Mac Margolis, Columnist

Latin America's New Politics Aren't Left or Right

From Managua to Brasilia, circumstances trump ideology.

November 14, 2016 at 8:45 PM UTC

Mac Margolis is a former Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering Latin and South America. He is the author of “The Last New World: The Conquest of the Amazon Frontier.”

Ortega doesn't dress like this anymore.
CHRISTOPHER VAIL/AFP/Getty Images

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Donald Trump was not the only churlish septuagenarian with some eccentric notions about world affairs to score big in the Americas this month. On Nov. 6, Nicaraguan guerrilla-turned-strongman Daniel Ortega won his third consecutive presidential mandate.

To hear Ortega's boosters tell it, his re-election was a much needed affirmation for the Latin American leftist leaders who are now faltering or being pushed from power by a revanchist right-wing uprising. Yet something more complicated is going on than the familiar trope of left-right politics.