US President Donald Trump praised the Bolivian military pushing President Evo Morales out of power as a “significant moment for democracy in the Western Hemisphere,” openly endorsing what critics have called a coup in La Paz.
“After nearly 14 years and his recent attempt to override the Bolivian constitution and the will of the people, Morales’s departure preserves democracy and paves the way for the Bolivian people to have their voices heard,” Trump said in a statement on Monday,
He also praised Bolivia’s military, which pressured Morales into resigning on Sunday, for “abiding by its oath to protect not just a single person, but Bolivia’s constitution.”
We are now one step closer to a completely democratic, prosperous, and free Western Hemisphere.
While Trump framed the events in La Paz as a warning to the “illegitimate regimes in Venezuela and Nicaragua that democracy and the will of the people will always prevail,” his may seem tone-deaf coming from someone who has accused his political opponents of an attempted coup – and been repeatedly denounced by them as illegitimate, tyrannical and a threat to democracy. Not to mention the infamous Washington’s Monroe Doctrine and treating the countries of Latin America as its backyard.
Morales has indeed rules Bolivia for 14 years, but his bid for re-election was ruled legal by the country’s supreme court, and the quick results count that showed him over 10 points ahead of the opposition candidate in the first round was in line with previous Bolivian elections.
The incongruity of praising violent opposition activists and the military for overruling the results of a democratic election – and then calling that outcome democracy – was apparently lost on the US president.
