The day after the presidential elections in Nicaragua, the winner, Daniel Ortega, called the other seven candidates “sons of a bitch of the Yankee imperialists”. Arrested for alleged “treason to their homeland”, Ortega mentioned that they are “no longer Nicaraguans” and should be taken to the United States because they “no longer have a homeland”. These words perfectly exemplify the current political polarization in much of the region.
What is the origin of this dynamic?
The famous Italian political scientist Giovanni Sartori wrote in his book Parties and party system: framework for an analysis that political polarization can be understood as the ideological distance between candidates, parties and voters, that is, it is just one more aspect of democratic dynamics. Just as at a given moment there may be dialogue and consensus, at another there will be polarization due to the heterogeneity of political positions.
But today, as some studies point out, polarization has a less empirical and more affective-political ingredient that distinguishes it from the past and makes it a structural problem in current democracies.
Political polarization ceases to be part of democratic plurality when three elements are intertwined. First, when political actors refuse to participate according to the rules of the democratic game. Second, when plurality aligns with two trends that turn politics into a zone of conflict instead of dialogue. And, finally, when a discourse is institutionalized that reinforces an affective dimension that extends beyond political characteristics and attributes negative physical and ideological characteristics that become irreconcilable differences between the two trends.
Today, we are seeing this kind of polarization in the media. There is a proliferation of publications that highlight “negative qualities” of “the other” and encourage divisive reactions in people: identifying with “us” or “them.” In this context, the words of the Nicaraguan president fulfill the characteristics and encourage the current process of polarization. Let’s see.
In this fifth term, their rejection of the rules of the game – the first element – is reflected in the arrest of their opponents before election day, their refusal to allow election observers and to promote postal voting on election day. These are clear signs of a regime that does not favor plurality or allows the presence of adversaries.
By referring to his opponents as “Yankee imperialists”, Ortega reduces social plurality to two trends – the second element –, on the one hand, those who support him and who are therefore good and patriotic people, and on the other hand , those who are loyal to foreign interests and evil people. This dichotomy of identity requires a choice on the part of its listeners.
Daniel Ortega adds the affective dimension – the third element – by mentioning that his opponents are not Nicaraguans and that they no longer have a homeland. In other words, it strips them of all legitimacy, not only political but also moral, since it links their dissent to a mark of value: to be against me is to be against the motherland.
In a regime that has not become an “electoral” dictatorship, this type of polarization calls into question the work of democracy to provide a climate for debate and reflection. In this way, people prefer to respond to speeches that propose blunt solutions, opting to fuel political polarization.
Who can be safe from the inquisitive gaze of those who feel their homeland belongs to them? The construction of this frontier is not just a political discourse, it is an affective and emotional discourse that instigates people’s distrust of others. This is corroborated by data from the Latinobarómetro 2021. According to the report, Latin America is the most suspicious region on the planet. While in the rest of the world interpersonal trust is, on average, 29% among respondents, in our region it is only 9%.
In last year’s Latinobarómetro report, it is noted that “Latin America falls to its lowest point of interpersonal confidence since 1996, reaching 12%, which represents a decrease of two percentage points compared to the 14% reached in 2018.
Currently, and in the context of a triple crisis of an economic, sanitary and political nature, polarization is a catalyst for this feeling of distrust of others. Inequality in the region makes Latin Americans distrust the people around them, not because they consider them a threat, but because the priority given the precariousness is to “fight” for survival.
Political speeches such as Daniel Ortega’s are not just a flagrant transgression of the values and principles of democracy, they are an incitement to distrust in the other, in those who think differently, in those who don’t look like me, in those who speak with a different accent, in those who are not “Nicaraguians”, “Mexicans”, “Venezuelans”. Polarization built on an affective dimension destroys all interpersonal trust.
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