Evita Perón, Hugo Chávez, Fidel Castro, And Latin American Banana Republics

It is striking how one finds hard pressed to name a single visionary leader from countries that are in seemingly endless decline — e.g. Argentina — or countries which consistently underperform — e.g. Venezuela. Evita Perón may be the heroine of a nice musical and “Don’t cry for me, Argentina” may be a nice line in a nice musical, but Argentines have absolutely no reason to cry for her or her equally underwhelming husband Juan Perón. Their legacy to the country is that and only that, a nice musical with a nice line. And, their present-day spiritual successors, ex-President Cristina Fernández and her late husband and ex-President Néstor Kirchner, have been equally underwhelming. Both the Peróns and Kirchners are simply part of a long line of uninspiring, mediocre, unimpressive, and most definitely NOT transformational or visionary Argentinian leaders. They are leaders who merely stood by and did absolutely nothing to stop the century-long stagnation and decline of their country. In fact, their misguided populist policies contributed a great deal to the decline of Argentina…