“The white working-class, however, is not a monolith; they are a heterogeneous group with varying levels of class consciousness and prejudice,” writes Hernandez Guerrero PZ ‘29. “While progressive factions seek to mobilize the American working-class, they fail to meaningfully engage the bulk of the white working class, instead painting a harmful caricature of an imagined racist and uneducated underclass not even worth engaging with.”
Author: Rafael Hernandez Guerrero
OPINION: What Democrats can learn from Mexico’s governing party
Mexico’s leading party, the Movimiento de Regeneración Nacional (Morena), has shown itself to be the real deal: It has captured a decisive majority of the working class vote in a country known for its role as the factory of the Americas. But unlike the Republican’s successful yet unfounded popularity among workers, Morena is leftist, and pragmatist, as the day is long. The party’s focus on predistributive policies has leapfrogged the ideology of American liberals, stuck on tax reforms that ultimately uphold the neoliberal system that stabs workers in the back, and changed the lives of millions of workers. So why don’t we follow suit?
OPINION: Trump’s bigotry drove Latino conservatism
White Democrats are continually baffled by Latinos voting for Trump, a figure who seems to promote the minority as a special target of poisonous hatred. “Are conservative Latinos crazy?” rings the admonishing cry. Rafael Hernandez Guerrero PZ ’29 argues that Latinos for Trump have a logic that, however perverse, is deeply rooted in histories of American imperialism, racism and colonialism.
OPINION: Neoliberalism handed a Nazi’s son Chile’s presidency
A Chilean, a Chicagoan and a dictator walk into a South American nation. Why, after 50 years does a Nazi walk out, and why is the answer neoliberalism? The perfect storm of the Chilean coup d’état and the subsequent neoliberal regime is often credited with the nation’s economic rise. But Rafael Hernandez Guerrero PZ’29 argues that its policies, sowing the seeds of the disenfranchisement of the working and middle classes, have enabled the rise of far-right ideology there, and abroad.
OPINION: The Mexicanization of American politics brought to you by Trump and the libs
Donald Trump is not a populist. He rose to power in a fashion comparable to that of a “caudillo,” a leader who assumes dictatorial powers and sells the populace the idea that they are the one true savior in times of crisis. Rafael Hernández Guerrero believes that the solution to economic inequality is ultimately economic democracy, not a strongman.