk about voting of a very different kind. Let's talk about voting at the Grammys. The Grammys took place on Sunday night, and I was struck by how many people came up and accepted their awards and said simultaneously, this doesn't matter to me at all. I just love what I do. I'm happy. Who cares? And also, this is a big deal, and we should all try harder to do a better job at it. Which I think is great. That is the paradox of life. That is true. We should celebrate successes and also always keep them in perspective.  

Beth [00:39:33] I don't know how else you value your own artistry if you can't stay in that place of appreciating when your art is valued, but also knowing to create things that you are proud of and the response to it can't really matter all that much. So it seems healthy.  

Sarah [00:39:51] Yeah, I think so too. I thought Miley Cyrus in particular seemed very healthy and adjusted to that she was winning. She won record of the year for Flowers. She won Pop song of the year, I think for Flowers, which is not my favorite song. Hot Take. But I do love Miley and I think she seems like she's in a very healthy place.  

Beth [00:40:08] I don't like Flowers at all, but Miley's well-being seems like an absolute miracle to me, and I am thrilled every time I see her thriving and looking happy and healthy. And I'm delighted for her. And very grateful to Dolly Parton, who I think has had a strong hand in making that a reality.  

Sarah [00:40:30] Beth, also our girl Taylor Swift had a big night. But I got to say, I'm very happy for her. I am so thrilled that she broke the record and won album of the year, but I have some criticism of her behavior at the awards. Not because I don't love her, because I think criticism must exist beside love and fandom. What do you think?  

Beth [00:40:46] I totally agree, I also have some critique. But before we get to that, I do want to say I think Midnights is a terrific album.  

Sarah [00:40:53] Yeah, yeah, yeah.  

Beth [00:40:54] And completely deserving of these accolades and such an evolution of her musically, and I'm excited to see what comes next. But I think that this was well deserved for album of the year.  

Sarah [00:41:06] I definitely think she earned it. She broke the record. She now has four. That's more than any other artist. She is prolific. She works hard, so she's going to rack up some Grammys. I got no beef with that. I did not love her announcement of her upcoming album coming out in April. I'm excited about the album. Thrilled. But it felt a little awkward to me with her announcing the album in her acceptance speech for, I think, Pop Album of the Year. And I thought, you feel awkward. It doesn't feel like you're even comfortable saying this stuff, because it was clear she had some points she wanted to get across. And instead of celebrating everybody's artistry and what they've accomplished, this taking her moment to pitch it, I'm like, just do Beyonce, man. Drop it. You don't got to tell anybody. They'll find out.  

Beth [00:41:46] I think so many things about this. The main one is that for the last year, and probably more than that, but definitely for the last year, she has had a really singular experience. And I imagine that it's very hard to live constantly in this singular experience where the Embassy of Japan is commenting on your ability to fly back for your boyfriend's Super Bowl appearance. What a weird life, right? To go from that singular appearance to a place that is about a lot of people who have singular experiences, and to celebrating the fact that actually none of it is singular, that we're all part of this industry, that there are legends among and around us and before us and behind us, I think she didn't make that transition with the kind of grace that you would wish for her.  

Sarah [00:42:42] Yeah. Because she clearly loves to celebrate people. She was enjoying so many of the performances. And the celebrating people is my other critique, because I think it came from a good place. But when she won Album of the Year, I can only describe this as physically manhandling. She physically drag Lana Del Rey up on the stage with her, who was also nominated and then lost, and was happy. They were at the same table--  

Beth [00:43:07] In the category.  

Sarah [00:43:09] Yeah, in the category. Looked over at her, smiled, and then she clearly did not want to go up on the stage. And Taylor Swift was dragging her and I was like, hey, man, she doesn't want to go. And she called her out and she called her a singular artist, and she's a legacy artist. I think that's true. Lana Del Rey is not my cup of tea, but I think that is a totally true point. But I just thought like, man, you could have done that and left her in her seat. You didn't need to physically bring her up there on the stage with you. She was clearly uncomfortable.  

Beth [00:43:40] So even though Taylor said, "I just want to keep making music, I love doing all this so much," I think that there is space, and I hope that she takes this journey for her to care a little bit less about how the art is received. I think the fandom around her is interesting and fun and means a lot to a lot of people. It is too much to carry the details of the outfits and the code on the website, and needing to make the announcement the same way she has announced earlier albums. And is it going to be another Taylor’s version or something new? Like it's too much. And I kind of want her to be free of that. I'd like her to be able to release that, to say I love you all. It is so kind that you do this. And there's a point at which I have to just live my life, and you can interpret from it what you will, but I've got to live my life. And I even feel sometimes with the celebration and enthusiasm of other artists that she feels like she has to, but she feels like she has to be on her feet for it. She has to be singing along. The fact that this woman is now bringing fans with her so that people won't try to read her lips, it's just too much. And I would love for her to find a little more freedom around that. And I think that finding a little bit more freedom, backing out of that a little bit, might make her more attuned to the people around her. Because I totally agree. I just felt terrible for Lana Del Rey, who I think is incredible. And the discomfort in her face and her body in that moment, and the call on her to be so gracious about it, that's also too much. It's just too much.  

Sarah [00:45:35] Yeah. I think if you love someone-- and I do love Taylor Swift, and she has brought enormous joy to me this last year in particular-- you want for them grace under pressure. Because it is pressure. And I think this idea that everything she does is perfect and calculated is too much. And so we got to find some way to release the pressure and say, hey, I think she missed this one. Still love her music, still think she's great, but I think she missed the mark on this.  

Beth [00:45:58] Yeah, exactly.  

Sarah [00:45:58] And that's okay because otherwise you're tearing her down. We have this instinct to build people up and tear them down. And so I do think that the Grammys gave an excellent example of this in another form because I think, Beth, that Tracy Chapman is grace personified. I cannot say enough about this woman and Luke Combs, who redid her song, which could have become this nasty thing. When I first heard about it, my husband was mad. He was like, I can't believe some broke country artist has recovered this song. And I was prepared to hate the cover. And then I heard it and I was like, it's lovely. It's not that different from the original song. Like, he didn't pop it up. I thought it was respectful and great. And then she has been so gracious with the cover. And so to see them come out and sing it together, and the way he just kept looking at her, like, I'm so excited to be here, I'm letting you lead. And she just was radiating. She was truly radiating. I loved it. I didn't love that song as much when it came out, but now that I'm older, I think I appreciate it more. Just put in my veins, Beth, I loved it so much.  

Beth [00:47:26] I have always loved this song. When she says somebody's got to take care of him, my whole life that has spoken to me. And then to see the generosity of this performance from her where she adopted a little bit of his emphasis in that be someone moment, it was more his style than hers. Kind of that nod to how gracious he was in his interpretation of her song, the faithfulness that he showed to it. It was a beautiful moment. And for that to happen between Tracy Chapman and Luke Combs, people who could not be more different from one another in so many ways, I just thought that was absolutely gorgeous and set a real standard for what you're trying to achieve at the Grammys.  

Sarah [00:48:21] Yeah, especially as a person who loves country music, that's what music should be. It shouldn't be this tool in the culture wars where we battle each other over who owns this and who's doing it right and who's doing it correctly, because when it's good it speaks for itself. And I thought just the way that they both showed up-- I don't know if you noticed Michael Trotter Jr. he's a part of the War and Treaty and which is an amazing group.  

Beth [00:48:50] I love the War and Treaty.  

Sarah [00:48:51] And when he was doing Be Someone and he was standing and he was pointing his chest, like, be someone. And he was shaking his head. It was like you could see it on his face. He was there. He was feeling it. And I thought, man, this is it. Like, this is what this should be. It should not be stupid songs that we're battling. It shouldn't be the fact that you're all hating on Taylor Swift. You don't give a shit about football. You don't think she's messing with the NFL. You're mad because she's liberal. So just be honest about it. And you hate that her music has overcome the fact that this thing you want to rule Americans, which is their political partisanship, can be tamped down by just pure artistry. It was just a whole moment where I thought, oh man, the art can win. Just a good, beautiful song can be enough.  

Beth [00:49:42] Well, and there is a simplicity to it. I love the purity of performance that they achieved. Yes. And I feel similarly about the Joni Mitchell moment.  

Sarah [00:49:52] That's all.  

Beth [00:49:52] Let me just say I always love a seated performance. It makes me think of an orchestra. When the vocalist just becomes a part of the orchestra. I think when everyone sits, it's so respectful to the instrumentalist and it produces a different quality of performance. So Joni Mitchell is sitting there with all of these talented musicians, including Brandi Carlile, who's always happy to just sit down and be one of the musicians at the table too, and create something beautiful. And it was pure magic to listen to her and to watch the way that these musicians on stage were interacting with one another, and then to see the cutaway to Meryl Streep and to watch people admiring what was happening, to know that they were witnessing something very special. I loved it.  

Sarah [00:50:42] Well, this was a very female dominated Grammys. So to have Joni Mitchell-- who I think Brandi Carlile was right, there would not be Taylor Swift, there would not be What Was I Made For? Which just when she won and then Joni Mitchell came out and performed Both Sides Now, I thought, well, we can follow that thread directly from one to the other. Can't we? Both sides now, if you have just not sat in the quiet and lit a candle and listened to that song, may I recommend that to you because it will heal you. It is the most beautiful song and poetic and philosophical and true. It's true. It's a true song. And so watching her come up there and say they were descriptive songs, what she came up and did when she started spilling her soul and said I'm not just going to tell you about I want to kiss my boyfriend. I'm going to tell you about something bigger and deeper and truer. Like, she did that. She did that first. And so I think she's never performed on the Grammys before was insane to me. And then Brandi loves her. Brandi has been a part of this resurgence and encouraging her to come back out and perform. It was bittersweet and vulnerable and impactful in the best possible way. And, again, I think it's connected to Tracy Chapman, who hasn't been out, hasn't performed. Even to Miley Cyrus saying, "That's only the third time I perform that song, because I don't want to and I don't have to go on tour." I just loved all of it.  

Beth [00:52:18] Well, and I will say, Billie Eilish also does a purity of performance, right? She's just going to sit down and sing for you. And I think that What Was I Made For is the best of her voice. I just think the tone of her voice in that song is beautiful and right on for the song, and you can tell that it speaks to her. You know that it really means a lot to her. I also like Billy Joel, who sits and performs. I love to see that man at a piano. I love that he's doing a new song that sounds like one of his old songs. I still maintain that Piano Man should be our national anthem because a crowd always sounds good singing. It captures a lot of the American experience, but I was really excited to see him, too. My favorite moment, though, that I've watched so far-- I'm going to watch the full Grammys with Ellen this afternoon when she gets home from school. I promised I would wait, but I got the clips. My favorite moment was Jay-Z.  

Sarah [00:53:11] Jay-Z. "When I'm nervous, I tell the truth." We need to start cross-stitching that on samplers, because I felt it so hard when he said that. "When I get nervous, I tell the truth." Because he was speaking to the true fact that his wife has won the most Grammys but does not have an album of the year, which is an interesting pickle. I mean, SZA was the most nominated artist and got shut out of the major categories. I think he's right. I thought he was fair. He didn't seem mad or bitter. He was just like, I know it's hard, it's subjective, and y'all have gotten it wrong, and we just want you to get it right, even if that's not always available. That's a tough one. He just kind of meandered through the truth, and I dug it.  

Beth [00:53:54] That's what I love, the maturity of it.  

Sarah [00:53:57] Yeah.  

Beth [00:53:57] The way he said, "And then we boycotted, but we actually watched it in the hotel. That's the pitiful boycott." And the thing, we love this. That's why we're frustrated with it. That's why we criticize it. That nuanced approach from Jay-Z I thought was perfection. Look, I have been so in on this family since I saw Renaissance, the film. It really gave me a lot of context for them as a couple and as parents that I didn't have. And this was just a beautiful follow on to that to me.  

Sarah [00:54:30] And also, I thought it was weird that he brought blue Ivy up there with him.  

Beth [00:54:33] It felt not weird to me after having seen the film. I think they are close. She wants this. They want her to have it if she wants it. But they want to be really thoughtful about how they put her in the position to be successful.. I think they want her to integrate what they've had to learn the hard way. So it wasn't that surprising to me. And she seemed to be fine being up there, unlike Lana Del Rey. So I think there's a way to do it. And I think Jay-Z found the way.  

Sarah [00:55:07] I loved it. I think it's fun that we're all watching award show. I know your your stance on award show is a little bit different than mine, but I just think they're fun. They're a communal experience, especially around music, which is so shared. It's fun to hear artists you've never known before. It's fun to see how people react to the performance. I do have to say that I was a little concerned I was old, which is often how I felt watching the Grammys. I did not feel that as much this year, but often how I feel. With Travis Scott's performance, Nicholas was like halfway through, he goes, "I don't think Travis Scott is for me." But then I read The New York Times and people didn't like it. Even people who like Travis Scott were like, that was not a good performance. So now I feel a little less old, which made me feel better.  

Beth [00:55:47] Yeah, the Grammys for me, they're an award show, but I enjoy it more because it's a lot of performances and some unique performances, things that you don't get otherwise. And plus music is just more important to me than television or movies. I like TV and movies, but music is different to me. And the opportunity to see something like the Joni Mitchell performance, to see Billy Joel up there, to see Tracy Chapman and Luke Combs, that's special.  

Sarah [00:56:12] Yeah. If you haven't watched, go watch Tracy Chapman and Luke Combs performance, sit in a dark room and listen to both sides. Now heal yourself. You will be ready to face whatever else 2024 holds for us. Thank you for being with us today. If you enjoyed today's show and learned something about South America or the Grammys, we hope you'll give us a rating and review on your favorite podcast platform. Those reviews help new listeners find us and give them a sense of the work we are doing here, and it means so much to us and we appreciate every single one. We will be back in your ears on Friday, and until then, keep it nuanced.  

[00:56:46] Music Interlude 

Sarah: Pantsuit Politics is produced by Studio D Podcast Production. 

Beth: Alise Napp is our managing director. Maggie Penton is our director of Community Engagement. 

Sarah: Xander Singh is the composer of our theme music with inspiration from original work by Dante Lima. 

Beth: Our show is listener-supported. Special thanks to our executive producers. 

Executive Producers: Martha Bronitsky. Ali Edwards. Janice Elliott. Sarah Greenup. Julie Haller. Tiffany Hasler. Emily Holladay. Katie Johnson. Katina Zuganelis Kasling. Barry Kaufman. Katherine Vollmer. Laurie LaDow. Lily McClure. Linda Daniel. The Pentons. Tracey Puthoff. Sarah Ralph. Jeremy Sequoia. Katie Stigers. Karin True. Onica Ulveling. Nick and Alysa Villeli. Amy Whited. Emily Helen Olson. Lee Chaix McDonough. Morgan McHugh. Jen Ross. Sabrina Drago. Becca Dorval. Christina Quartararo. Shannon Frawley. Jessica Whitehead. Samantha Chalmers. The Lebo Family. The Adair Family.

Sarah: Jeff Davis. Melinda Johnston. Michelle Wood. Nichole Berklas. Paula Bremer and Tim Miller. 

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