Stop With The Leftist Turn Stuff Already

This just gets so old. Andrés Oppenheimer writes that Latin America may take a "major turn to the left" because of the elections in Brazil and Mexico. The thing is, he knows it's old but doesn't know what else to do.

Granted, it’s somewhat outdated to talk about “left” and “right” in today’s world. At a time when the biggest Communist country, China, practices the most unbridled capitalism — call it capitalism without the right to strike, if you want — the old labels of “left” and “right” have lost much of their meaning. 

But for lack of better definitions, the big question is whether Mexico — and possibly Brazil — will shift to a populist left, or to a moderate one.

Look, it's not wrong to label Fernando Haddad a leftist, or AMLO for that matter. It''s just not particularly helpful, and in fact can be quite misleading. There is no regional ideological shifts going on. There is strong anti-incumbent sentiment.

But it is definitely useless to start speculating on whether one of them is going to be the next Hugo Chávez, because neither will be. The PT is not Chávezlandia and it is misleading to suggest it might end up that way. There is no reason to believe AMLO will move that either. Unlike Venezuela in the early 1990s, in Brazil and Mexico the anti-incumbent sentiment is not anti-system. There are calls for get things fixed nut not to rip them up entirely.

If you know what you're writing is inaccurate, don't write it. The average reader wants to figure things out, so don't hand them something from ten years ago and tell them to evaluate the present from it.