A Trump-like Mexican oligarch, Gilberto Lozano, is leading a coalition of corporate leaders and far-right fanatics called FRENA to try to overthrow President Andrés Manuel López Obrador.
by José Guadalupe Argüello III and Ben Norton
Part 11 - The next Bolsonaro?
Hernán Gómez, the La Octava presenter, prefaced his interview with Lozano by acknowledging that Lozano is an extreme figure. He even published a follow-up column describing FRENA as the “Frente Nazi-onal contra AMLO,” likening the front to the Nazis.
But Gómez believed it was important to interview the FRENA leader out of concern that Lozano could become a figure similar to Brazil’s Jair Bolsonaro.
“I know there are people who do not agree with giving a platform to these kinds of people, but I am convinced that we cannot underestimate figures like this,” Gómez said. “Because some time ago, the president of Brazil was a mediocre legislator who could not get a law passed, a rude and quarrelsome man who, like Lozano, who nobody took seriously. In fact, some thought that he was mentally unstable.”
“Few imagined that he would become Brazil’s president. But as after Obama came Trump, so did Bolsonaro come after Lula,” the La Octava host continued. “So, it is wrong to underestimate people like Gilberto Lozano, not so much because somewhere he may have hidden grandeur, but rather because if it goes badly for this [AMLO] government, or if they are not able to meet the expectations of certain sectors such as the middle class, eventually an ultra-right, anti-system figure could grow strong, and get a stroke of luck”.
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But Gómez believed it was important to interview the FRENA leader out of concern that Lozano could become a figure similar to Brazil’s Jair Bolsonaro.
“I know there are people who do not agree with giving a platform to these kinds of people, but I am convinced that we cannot underestimate figures like this,” Gómez said. “Because some time ago, the president of Brazil was a mediocre legislator who could not get a law passed, a rude and quarrelsome man who, like Lozano, who nobody took seriously. In fact, some thought that he was mentally unstable.”
“Few imagined that he would become Brazil’s president. But as after Obama came Trump, so did Bolsonaro come after Lula,” the La Octava host continued. “So, it is wrong to underestimate people like Gilberto Lozano, not so much because somewhere he may have hidden grandeur, but rather because if it goes badly for this [AMLO] government, or if they are not able to meet the expectations of certain sectors such as the middle class, eventually an ultra-right, anti-system figure could grow strong, and get a stroke of luck”.
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