Thread by @Vinncent

So, I do believe we are seeing a kind of convergence between US and Latin American societies (a re-convergence? - most nations in the hemisphere are built on the same history) but you really should not do the "Good First World becoming like Bad Third World because Trump" trope

Many of the very bad things now "appearing" in rich North America were 1) already present in previous iterations of anglo North America 2) actually imposed on Central / South America by Washington. It's a back and forth. The hemisphere has been one big system for about a century

You do see the very beginnings of things like death squads in the US. But we had those before, and trained them elsewhere! You see re-convergence on oligarchy and its control of politics. But the whole thing, north and south, grew out of violent settler colonialism and exclusion

But the main problem with "Good 1st world becomes Bad 3rd" is not that it's like, offensive. It's that it obscures the very real differences between the global north and global south, which are about a nation's relative place in the global system. Not institutional strength.

The US is the hegemon, it is positioned at the top (and in the middle) of the global financial system, and has all the guns in the world. This makes things very, very different in terms of real outcomes for the country. No matter how bad the leadership is.