Caracas Chronicles

No, Juan. En serio, no. No way. Some things are beyond lesser-of-two-evils thinking. We’re talking really about some rock bottom, basic stuff here. Really bedrock human values.

Keiko Fujimori is running proudly, aggressively on the legacy of a guy who ordered the army to murder innocent people on suspicions that turned out to be false. If she doesn’t know it, that’s only because she walked out of the trial where these charges were proven beyond a reasonable doubt.

But of course she does know it. Hell, she’s campaigning on it! All that stuff about “Security” is pure Dog Whistle Politics. A buen entendedor pocas palabras: her followers know what’s between the lines. Vote for me because I won’t be scared to “get tough” on the bad guys.

Listen, I don’t think it makes me an irredeamable comeflor to say we have a right to demand very, very basic, very rudimentary standards of decency from the people we entrust with the monopoly to the legitimate use of violence. Nothing fancy. Just the bare bones minimum. Things like:

• No death squads.
• No nudging and winking and playing on supporters’ nostalgia for the good old days…of death squads.
• No euphemistic celebrations of the golden era when Peruvians “security” was guaranteed…by death squads!

Is that so much to ask?

Peruvians are collectively crazy. I could not in good conscience vote for a leftist militaryman calling for a constituyente. I could not in good conscience vote for a woman who can’t bring herself to say death squads are, y’know, wrong.

If I was Peruvian, I think I’d be choosing between two far more realistic options: hardcore alcoholism to blot out the next five years and emigration. Either one would do more to preserve my dignity than pulling a lever for Keiko friggin’ Fujimori.

#14…oh gawd, I’m rocking again…