Political Scientist. Director @CSISAmericas & @CatholicUniv Prof. Former @OxfordCCW, @AEIfdp. #LatinAmerica, bane to #dictators. @UniofOxford alum. Rtwt≠endorse
Nov 12, 2023 • 7 tweets • 2 min read
#Mexico: @mattyglesias, a short🧵to explain, with apologies for more reading material. Popularity is #AMLO's singular achievement, but it's not founded on substance. I would draw your attention to three buckets: security, economic, political. See here: csis.org/analysis/after…
Security: 5 years into AMLO, we've seen more homicides on his watch than any previous president, including Calderón, the president AMLO derides as presiding over a "war on drugs." The "hugs, not bullets" approach has failed. Ask 30,000+ Mexicans a year, or 100,000+ Americans.
Jan 9, 2023 • 11 tweets • 2 min read
#Jan6 vs. #Jan8th. There are important differences between Jan 6th in the #US and Jan 8th in #Brazil that some are eliding, even as we reject both and both are equally destructive to democracy and democratic governance. A quick, hot-take🧵on yesterday's events in 🇧🇷🇧🇷
Most importantly, @LulaOficial took power Jan 1st successfully & without incident. Jan 6th was an attempt to disrupt a discrete point in time when the peaceful transition of power was highly vulnerable. Jan 8th marks one week in power already for #Lula. Not really analogous.
Mar 6, 2022 • 7 tweets • 4 min read
If the reports about talks between the @NicolasMaduro regime and #US officials are to be believed, the @JoeBiden admin is discussing relaxing sanctions on #PDVSA to increase oil production and attempt to isolate #Russia. This would be a strategic blunder and unlikely to work.🧵
1) Most importantly, the optics of Biden choosing #Venezuela's crude over domestic production is politically unpalatable. It would also put the admin in the position of trusting another dictator to follow through when there has been zero track record (e.g. previous negotiations).
