Posted on 11/17/2025 12:01:23 PM PST by E. Pluribus Unum
Latin America’s most market-friendly country veers right as surging crime and illegal immigration rattle voters
Chileans rallied behind hard-line conservatives in elections Sunday as rising anger over crime and immigration pushes the mineral-rich country to the right, setting the stage for a possible alignment with President Trump.
In the first round of a presidential vote, some 70% of voters backed the four leading right-wing candidates. José Antonio Kast, a 59-year-old ultraconservative former congressman, secured 24% of the vote, earning a spot in the Dec. 14 runoff vote.
Jeannette Jara of the Communist Party, allied with President Gabriel Boric’s leftist government, placed first with some 27%, but far short of the majority needed for an outright victory. With other leftist candidates failing to garner support, Jara is widely expected to lose to Kast in next month’s runoff, polls show.
A victory for Kast and his Republican Party marks a broader shift away from progressive governments in South America. In Argentina, President Javier Milei has consolidated his alliance with Trump and his MAGA movement. Bolivia elected a centrist, pro-market president last month after nearly two decades of socialist rule, his inauguration attended by Christopher Landau, the U.S.’s deputy secretary of state. And conservatives appear poised to do well in presidential elections in Peru and Colombia next year.
A Kast presidency could give Trump another strategic ally in Latin America as the U.S. looks to increase investments in mining while countering Chinese influence. Chile is one of Latin America’s most prosperous and developed countries. It holds about a quarter of the world’s copper and a third of global lithium reserves, essential for electric-vehicle batteries, mineral wealth that investors have found challenging to tap.
Kast has publicly praised Trump, calling his electoral win last year “a new victory...
(Excerpt) Read more at wsj.com ...
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In countries all around world, when liberals get in charge, crime and illegal immigration explode. It’s amazing how all these countries have the same issues when liberals gain power, it’s as if they are coordinated.
Chile has privatized its Social Security, and in many ways has economically turned harder right than we have, Trump and Company notwithstanding.
I heard Milei speak at CPAC last year. People have been bashing him as if he was ignorant; nothing could be further from the truth.
He gave a talk on capital, in the broadest sense of the word. He said that in 1800 and years following, certain countries allowed middle and lower-middle class persons access to capital (loans, mortgages, financial backing for their companies).
THAT spurred unprecedented growth which we associate with the Industrial Revolution. Nations making capital available to their populations entered the class of First World nations.
The talk was concise and very interesting.
In a sense it was an economic talk, consistent with his history as a professional economist, in contrast with the other talks which were lame, repetitive, political slogans and other cant. "Democrats are Bad, we are for Freedom, USA, USA, etc." That garbage. Boring campaign speech universal themes.
Amazingly, Milei seems to be pulling his nation away from the precipice of hyperinflation and total collapse. WE NEED him and his advice, frankly, on how to get out of where we are. Because unless something changes dramatically about our ridiculously excessive overspending in the face of a super-high Debt/GDP ratio, then we are going to go into a phase of hyperinflation that will seriously damage our stability and standing as a nation. We are going to the SAME PLACE that Argentina has just left.
So Chile and Argentina are super-important allies to the US: They can teach us how to reverse our suicidal course toward bankruptcy and hyperinflation, AND they can teach us how to privatize our SS system.
Both moves will serve to stabilize our nation, so that we won't be flinching from an every-two-week crisis where the Rats gain power and credibility.
Antifa will receive vouchers for a complimentary helicopter ride.
Hugh and series
?
Are Chileans finally going to kiss Marxism goodbye for good? They seem to have relapses every 20 years.
I hoped so.
It was not looking that great couple of years ago. There were memorials to Allende, Pinochet was the devil incarnate. At least among our guides.
But commies, if they could be voted out, do not last too long.
Unfortunately, it is often one man, one vote, one time!
I hope, they will make the turn!
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