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The Flint water crisis began nine years ago. Despite initially drawing huge headlines and promises to fix the city’s poisoned drinking supply, no one responsible for the crisis has gone to jail, and residents say water still isn’t fully drinkable.

Then Flint mayor Karen Weaver speaks to residents during a town hall on water, public safety, and job opportunities on March 17, 2016, in Flint, Michigan. (Brett Carlsen / Getty Images)

Imagine for a moment that you and your children are poisoned. The culprit who attacked you is, unbelievably, your own government. The life that you worked hard to build, overcoming obstacles and life’s curveballs, has been forever damaged. Many of your family, friends, and neighbors have grown ill as the months and years drag on. A large number of the sick go on to die. The causes of death run the gamut. Relatively young people die of cancers for which they have no family history. Others’ kidneys or liver fail. Many develop heart problems or sudden strokes. Children suffer from brain damage, developing learning disabilities and volatile mood swings that cause disruptions in their schooling, extracurriculars, and relationships.

And nearly a decade later, no one who knowingly attacked your mind, body, and spirit is in prison.

Not the low-level office lackey who wasn’t really involved but could have sounded the alarm; not the middle-manager government bureaucrat who looked the other way knowing people would die; not even the high-level sacrificial lamb who didn’t mastermind the scheme, but was chosen by the big poo-bahs to be violently tossed under the bus. And definitely not the key players who actively executed, and then covered up, the crime.

Adding insult to poisonous injury, despite assurances from the government who poisoned you, and a compliant media that has all but abandoned you in favor of regurgitating what the government criminals tell them, you’re still actively being attacked by the water your state and city are pumping through your taps and showerheads.

Flint, Michigan residents need not imagine this dystopian hellscape. They’ve been living it for nine years today.

Or, to be exact, 3,287 days.

Despite the Flint water crisis still being an active, urgent crisis for the people in Flint, for the majority of Americans, the crisis ceased registering as one five years ago. Back in 2018, then governor Rick Snyder — who had thus far avoided accountability by feigning ignorance and the nobody-told-me mantra — declared Flint’s water “restored” and back to “safe” pre-2014 crisis levels.

As Status Coup broke that same year, this was a deadly lie. Snyder’s government, specifically his environmental department, had manipulated Flint’s water-testing data, literally flushing away the evidence of high water lead levels in order to artificially produce lower data and declare the city’s water safe. When approached by Status Coup, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) actually acknowledged that the governor’s environmental department had violated federal regulations by sending officials into residents’ homes and running their water for several minutes before collecting water samples (and telling residents to do so themselves when they did the testing on their own). This was a blatant violation of the lead and copper rule, the EPA’s gold standard for water testing.

The governor’s environmental department had violated federal regulations by sending officials into residents’ homes and running their water for several minutes before collecting water samples.

“Falsifying a federal and state regulatory compliance test: that is a crime,” legendary environmental consumer advocate Erin Brockovich told Status Coup about the manipulated testing in 2018. In light of the falsified tests, which Brockovich called “cheating,” she called for Snyder’s environmental department’s testing to be flushed down the toilet:

The sample set is representative of at least some not testing properly, and therefore the entire sample set should be invalidated. Without proper training and compliance, one must assume all of the samples are not valid.

So, of course the agency tasked with protecting the United States’ environment and public health acted upon this scandalous information, right?

Wrong. The EPA did worse than nothing. It echoed the criminally fraudulent testing, passed off by Governor Snyder as Flint’s “Mission Accomplished,” and lent its rubber stamp to the lie that Flint’s water was safe.

But five years after Flint’s water was declared “restored,” one only has to spend some time in the embattled, impoverished Rust Belt city — or just speak with enough residents — to know that nearly a decade later, Flint’s water is still contaminated.

“My water has a sewer smell off and on . . . and black shiny stuff coming out in the water,” Flint resident Joelena Freeman told Status Coup. “It’s gross and we have no idea what it is or what it could be doing to us. But we have no choice but to shower in it and hope for the best. I mean, dang, it’s a rotten way to live day to day and for this long.”

Melissa Mays, a Flint mother of three who became the lead plaintiff against Governor Snyder and the state of Michigan in the 2017 settlement that awarded the city $97 million toward lead service-line replacement, also made clear that the city’s water is in no way safe.

“My water smells like straight pond because it’s TTHM testing time again so no chlorine [in the water],” Mays said. Her chlorine reference is in regard to water testing underway looking at total trihalomethane (TTHM) levels in Flint’s water. TTHMs are disinfection byproducts that, at elevated levels, can cause cancer, and were found to far exceed safe health levels in Flint in 2014.

Mays, along with other activists, has been fighting for justice and clean water for eight years now. Very little has changed, but Mays told Status Coup that giving up is not an option:

If we give up, this damaged, corroded, unstable infrastructure will continue to crumble and innocent people will suffer in Flint and every city out there that can and will end up just like us if justice isn’t done. It should not take 9 years to replace the mains, service lines & interior plumbing destroyed by those in power. We cannot and will not give up.

Just as problematic as Flint’s water, Michigan’s political and so-called justice system has become just as toxic, ultimately revictimizing Flint residents all over again.

“Flint was poisoned for privatization, and profit, and the fight continues,” Mays continued. “Waking up every day knowing that we have to fight for the basic human right to safe water and we’re sick because of it is exhausting.”

For years, Flint residents had hoped that its state attorney general’s office would fight like hell and win some form of justice for them. Instead, nearly a decade later, it’s beginning to look highly unlikely that any government official or culpable player that caused their suffering will see prison time.

Prosecutors who led an initial three-year Flint water criminal investigation, launched in 2016, were building momentum. After yearlong pretrials against the head of the state health department and the state’s chief medical executive, a judge had bound both over to face jury trials for involuntary manslaughter charges.

Just as problematic as Flint’s water, Michigan’s political and so-called justice system has become just as toxic, ultimately revictimizing Flint residents all over again.

The special prosecutor who presided over those cases and the entire criminal investigation, Todd Flood, was also building a case against Governor Snyder himself — for involuntary manslaughter. As yours truly broke in the Intercept in 2021, part of the case being built against Snyder was based on phone calls prosecutors obtained — showing a flurry of phone calls over two days in October 2014 between Snyder, his chief of staff, and the state health department director — at the same time as cases of the deadly waterborne Legionnaires’ disease were surging in Flint. The sequence and high volume of the calls led prosecutors to conclude that Snyder and his lieutenants were attempting to cover up the outbreak.

“This evidence shows the Governor, his administration, Director Lyon, and the MHA [Michigan Health and Hospital Association] knew about this outbreak of Legionnaires’ in October 2014, and were interested in keeping the information from going public,” then special prosecutor Flood wrote in a subpoena draft.

The original prosecution team was not stopping at Snyder. As I broke in the Guardian in 2022, other prosecutors and investigators were close to filing sprawling racketeering, or RICO, charges against the masterminds of a criminally fraudulent financial scheme that served as the dark underbelly sparking the water crisis. Other key defendants were beginning to cooperate with prosecutors, signaling their willingness to “flip” on top officials within the Snyder administration, which prosecutors believed would help them gather the evidence needed to charge Snyder himself.

And then Dana Nessel walked through the sttorney general’s office.

Nessel, who all but condemned the aforementioned investigation as a candidate for attorney general — attacking Flood and criticizing what she perceived as the investigation’s lack of results — entered office in 2019 and cleaned house. She fired Flood, chief investigator and former Detroit FBI chief Andy Arena, and most of the original team of prosecutors and investigators. She claimed, with little evidence, that the team had fumbled the ball, failing to secure millions of key documents while messing up procedural steps that would ultimately jeopardize convictions. Nessel appointed her solicitor general Fadwa Hammoud and Wayne County prosecutor Kym Worthy to essentially restart the entire investigation from scratch.

Both went to Flint in 2019 and spoke in front of residents, decrying what they criticized as mistakes of the original investigation team and promising them that justice was only being “delayed.”

Four years later, Nessel’s team has all but lit the investigation, and any possible justice for Flint, on fire. Rather than getting into the long, thorny weeds, here is the gist of the disastrous, restarted second investigation launched by Nessel and her handpicked prosecutors. Much of the below comes from high-level sources familiar with both the original and second investigation.

Nessel’s team has all but lit the investigation, and any possible justice for Flint, on fire.

Step 1: Nessel’s prosecutors choose not to receive an in-person debrief from the chief investigator they fired.

Step 2: Nessel’s prosecutors all but ignore an in-depth transition memo provided to them outlining the widespread financial fraud scheme that caused the Flint water crisis.

Step 3: Nessel’s prosecutors meet with government officials inquiring into the financial fraud case that had already been built by the original investigation. Sources told Status Coup that Nessel’s prosecutors “clearly don’t know the basics” of the case.

Step 4: In June 2019, Nessel dismisses charges against eight key state and city officials — including the two top health officials a judge has ruled must face jury trials for voluntary manslaughter. Along with the serious involuntary manslaughter charges being tossed, financial fraud charges related to the KWA pipeline bond fraud are also dismissed. At the time, she assured Flint residents that the dismissals would not preempt her from recharging those same officials.

Step 5: Nessel’s prosecutors forego the public pretrials approach that the original Flint prosecution team used, instead opting to bring its evidence through a secretive, one-man grand jury process (i.e. a judge). The process is not often used in Michigan.

Step 6: In January 2021, Nessel’s office charges Governor Snyder with two counts of misdemeanor willful neglect of duty, charges with a maximum prison sentence of one year and fine of $1,000. Status Coup’s reporting indicates that the pre-Nessel investigation was building a much more serious case against Snyder for involuntary manslaughter (which has been confirmed by two other Michigan reporters).

Along with Snyder, Nessel’s prosecutors charge eight other state and city officials — including Snyder’s top adviser Richard Baird and former press secretary Jarrod Agen. As I broke for VICE News and Detroit Metro Times in 2020, Baird, known as Snyder’s right-hand man and “fixer,” offered sick Flint residents payoffs in exchange for their silence.

Former Flint emergency managers Darnell Earley and Gerald Ambrose, who were originally charged by special prosecutor Flood for alleged financial fraud related to the KWA bond deal, but had those charges dismissed in 2019 by Nessel, are recharged. But Nessel’s team does not bring back the financial fraud charges against them; the two are charged only with felony misconduct in office.

Step 7: Attorneys for Snyder and other defendants ask the courts to dismiss charges, pointing to the fact that Nessel’s prosecutors did not use a “taint” team — a group of independent attorneys not involved with the case to comb through the evidence and remove anything protected by attorney-client privilege — as part of their gathering of evidence. Attorneys also call for dismissal of charges based on Nessel using a one-man grand jury to file the indictments against Snyder and others, a move that defendants’ attorneys claim violated Michigan’s constitution.

Step 8: In 2022, in a seven to zero ruling, the Michigan Supreme Court rules that Nessel’s prosecutors violated the state constitution by using a one-man grand jury to bring criminal indictments against Snyder and eight other defendants. As a result, charges against Governor Snyder and seven other defendants were dismissed.

Step 9: Nessel’s prosecutors appeal — and lose. As of today, the nine-year anniversary, Nessel’s prosecution team claims that the investigation is still “ongoing” and that there is a path to getting charges refiled and defendants in front of a jury.

Unfortunately, for the poisoned residents of Flint, I wouldn’t hold my breath.

Sources indicate that the statute of limitations, which is six years for most felonies in Michigan, has already run out for most of the criminal charges against state and city officials. The only remaining charges that would still potentially be in play are involuntary manslaughter (with a ten-year statute of limitations).

The attorney general’s office did not respond to Status Coup’s request for comment on how the investigation is still ongoing if the charges against Snyder and other defendants have been thrown out by the Michigan Supreme Court and they’ve lost their appeal.

With the odds of justice for Flint residents dwindling, and residents still complaining about water they insist is contaminated, Flint has become one of the most prominent environmental calamities in American history to be quietly erased from the public and media consciousness.

But Flint is still suffering. Or, as the late Flint resident Tony Palladeno once told me, “This place ain’t safe, it’s not safe at all. We got a pistol in our mouth everyday — it’s called tap water.”

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The prime minister was involved in talks with representatives of the rating agency and promised that the judicial coup would not get passed in its original form

By Adrian Filut, Calcalist

Barring any last minute extreme events, rating agency S&P is expected to affirm Israel’s credit rating (AA-) and credit outlook (stable) when it releases its latest report this Friday.

This is similar to Fitch Ratings, which also did not lower Israel’s rating, but unlike Moody’s, which chose to downgrade the rating outlook from positive to stable last month.

This seemingly technical decision by S&P was only made after plenty of drama behind the scenes.

Sources told Calcalist that the person who was most deeply involved in the talks with S&P in Israel in the recent period, including daily phone calls with company executives and even with the rating teams, was none other than Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

In those conversations, Netanyahu explained that the judicial overhaul would not be carried out in its original form, and according to the same sources, these statements calmed the S&P economists and convinced them not to lower the rating or outlook.

It appears that Netanyahu had greater success in his dealings with S&P than he had with the Moody’s rating agency. Netanyahu also tried to convince Moody’s not to lower the outlook, but failed.

The reason for this partly lies in the timing: Moody’s preliminary tour of Israel was held in the midst of the legislative blitz and at the height of the protests across the country.

On the other hand, Maxim Rybnikov, the rater on behalf of S&P, and his teams, arrived in Israel after Netanyahu stopped the legislative proceedings, and while the negotiation teams are gathered in the President’s residence. At this time, it also seems quite clear that the Prime Minister is trying to abandon the judicial coup and concentrate on the economy and security situation. Under these circumstances it was easier to convince S&P to avoid downgrading the outlook.

President Herzog Intervenes

Israeli President Isaac Herzog was also involved in the talks with S&P. Sources close to Herzog said that the president explained to the rating agency the processes and the dynamics of the talks at his residence.

S&P is set to publish its semi-annual report and the final decision on the rating this Friday. A few days ago, S&P published its monthly snapshot of the credit rating of all countries, and according to analysis by several experts in the capital market, as well as in the government, all signs point to no change in Israel’s rating.

S&P’s credit rating is based on individual scores in five parameters: institutional assessment (strength of government institutions and policy quality), economic assessment (GDP, growth, unemployment, etc.), fiscal assessment (which is divided into budget assessment and government debt assessment), monetary assessment and external assessment (surplus/deficit). Each parameter receives a numerical score ranging from 1 (highest) to 6 (worst).

The focus this time was placed on the institutional assessment, as Rybnikov has already clarified that a change in the institutional system will affect the economy, and hence also the rating.

“If, contrary to the previous situation, the institutional system in Israel enters a consistent path of weakening, including damage to the system of checks and balances, and political power is concentrated too much in the hands of one person or one group, the public debate will also be damaged and it will lead to fiscal policy being less responsible – not just for one year, but become a feature of policymaking. All of these things could become a real rating risk,” Rybnikov told Calcalist earlier this year.

He added that S&P has “concerns about the fact that the entry of the extreme right into the coalition could cause a worsening of the situation in Gaza, the West Bank and also in relations with the Israeli Arabs. And it’s not that the situation was simple before: the situation was already challenging and we saw what happened in Gaza and the West Bank. But our impression is that the risk on this front is increasing and maybe we will see some sort of escalation. This is an aspect we are following very closely.”

Rybnikov added, “If it seems that the current institutional arrangements will be particularly weakened, this is something that we will indeed take into account to determine a rating, and it may pose a downside risk. In this regard, we are closely monitoring the consequences of the expected changes in everything related to the Supreme Court. We are also monitoring the coalition’s statements regarding the budget and the planned budgetary policy in general.”

However, the estimates among the executives who spoke with S&P is that the agency will not lower Israel’s grade in regard to institutional strength as it is already very low at 4. Lowering it to 5 would mean Israel’s inclusion in a group of countries that includes, among others, Albania, Armenia, Bangladesh, Bolivia, Honduras, and El Salvador. “Israel is neither El Salvador nor Honduras,” one source said.

And let’s return to President Herzog: Sources close to him said that contrary to reports, the person who turned to him for help was not the prime minister, but the accountant general at the Ministry of Finance, Yali Rothenberg.

Since the accountant general is responsible for the visits of all the teams on behalf of the rating companies and is the one who sets their schedule, he has a significant influence on the messages that reach the ears of the raters. The Finance Ministry made sure to have representatives in the room whenever the rating agencies met government officials that previously spoke out against the consequences of the judicial legislation.

Security Penalty

On the face of it, Israel’s rating should be AA, but Israel gets downgraded to AA  because of the risk of rapid deterioration due an extreme security event such as an all-out war with Iran or a conflict with Hamas, according to S&P. Even if the current operation in Gaza deteriorates into a more serious war against the Palestinian terrorist organizations, it is difficult to see S&P lowering a rating or rating outlook this week. The schedule seems too tight.

The big remaining question is what will happen if it the S&P economists decide that Netanyahu was not telling the truth and he intends to move forward with the reform anyway, or alternatively, that in a few days the security situation will deteriorate.

The answer in this case is simple: A rating agency may at any given moment issue a warning, or outlook update, or rating update, without prior notice. It is customary to take advantage of the publication of the semi-annual report to update the rating or outlook if necessary, but if S&P realizes that Netanyahu was not telling the truth, a scenario that is not without precedent, the raters are expected to react accordingly regardless of timing.

The post S&P to affirm Israel rating after Netanyahu guarantees halt to judicial overhaul appeared first on World Israel News.

“The performance will stay with you for the rest of your life.” Netta Barzilai, who won 2018 Eurovision, gives advice to Israel’s 2023 nominee, Noa Kirel.

By Shiryn Ghermezian, The Algemeiner

Israeli singer Netta Barzilai, who won the 2018 Eurovision Song Contest, told Ynet she spoke to Israel’s representative in this year’s singing competition, pop singer Noa Kirel, and told her not to focus all her energy on taking home the trophy.

“I told her, ‘winning Eurovision is not the most important thing,’” said Barzilai, who won competition with her song Toy. “This performance will stay with you for the rest of your life.”

The 30-year-old added that she told Kirel, 22, to pay more attention to her performance in terms of “how much energy you manage to bring, how much intimacy you manage to create with yourself and with the audience, and how much of your character you manage to infuse into this moment.”

“Winning is made up of a thousand and one things, like political timing,” Barzilai continued to say. “The Eurovision is just one of the many wonderful things you’ll do. Life is built on highs and lows. Our careers are a crazy roller coaster ride. If it’s all highs all the time, it will be boring as hell.”

Kirel’s first performance in the 2023 Eurovision Song Contest in Liverpool, the United Kingdom, will take place on Tuesday night during the semi-finals. She will sing her new English-language song Unicorn, which Barzilai praised as a “very powerful song.”

“And Noa is an amazing performer,” the Bassa Sababa further told Ynet. “I’m looking forward to her performance, to see what she will do on stage and how it will look.”

The grand finals of the Eurovision Song Contest will take place on May 13 and Barzilai will perform a new song as a guest artist alongside musicians from other countries.

The post Former Israeli Eurovision winner Netta Barzilai gives advice to Noa Kirel, says winning isn’t everything appeared first on World Israel News.

The ceasefire will be confirmed “only by action, not words,” a senior Israeli political official said.

By Adina Katz, World Israel News

Gaza terrorists launched rockets towards the south and center of Israel after a ceasefire was announced Wednesday evening. No casualties were reported.

The security establishment was not taken by surprise, Hebrew-language media reported. The Israeli Air Force immediately launched an attack on the Strip.

In the past several hours, Egypt has been trying to end the fighting, claiming that the Palestinian Islamic Jihad – the main player among terrorists in this mini-war – is not interested in escalating the conflict.

“Egypt approached us with a request for a ceasefire – the issue will be examined,” Foreign Minister Eli Cohen said in an interview with Kan News.

According to a senior Israeli political official, talks are underway, however, the ceasefire will be confirmed “only by action, not words,” N12 reported.

Meanwhile, Israel has made it clear that they are still preparing for the continuation of the fighting. In fact, regarding special home front instructions, Defense Minister Yoav Galant has decided to extend them to include the area in the a range of up to 80 km from the Gaza border – double the original.

The IDF estimated that roughly 300 rockets were fired from the Strip into Israel throughout the afternoon. One hit a home in the beleaguered southern city of Sderot; another hit a kindergarten in the region.

The new David’s Sling missile defense system had its first success in the afternoon when it intercepted a rock aimed at Tel Aviv.

The post ‘Prepared for prolonged fighting’: Israel-Gaza ceasefire announced – followed by new wave of rockets, sirens in Tel Aviv appeared first on World Israel News.

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The far right’s victory in elections for the Constitutional Council may be the death knell for a progressive constitution in Chile. It’s also a needed wake-up call for the Chilean left.

Founder of the far-right Republican Party José Antonio Kast talks to the press about the victory of his candidates during Constitutional Council election in Santiago on May 7, 2023. (Javier Torres / AFP via Getty Images)

The Chilean far right scored a major victory in Sunday’s elections for the newly reconstituted constitutional assembly, all but extinguishing any remaining hope of a new, progressive constitution in Chile.

The results of the election for the rebranded “Constitutional Council” would have been unthinkable only a few years ago. Now in their second attempt to create a constitution, the drafting body still has a popular mandate to replace the Magna Carta imposed by the Augusto Pinochet dictatorship in 1980. However, the markedly right-wing council reflects a massive sea change in Chilean politics compared to October 2019, when the country erupted in protests against the neoliberal government of Sebastián Piñera.

The newly formed council will have fifty-one elected seats, of which twenty-three will be occupied by representatives of the far-right Republican Party, eleven from the traditional right, and only sixteen from the Left (plus one representative of indigenous peoples). In short, Sunday’s results were an electoral disaster of historic proportions for the Chilean left — the only comparable precedent being the rejection of the proposed constitution in a 2022 national plebiscite.

The victory of the far right is even more paradoxical considering their historical loyalty to the dictatorship and its “legacies.” Indeed, the Republican Party, associated with recent presidential hopeful José Antonio Kast, has always vocally opposed any changes to the existing constitution.

That being the case, the far right is now holding all the cards, and the approval of the constitution depends on their support. Even more deflating, the constitutional project is now being drafted by a technocratic “Committee of Experts,” itself appointed by a right-led National Congress.

How did Chile come to this?

Fail Worse

Unfortunately, defeat has become a running trend for the Chilean left. The failed first attempt to draft a new constitution, led by a left-dominated Constitutional Convention, was the first dose of reality. The constitutional plebiscite of September 4, 2022, will live in memory as one of the harshest electoral defeats the Chilean left has ever been dealt. On that day, amid historic turnout rates thanks to a new compulsory voting rule, a crushing majority of Chileans (61.82 percent) rejected the proposal for a progressive constitution that the convention had been preparing since July 2021.

Among advocates of the “apruebo” (approval) vote, the initial reaction was one of shock and confusion. To date, there is still no compelling explanation for an electoral disaster of such magnitude, with the proposed constitution winning a meager 38.15 percent. That number, combined with the sudden electoral growth of the far right in the recent Council election, should be setting off alarm bells.

Apart from some self-criticism of convention procedures, the Chilean left has yet to carry out a politically productive self-analysis of their defeat.

For many leaders and intellectuals of the progressive camp, the reason for the 2022 defeat lay with a right-wing communications campaign. In that account, citizens were deceived by a “terror campaign” and “fake news” propagated in the mainstream media and social networks. The constitutional project was, they argue, derailed by the failure of the Chilean citizenry to grasp what would have been a great feminist, environmentalist, and indigenous constitution — the kind needed to remedy the evils of a constitution designed during the military dictatorship of Pinochet (1973–1990) and essentially in effect from 1990 onward. Left-wing leaders in the weeks to come may repeat the same lines, but that would be a grave mistake.

Apart from some self-criticism of convention procedures, the Chilean left has yet to carry out a politically productive self-analysis of their defeat. Now, with the far right’s surprise victory in the new council, it is more urgent than ever to reach some clarity about where things went wrong.

The Uprising

One of the hardest things to digest about the September 2022 and May 2023 defeats is that the current political phase, opened with the uprising of October 2019, should have been enormously favorable for an anti-neoliberal agenda. That month in 2019 saw massive, spontaneous social protests — the largest since the 1980s. Millions of citizens took to the streets, determined to reject the collective humiliation to which they were subjected by the conservative government of billionaire Piñera.

The spark may have been the government’s decision to increase the subway fare in the capital of Santiago, but within days of the protests, it became clear that the grievances — many and diverse though they were — were all based on the structural inequalities born of thirty years of neoliberalism.

In that sense, the “social uprising” of 2019 was the culmination of a growing wave of mobilizations that began at least as far back as the student demonstrations of 2011, joined in the following years by different social movements: against Chile’s privatized social security system; the excessive administrative centralization in the nation’s capital; the environmental depredation of transnational (and national) companies; the shortcomings of the country’s public health system; and pervasive gender inequalities combatted by feminist and youth movements, among others.

It is no coincidence that all these grievances were channeled into the demand for a new constitution. Amid protests, a conservative congress and government were ultimately forced to accept the bankruptcy of their political and economic model and initiate an unprecedented process of constitutional change, which not even the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in March 2020 could stop.

For some time, the situation still seemed favorable for the Left. In October 2020, the plebiscite to ratify the beginning of the constitutional process was decided by an approval vote of 78.28 percent. Furthermore, the May 2021 vote for the Constitutional Convention elected a heterogeneous majority of independent assembly members: indigenous, feminists, and environmentalist activists, as well as intellectuals and militants of left and center-left parties. The political right, on the other hand, failed to elect a third of Convention members — the threshold that would have allowed it to exercise veto power.

Moreover, as the convention was deliberating in November and December 2021, the leftist and former student leader Gabriel Boric clinched the presidential election. That sequence seemed to imply the end of the political hegemony of the two large center-left and right-wing blocs that had dominated during the three decades of post-dictatorial government.

Chile’s Thermidor

Why, then, did the “rejection” vote triumph in September 2022? And how did the far right suddenly become the driving force in Chilean politics?

First, the COVID pandemic and the ensuing economic crisis radically altered the political landscape, modifying the priorities of large parts of the Chilean population — including part of the most mobilized participants of October 2019. The spirit of the “social uprising” was deeply connected with a strong antiestablishment sentiment, a fact reflected in the initial plebiscite of 2020 and the election of independents during the Constitutional Convention of 2021.

The 2022 presidential election was an early warning of a major shift in popular sentiment, especially since the far-right candidate Kast won first place in the first round (albeit in a context of high electoral fragmentation). Parliamentary elections did not augur well for the Left, either: not only did Kast’s ultraright and the traditional right come out stronger, so did the People’s Party (PDG), a populist, demagogic, and opportunistic group, which, despite its strong antiestablishment discourse, in practice was on the right of the political spectrum.

The COVID pandemic exposed the crumbling foundations of Chilean neoliberalism: few state-guaranteed health measures, low wages and high indebtedness, and regulations favoring capital over labor. All this resulted in high unemployment mixed with something Chileans had not experienced for decades: inflation.

Security, migration, and cost of living have now become priority issues for most Chilean citizens. The right-wing political opposition and media have seized on this situation to attack the government.

At the same time, the number of undocumented Venezuelan immigrants increased rapidly, largely in response to public invitations made by the government of Piñera. The lack of state infrastructure to receive migrants and the harsh conditions of social marginalization and overcrowding — coupled with the extreme economic hardship of many Chileans — caused crime and violence to rise to levels unfamiliar by local standards.

Security, migration, and cost of living have now become priority issues for most Chilean citizens. The right-wing political opposition and media have seized on this situation to attack the government and, above all, to re-signify the memory of the “social uprising:” no longer seen as a legitimate and genuine expression of citizen unrest but as a criminal outburst.

Still dealing with problems internal to his cabinet, Boric’s government has struggled to adapt to these new circumstances. Boric supported laws that invest the police with new powers, despite the fact that the mood on the Left — especially after the police brutality during the 2019 protests — was calling out for a deep reform of the “Carabineros,” the main Chilean police institution. It remains to be seen how effective Boric’s attempt at political adaption will be, and at what cost to the loyalty of his own political base.

Worse still, none of Boric’s policies have paid dividends with the broader Chilean electorate: the far right is still profiting politically from the hardships of Chilean citizens. In fact, Kast and his Republicanos have succeeded in converting social deterioration into millions of votes, with generous funding from the most reactionary fractions of Chilean capital.

Conventional Quagmire

The constitutional project ran aground for reasons that go beyond economic and social circumstances. To date, the Chilean left has said very little about a separate issue: the ideological problems that dogged the convention’s proposals. At the center of those proposals was the idea of a “social state” and “social rights,” which included provisions to ensure gender equality, the right to a pollution-free environment, and measures for the recognition, reparation, and autonomy of indigenous peoples.

All of these are legitimate banners for the Chilean left. To dismiss them as the caprices of “identity politics” is to be out of step with the changes the Chilean left has undergone in recent decades. However, many debates at the convention revolved around simplistic understandings of Chilean history that did little to endear them to the general populace: the state and the republic, some claimed, are oppressive structures created by the ruling classes and have straitjacketed indigenous ancestral identities (now apparently free to emerge in all their purity). The nation, they continued, should be “pluralized” into a series of communities (or “peoples”) rooted in “territories,” thus questioning the constitutive unity of the country itself.

This pluralized notion of the state and the nation gave rise to a set of proposals that left a bad taste in people’s mouths: the call for separate local justice systems for indigenous peoples or the replacement of the Senate (one of the oldest in the modern world) by a chamber of regional representation.

The media cast a spotlight on these controversial aspects and amplified a number of scandals surrounding the convention with the clear objective of discrediting it and inflating the “rejection” vote in the exit plebiscite. But the full magnitude of the defeat lies elsewhere.

Many members of the convention continued to act as if the country were living in a constant state of social upheaval. Indeed, the resounding number of votes obtained in the 2020 plebiscite had convinced many that approval was all but guaranteed and that the actual contents of the constitution were almost secondary. And it was that optimism that discouraged a more comprehensive discussion about how a constitution could advance a new Chilean state and society in line with popular, working-class aspirations.

The state, the republic, the nation, and democracy are all familiar enough sites of struggle for the Chilean left. After all, Salvador Allende’s “Chilean road to socialism” was built on the idea that democracy was a conquest of the workers, the nation a community among equals, and the state an institutional apparatus that could be conquered, its class biases altered in the pursuit of socialism. The old left was first and foremost concerned with the material conditions of existence and the structural inequalities of dependent capitalism.

It is not that these concerns went missing in constitutional debates. But the simplistic and sometimes unfounded criticisms of republican egalitarianism, dear to so many social movements, had an outsized role in discussions of the state. Without the need to renounce feminist, indigenous, or environmental struggles, the Chilean left must rethink these causes as part of a comprehensive project of social change that aspires to take power and build connections with popular and working sectors.

The simplistic and sometimes unfounded criticisms of republican egalitarianism, dear to so many social movements, had an outsized role in discussions of the state.

The usual explanations offered by progressive sectors for their defeat (the role of the media, the lack of understanding of the people) betrays a worrying middle-class paternalism toward the Chilean people who, in their account, would not be virtuous enough to understand what is in their own interest. Moreover, that thinking prevents the much-needed political reflection and criticism to get out of the current political quagmire.

Fifty Years Later

The constitutional process will lumber into 2023 as the product of left defeat and a sharp conservative turn in Chilean politics and public opinion. It is a process of limited scope carefully controlled by establishment parties. Still waiting for the far right–dominated Constitutional Council to take the reins, a “Commission of Experts” appointed by Congress is formulating the contents of the constitution at a safe distance from the popular will.

For now, the Left must act as a force of real resistance to the conservative onslaught and prevent any radicalization of Chile’s thirty-year-old neoliberal state. Strange as it may sound, this could even mean organizing a rejection campaign to stop the passage of a right-backed constitution. More importantly, in order to recover from these harsh electoral blows, the Left must begin a process of introspection about its ideological deficiencies, taking inspiration in its own rich history.

In 2023, the year marking the fiftieth anniversary of the coup d’état that violently ended the democratic-socialist government of Allende and the Popular Unity, the Left would do well to remember several things: the patience and long-term vision shown by that political and social formation, built amid advances and setbacks taking place over several decades. Egalitarian structural change will not be achieved by a stroke of good fortune or by an enlightened vanguard of legislators. It will be the product of the slow accumulation of forces and the construction of a lasting hegemony rooted in the aspirations, expectations, and interests of the working majorities of Chile.

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