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MOLLY BLAKEMORE: Hello, and welcome back to Free Speech with CR. I'm Molly Blakemore and I'm here with my co-host, Dr. Keith Flamer.
DR. KEITH FLAMER: Hello, Molly. It's good to be back with you on the second episode of this conversation. We're also here with
DESHITA: I'm writer Deshita. It's great to be back with you both. A topic that is very fascinating and near and dear to me.
DR. KEITH FLAMER: One of the things that I picked up on the episode-- in our first episode was talking about strongman politic and politics in general.
DESHITA: Yeah.
DR. KEITH FLAMER: Expound on that for us a little bit.
DESHITA: So in Latin American history, there's a topic that always comes up when we talk about the first nation building efforts, which is caudillismo or caudillos.
DR. KEITH FLAMER: Which means?
DESHITA: Which means essentially strongman politics or a strong man. One of the first caudillos in Latin American history actually was Venezuelan. And that was--
DR. KEITH FLAMER: Interesting. OK.
DESHITA: Jose Antonio Paez, who was Simon Bolivar's right-hand man. And if you don't know about Bolivar, he's considered to be the George Washington of South America. Look him up. He's a big deal.
DR. KEITH FLAMER: I read all about him.
DESHITA: Yeah. So, Paez was-- he-- essentially invaded Caracas with his band of-- for lack of a better term, like cowboys. They came from the Plains or the Llanos of Venezuela. They went into Caracas, they seized the presidential palace, and then he ruled by decree. And how he kept those guys loyal to him was he used Venezuela's Treasury to pay them.
And that's how caudillismo developed was a strongman gets a army or group of loyal followers. He promises them that they're going to get money or treasure, or maybe even just a cushy job in the government. And they pledge their loyalty to him. And that's how Latin American politics generally operated well into the late 1800s.
MOLLY BLAKEMORE: In all of the states, would you say?
DESHITA: Almost all of them. Yeah.
DR. KEITH FLAMER: Almost all the states.
DESHITA: You had Porfirio Diaz in Venezuela-- or excuse me, in Mexico. In Argentina, you have Juan Manuel de Rosas. So those are just a few.
DR. KEITH FLAMER: Wow. Well, actually-- it did have me thinking of the alignment with what we're seeing in the United States now.
MOLLY BLAKEMORE: Yes, you spoke about Trump not wanting there to be another strongman.
DESHITA: Yeah.
MOLLY BLAKEMORE: And Maduro. And can you talk a little bit more about that?
DESHITA: Yeah. So I see Trump really as a caudillo. He's a guy that uses this populist rhetoric to gather a really diverse base around his-- whatever he wants to do. And then he uses that power through his promises of either amnesty, or rewards, or something for being fiercely loyal to him to get some whatever kickback you get. Like, for example, after January 6th, 2021, all the folks who attacked the US Capitol, almost all of them got presidential pardons. That's a pretty big reward for being loyal to the bit, to the strongman.
And now that President Trump is back in power, he has really gathered a close-knit group of people who have pledged their loyalty, and so far have more or less upheld that pledge to him. Much like Maduro did beginning in 2013, when he started to undermine electoral politics in Venezuela. He gathered a group of fiercely loyal people around him and just continued ignoring popular elections, ignoring opposition, and solidifying his regime in Venezuela. I don't know. I can't speak for Donald Trump because he's not here. I'd like to know what he thinks about that.
MOLLY BLAKEMORE: Well, it's interesting, too, because usually you see him kind of idolizing these other strongmen in different parts of the world. Like in Hungary and--
DR. KEITH FLAMER: China.
MOLLY BLAKEMORE: China--
DR. KEITH FLAMER: Russia.
DESHITA: Russia
MOLLY BLAKEMORE: Russia.
DESHITA: Yeah.
MOLLY BLAKEMORE: And but here in our home sphere of influence, he doesn't like--
DR. KEITH FLAMER: He doesn't like competition.
MOLLY BLAKEMORE: Is that what you're feeling is?
DESHITA: Yeah. Well, that's the thing about the United States and Latin America. The United States has historically viewed Latin American nations with this very patronizing sort of lens, that is to say, we in the United States know what's best for you. And if you don't do what we, the United States, say, then we're going to make you do the thing that we want you to do, either through regime change, or economic pressure, or maybe just bribery in one form or another.
DR. KEITH FLAMER: You know, I guess-- I wonder because I've always asked this question, why do we even care what happens in Latin America?
DESHITA: Well, that's a great question, Keith. And it goes back to US investment. Really, it's--
DR. KEITH FLAMER: It's really about money and economic.
DESHITA: Yeah, it's about money and economics. And it also has to do with manifest destiny to go back to James Monroe, John Quincy Adams, they were like the original manifest destiny guys. John Quincy Adams was the guy who actually first started to say, the US is going to go to the Pacific. Once it hits the Pacific, it's going to go into Mexico and Canada.
DR. KEITH FLAMER: Which is yeah, very true. And so we wanted to colonize the West, which we did. Now we want to do that same thing with Latin America, South America. Is that what?
DESHITA: Oh they tried doing that.
DR. KEITH FLAMER: Tell us about that.
DESHITA: Yeah, you had what were called filibusters in the 1850s who were US, American, essentially swashbucklers that went into.
DR. KEITH FLAMER: Swashbucklers.
DESHITA: Yeah. Or-- that's a really romantic term. I would say the a better term for that would be sociopaths. But [LAUGHS]
MOLLY BLAKEMORE: Yeah, the hordes or the--
DESHITA: Well, the most notorious one is William Walker, who--
DR. KEITH FLAMER: Of course.
DESHITA: Yeah, and he was a Californian that first tried to invade Baja California.
DR. KEITH FLAMER: Yeah.
DESHITA: And then was kicked out by the Mexican Navy. Of all-- I love this story because the place where he went is just so funny. Like, where would any of US American go in Mexico. Cabo? He went to Cabo [LAUGHS] and he proclaimed an independent Republic and the Mexican Navy was sent. He ran away. That didn't stop him. He came back to Nicaragua. When they were in a Civil War in the 1850s, he seized power in Nicaragua. He proclaimed an independent Republic, a slave owning Republic.
MOLLY BLAKEMORE: Who was he with that allowed him to-- who was his army? Was he alone? Was he--
DESHITA: It was a bunch of US guys, like miners in California, who had not struck riches like they hoped to have, and they wanted to get rich somewhere else.
MOLLY BLAKEMORE: Mercenaries.
DESHITA: And there we go again. Here we go with the caudillismo. How much of is William Walker a filibusterer, or is he a caudillo? He's really both. But it's different from a Latin American perspective because he's not Latin American. He's from the United States. He was eventually, his government in Nicaragua was recognized by James Buchanan as a slave owning country. He was trying to reinstitute slavery in Central America and then get back into the United States. Of course, this is going on in the pre-Civil War time, where it's like slave versus free states is like the major political issue in the United States. Yeah.
And well, he failed. He was captured by a Costa Rican and Honduran coalition force and executed by firing squad. But yeah-- [LAUGHS] but that just goes to say that Latin American history has this long history of invasion
DR. KEITH FLAMER: From the United States.
DESHITA: From the United States, in the case of Mexico, or with the Mexican-American War, William Walker with Nicaragua. If you go into the 20th century, you got Theodore Roosevelt with big dick-- oops, big stick diplomacy. [LAUGHS] We can fix that in post, right. Big stick diplomacy. And then Woodrow Wilson with liberal internationalism. It was Woodrow Wilson.
DR. KEITH FLAMER: I would not have made that connection.
DESHITA: Yeah. He invaded-- I don't want to jinx it. But he invaded Latin American nations. He intervened in Latin American nations more than any other president before or since. And it was--
DR. KEITH FLAMER: I did not know that, really.
DESHITA: Yeah.
MOLLY BLAKEMORE: Well, didn't Ronald Reagan, do quite a bit in Latin America as well? So that's even--
DR. KEITH FLAMER: Interesting.
MOLLY BLAKEMORE: More recently.
DESHITA: Ronald Reagan did it, though, surreptitiously using with him-- Using the CIA to support what he called the Contras or freedom fighters.
DR. KEITH FLAMER: This is the Oliver North era.
MOLLY BLAKEMORE: But still, interference in Latin American politics by the US government.
RYDER DSCHIDA: Absolutely. I think the only one that we can officially attribute Ronald Reagan's influence to was Grenada in 1983. That was a US invasion, which-- was that a Clint Eastwood movie--
DR. KEITH FLAMER: It was. Yeah.
RYDER DSCHIDA: Heartbreak Ridge.
DR. KEITH FLAMER: Heartbreak Ridge.
RYDER DSCHIDA: I saw it. It wasn't that good. It was kind of boring.
[LAUGHTER]
MOLLY BLAKEMORE: Well, so that brings up an interesting point with Mexico. Just in terms of how Mexico might be feeling. I mean, I know there's a lot of different things happening in the United States that affect Mexico and have them nervous. But what do you think the feeling in other Latin American countries is in light of this interference again in Venezuela?
RYDER DSCHIDA: That is a great question. And I think it varies. It's a case-by-case basis. Latin America, up until pretty recently, had a fairly unified front with left-leaning governments. So Mexico, traditionally, has not been left-leaning. But we're talking about Brazil, Venezuela, Argentina, and Chile, and Ecuador, Bolivia.
But Venezuela and Bolivia have historically been rivals. If you want to know the history of that, that's a totally different thing. But I mean, it's all border disputes. And Colombia wants oil, and Lake Maracaibo is in the western part of Venezuela, so Colombia wants to get into that. So it's all resources.
And Venezuela and Colombia were originally one big country called Gran Colombia or Gran Colombia. So there's this history behind this. And the Colombians feel that Venezuela robbed them of their natural resources, and Colombians want it back. And Venezuelans say, no. You never had it to begin with. It's a long history of just like rivalry.
DR. KEITH FLAMER: So I'm wondering what's next. What's next on the hit list? Is Colombia next?
RYDER DSCHIDA: I don't think so.
DR. KEITH FLAMER: Well, what--
MOLLY BLAKEMORE: Well, what has really changed in Venezuela? I mean, we removed Maduro, but his vice president is now leading the country, correct?
RYDER DSCHIDA: Yeah. Delcy--
DR. KEITH FLAMER: Or quite frankly, is that correct?
RYDER DSCHIDA: That is correct. Delcy Rodriguez is the acting president right now. The Maduro regime is more or less intact. All they did was remove Maduro and his wife.
MOLLY BLAKEMORE: So they cut off the head and--
DR. KEITH FLAMER: And another head was still growing there.
RYDER DSCHIDA: Yeah, and--
MOLLY BLAKEMORE: But not one to rival Trump, I guess.
RYDER DSCHIDA: I think the play here was to get a chip, which is Maduro, who had styled himself as the chosen successor of Hugo Chavez. And Hugo Chavez is-- in Venezuela, he's huge. He's a hero. He's like as big as Simon Bolivar. They love him. And they're using, I feel, Maduro as a chip to get the oil out of Venezuela, because what Trump really wants to do is he doesn't want to sell the oil to make money. He wants to stockpile oil.
You probably know the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, which came out after the oil shocks. Well, Joe Biden, he opened them quite a lot, especially during the war in Ukraine. And Trump considered that to be a terrible policy. So he's trying to build up the Strategic Petroleum Reserve to make--
DR. KEITH FLAMER: Now, is that a particular bad thing in your mind, or is that--
RYDER DSCHIDA: No. I think the United States having the Strategic Petroleum Reserve is good--
MOLLY BLAKEMORE: But how we get it is questionable. It means--
RYDER DSCHIDA: It's nice to have that bank account. But I think the farther we go into the 21st century, the more I think, especially with renewable energy technologies like solar and wind and geothermal and tidal energy. I think oil will prove itself to be more of a liability than a benefit because it's toxic. It's polluting. Also it takes up a lot of space. And it takes a lot of energy and just money.
DR. KEITH FLAMER: To refine it.
RYDER DSCHIDA: Yeah, to refine it and store it.
MOLLY BLAKEMORE: Sorry. To go back to Venezuela and Maduro and Chavez. So people love Chavez. Did they feel the same way about Maduro?
RYDER DSCHIDA: No.
MOLLY BLAKEMORE: And so why is that? And isn't Marco Rubio Venezuelan as well? And he did not like Maduro.
RYDER DSCHIDA: No. Marco Rubio is actually Cuban. And that's to circle back to the question that you, I believe it was you, Molly, that asked, what's next or who's next. It's Cuba. Cuba's next. And that's Rubio through and through. I think Rubio invested a lot of political capital in Venezuela.
If you remember, back in 2017, when Juan Guaido was the leading opposition guy in Venezuela, and they did that whole blockade. And I remember distinctly watching Rubio down there on the bridge, just like bullets sweat dripping off. And he's like, "We're going to create democracy in Venezuela." And it never happened. So I feel like Rubio is feeling a bit, shall we say, he wants to get revenge for what he didn't accomplish.
And he also, ever since Marco Rubio has been in politics, has been super anti-Cuba and super anti-the Cuban regime, like the Castro regime. And Cuba, as you said, Keith, relies on Venezuela for everything. And now Cuba has what they just stopped international flights. And they're going to have to go with probably rolling blackouts. It's going to be bad.
MOLLY BLAKEMORE: Trump just said that any country that's supplying them with oil will be subject to huge tariffs. So yeah.
DR. KEITH FLAMER: Or just taking over their boats.
MOLLY BLAKEMORE: So the long game is Cuba.
DR. KEITH FLAMER: And so that's the next domino to fall in your mind.
RYDER DSCHIDA: If it does, that's where their sights are. And I don't know personally what the United States can hope to get out of a regime change in Cuba other than a political victory. This is something that's a holdover from the Cold War. And we can just say, we did it. We finally got rid of Castro. Well, Castro's been dead for a while.
DR. KEITH FLAMER: He's gone for a while.
RYDER DSCHIDA: But we finally got rid of Castro's regime. So yeah, US wins. I hazard to guess, based on my knowledge of regime change in Latin America, that were about to happen, it probably won't play out well in the short term. And in the long term, it will breed more resentment and anti-US sentiment in the Caribbean and South America and Latin America, just generally.
DR. KEITH FLAMER: Absolutely.
RYDER DSCHIDA: There's always this question that I get from my students whenever I teach my Latin American courses, which is, why do they hate us? And then we go into the history of US policy.
DR. KEITH FLAMER: Why do they hate us, in a nutshell? Is it because we want to take them over?
RYDER DSCHIDA: Yeah, we want to tell them how to live their lives.
MOLLY BLAKEMORE: Interference.
RYDER DSCHIDA: And I don't think anybody likes being told how to live their lives.
DR. KEITH FLAMER: I do get it. Yes.
RYDER DSCHIDA: I mean, I was a pretty rebellious kid.
DR. KEITH FLAMER: Were you?
RYDER DSCHIDA: Oh, yeah. Can you tell?
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DR. KEITH FLAMER: I like it. So I'm OK with that, but OK.
MOLLY BLAKEMORE: It's interesting, the anti-American sentiment in Latin America, but in a lot of places I think right now.
RYDER DSCHIDA: And I do want to say, though, that it's not like anti-American, like the people of the United States. It's the government. And I feel like that was really communicated through. Do you guys see the Super Bowl with the halftime show with Bad Bunny? It was really communicated in that halftime show where he was saying, "We're all Americans." And he said, "United States."
DR. KEITH FLAMER: I remember. That's right.
RYDER DSCHIDA: And so the people of Latin America don't hate US Americans.
DR. KEITH FLAMER: Just the government and the policies.
RYDER DSCHIDA: And I feel that's something that we really have to remember that it's not us as individuals. It's what the government does. Now, of course, the government does that because there are people in the United States that want to see that happen. I'd say, based on my travels around Latin America, that most Latin American folks really love folks from the US.
DR. KEITH FLAMER: How often do you go to Latin America?
RYDER DSCHIDA: I've been there. I've went through Guatemala and Mexico, traveled around. It was great. I can't wait to go back.
DR. KEITH FLAMER: What made it great?
RYDER DSCHIDA: Oh, man.
DR. KEITH FLAMER: --in your mind.
RYDER DSCHIDA: The food, the people. The people are so nice. They're so welcoming. It's like one of the most beautiful, besides Humboldt County, one of the most beautiful places you could really-- man, the history, the archeology. I could go on. It's such an amazing place. That is from a US perspective. It blends like European colonial architecture with Indigenous, like Aztec or Nahuatl or Mayan architecture. It's-- oh, man. I'll just stammer and stutter.
MOLLY BLAKEMORE: Well, I was just going to say, what are you teaching right now in your classes?
RYDER DSCHIDA: Right now, we are just getting into the late 1800s in Latin America with the period of time where Latin American nations styled themselves. Latin American leaders and nations governments styled themselves after Europe, where the slogan of the day was order and progress. And so order was creating this "scientific political system, police state," really, that's going to create stability in the country, which will then attract foreign investment, which will progress Latin America into an industrial future.
MOLLY BLAKEMORE: It worked in some places, and some places it did not work.
RYDER DSCHIDA: It's a kind of a mixed bag. It worked in Mexico under the Porfiriato, but at the cost of dramatic inequality. One of the most unequal places in the world was Mexico, circa 1910. Hence the Mexican Revolution.
DR. KEITH FLAMER: Mexican Revolution. Yeah.
MOLLY BLAKEMORE: And so, how are your students? What do you think your students are feeling about this recent political incursion or era or whatever you want to say about it?
RYDER DSCHIDA: So in my classes, especially in Latin America-- well, in my Latin American classes, I opened the course by asking, what do you think affects Latin American nations the most? Is it domestic politics? Is it economics? Is it foreign influence? Or maybe it's something else that hasn't been mentioned here. And about 80%, 85% of the responses said foreign influence. So it's definitely a top of their mind.
MOLLY BLAKEMORE: What would you say affects it the most?
RYDER DSCHIDA: History.
[LAUGHS]
DR. KEITH FLAMER: History.
RYDER DSCHIDA: But I'm biased. It's the historical context and the historical, shall we say, pretext to push Latin American leaders and their people to choose to do what they do.
DR. KEITH FLAMER: Gotcha.
RYDER DSCHIDA: Much like in the United States. Our history affects how we think of ourselves, who we are. We always look back to our history.
MOLLY BLAKEMORE: Although people are ahistorical, oftentimes.
DR. KEITH FLAMER: Ahistorical is right.
RYDER DSCHIDA: Well, going into the 250th anniversary of the United States, we should start to remember our history.
DR. KEITH FLAMER: That is a good comment. That's a good comment.
RYDER DSCHIDA: Or refamiliarize ourselves with it.
DR. KEITH FLAMER: Here's a what if question. So you went to Georgetown to be a diplomat?
RYDER DSCHIDA: Yeah.
DR. KEITH FLAMER: Originally?
RYDER DSCHIDA: Yeah.
DR. KEITH FLAMER: Let's say that you continued that track and not get into teaching. And the President at the time said, OK, Ryder, give me some advice on what to do now. What advice would you give?
RYDER DSCHIDA: Right now?
DR. KEITH FLAMER: Absolutely.
RYDER DSCHIDA: Return Maduro, first and foremost.
DR. KEITH FLAMER: Why would you want to do that?
RYDER DSCHIDA: Because I want to see goodwill built between Latin America and the United States. And that's a purely selfish reason. I'm more of a glass half full and optimist-minded type of person. And I believe that people and governments and nations, when they are more amicable, when they have friendly relations, they're much more likely to engage in friendly trade and commerce and things that build economies and build up their societies and really create a more prosperous future rather than a more, shall I say, antagonistic relationship. And I-- yeah.
DR. KEITH FLAMER: Based on the military?
RYDER DSCHIDA: Yes, based on the military.
MOLLY BLAKEMORE: So if Maduro was returned, you believe that we could basically get what we wanted out of Venezuela anyway, without having removed him?
RYDER DSCHIDA: Yeah. I mean, Maduro's days were always going to be numbered. He was facing a really significant challenge from María Corina Machado. And I think that Venezuela was pretty much this close to having some political or social revolution, or just uprising that would push Maduro out or see his eventual recession from the Venezuelan politics. And I think what the United States has done now is really cemented die-hard Chavismo people in Maduro's camp, and they're not going to give up. They've dug in.
DR. KEITH FLAMER: I've read that. Wow.
MOLLY BLAKEMORE: So very interesting to see what happens next, I guess.
RYDER DSCHIDA: I'll be watching. As someone who teaches Latin America and takes it very seriously, I'll be watching every minute.
DR. KEITH FLAMER: I bet you will. Thank you very much.
RYDER DSCHIDA: Oh, yeah. Thank you, guys. This has been fantastic.
MOLLY BLAKEMORE: Yes. Thanks for joining us.
DR. KEITH FLAMER: Thank you.
MOLLY BLAKEMORE: Again, this has been Free Speech with College of the Redwoods. And I'm your host, Molly Blakemore with my co-host.
DR. KEITH FLAMER: Keith Flamer. Pleasure being here again.
MOLLY BLAKEMORE: And thank you for joining us.
DR. KEITH FLAMER: Thanks, Ryder, very much.
RYDER DSCHIDA: Thank you, both.
DR. KEITH FLAMER: Our students are lucky to have you.
RYDER DSCHIDA: I'm lucky to be teaching here.
DR. KEITH FLAMER: Wonderful. Thank you.
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