–The women are all feminists, tough militants of that
religion
. Men are convinced that gender equality is fair, but there is an atavistic heterocultural issue that can betray us at any moment. You have to be attentive and not stumble, so that they don't
work
for you [they cancel you]. We are all suspects. If you make a mistake, you will be expelled from paradise: bye, you're
out
. You stop being part of the elite.
From the Chilean ruling progressivism elite, led by President Gabriel Boric.
From the
baby red set
, who came to power from the university, where he ruffled feathers with the firm decision to
kill his father
. With concertationist parents [the center-left alliance that governed Chile between 1990 and 2010] or right-wing conservatives or entrepreneurs with no doctrine other than ambition. Because this young elite was formed in democracy and prosperity, although at times it seems that they wish they had been born poor.
That and feminism are defining keys of this third derivative of the Chilean left, which prefers to call itself
progressive
.
The left was born popular, but its leaders have evolved with the changes of the times. In the Chile of the 60s and 70s, the
wiskera
or
whiskeyierda
or
parrillera
left emerged , in which the most malicious included Salvador Allende (a current nostalgic icon for those who, curiously, never met him). In France,
gauche caviar
or
gauche champagne
emerged , and in the United States the exquisite, radical
chic
left , as Tom Wolfe mentioned it. In it,
the teacher
Leonard Bernstein stood out, who received “the black panthers” in his Manhattan
penthouse
, which generated an ethical and aesthetic dilemma: what color should the waiters be?
At the end of the 80s and 90s, Chileans returning from exile during the Pinochet dictatorship – pure leftists and also
whiskey makers
or grillers or
whatever
– came back. Literally. With less hair on the head, but more
hair
on the habits [higher level].
In Europe and the United States, the luckiest exiles became more sophisticated. They abandoned the old messianic desire that placed them on the margins of earthly tastes and recognized themselves as more cosmopolitan. They knew about wines, they loved cheese for dessert and traveling first class. They read in English and French before Spanish, they preferred the former Mapu with two names than the sad communists, and they were not uncomfortable with joining what in those years we called
the red set
.
Nothing suggested that, after three decades, it would be their offspring who would install the tremendous phrase “it's not 30 pesos, it's 30 years,” mobilizing the discouraged young hosts of the periphery, swelled by the lumpen and the bravas, to sweep away the little and nothing (or the little and much, depending on the lens with which you look) that the Concertación had achieved. With that motto, they encouraged the jumping of all the metro turnstiles in October 2019. And they entered La Moneda. Their detractors call them “Octoberists.” And here we have them:
the baby red set
. Present and always surprising, but little outlined.
'FOMO' and 'OnlyFans'
“The Broad Front
ethos
is me,” says a journalist trained at the University of Chile, after agreeing to anonymity. He is 38, just like President Gabriel Boric. In terms of age, the
baby red set
is made up of people between 32 and 42 years old. “Women are to be feared. The men, at the first misplaced
Morandé con Compañía
type
[a Chilean television program], know that certain cancellation is coming. “That scares them and makes them soft.”
This is confirmed by a boomer
intellectual
who also does not reveal his identity, but is close to the group. “Sometimes they invite me to their meetings; I know that they find me eternal.” And he confirms: “Men have become much more feminine. In short: they are softer and they are more masculine. The ways, the ways, have become closer.”
An older columnist knows the
baby red set up
close: his ex-partner's daughter is the ex-partner of a leader of the group.
Through
he sent us two lists: one of his virtues and one of his defects. Here, the good:
· They believe in a “fluid”, where appetites can manifest freely. What envy.
· They are generous with their time and knowledge.
· We old people can be used as guides in the harsh world of technologies.
·
They work
like crazy [undertake difficult tasks]; They are testimonial parents. And they do not receive any criticism in that space.
· Everything that has to do with moving, with moving forward, excites them. From the fast train to Talca to Bestia brand shoes (they are bought at the Drugstore, in the commune of Providencia).
· They cook! And several of them do it fantastically.
· Their ultimate fantasy is for all gender differences to disappear.
· They live in a dream state where trains are vital.
· They are not consumerists like we were.
The bad:
· They suffer from FOMO (
fear of missing out
). The fear of missing out is a deep-rooted obsession and a source of anxiety. Thus, they live on social networks and make mistakes in them.
· They are fundamentalists and pontificators, very unliberal. If you don't agree with them, they punish you.
· They come reeling from the worst of their defeats: inclusive language, which deflated after the failure of the first constitutional attempt in 2022.
· They are bad losers, but they give up by making the opponent's arguments their own.
· They believe that self-criticism erases sins. They use it with irritating hypocrisy.
· Many have developed an arrogance focused on
goodism
.
· They are children of a culture of visuality that has changed even the tactile roots of sexuality.
OnlyFans
appears as a legitimate option for many of them.
· "What did you say?". Someone convinced them that there was a correction manual and that they control it.
· But, faced with a provocation like “Allende was a narcissistic and disastrous guy,” they back down without problems.
· They are super
angry
[angry when losing]. As they have always done well, when something goes wrong, they suffer... and get stung.
From The Terrace to The Island
Without entering into the swarm of political-student groups, subgroups, infragroups where this elite was forged, the current leaderships have two main aspects. On the one hand, the autonomist movements that emerged in Law from the University of Chile, where Boric comes from. And those generated from the creation of New University Action (NAU) at the Catholic University, embodied in Giorgio Jackson,
the fallen angel
, with identical hair and appearance increasingly similar to Walter White. Miguel Crispi and Joaquín Walker are also part of this faction. Here there is more diversity of careers and knowledge. And he passed through institutions like Techo (“Tetcho,” they call him), which linked them to the helpless and vulnerable, to those they want to redeem.
“In general, they all come from the economic and social elite. For this reason, in university times, they had a clear inclination towards
abasement
. Nobody liked it being known where he lived, what his parents did, where he spent his summers. Everyone tried to pass as poor. Today everyone has
realized
that they are elite. They earn on average five dollars a month [about $5,300] and many much more than that, so they can't continue fooling themselves: no, they're not from the popular world,” says one who knows (36).
A clear representative of the matter is the current Minister of Economy, Nicolás Grau (40), a commercial engineer from the University of Chile, a doctor in Economics from the University of Pennsylvania. He is the son of Michelle Bachelet's former minister, Paulina Veloso. In 2018, he was 35. It was already said that he was “the economic brain of the Frente Amplismo.” Since then, José Antonio Kast reminds him every time he can how, for the centenary of the Federation of Students of the University of Chile, FECH, and being its president,
he spent
[spent] 120 million pesos [about $130,000] on the organization of a university recital, with Charly García and Vicentico, due to a miscalculation. Complete economic failure.
As a professor at the Faculty of Economics of Chile, he told us in those years: “My salary as a professor is excessive and I am ashamed of the amount [just over three million or 3,200 dollars]. Why does a university professor earn so much more than someone who changes an elderly person's diapers?” And he detailed his assets from then and much of his usual style, one that is common to the ruling elite:
“My luxury is my house, which I am paying for over 25 years. It is in Manuel Montt and Irarrázaval, a middle-class neighborhood, which due to the gentrification of Ñuñoa, is no longer so cheap. I couldn't live in the eastern sector. I come by bus when the weather is good; In winter, I use my car, a Swift sedan, very normal, because I drop my daughter off in the garden. I don't drink
whiskey
.”
Returning to the issue of social classes, a young sociologist classifies: “There are the
cuicos
[posh ones], no matter how bad they are, who have settled in Ñuñoa, Parque Forestal, some sectors of Providencia, La Reina; The authentic
ñuñoínos
, that's me, recognize each other just like dogs: by wagging their tails; and the popular ones that serve the cause. Before it was said that we
ñuñoínos
were not cuicos, but we are. A social elite from a different branch: second university generation of the family, nothing to do with the traditional aristocracy or businessmen. The
bassist cuicos
are the Grau, the Ibáñez, the Crispi, the Winter Etcheberry, the Vela Grau, the Vodanovic, the Jackson... It's a matter of looking at the surnames. President Boric is saved by his provincial status. That makes it more genuine.”
Rafael Gumucio (54), writer and journalist, alluded in part to this: “Boric and Winter are classic politicians. In 1990, they would have been PPD; in 1970, from MAPU; Christian Democrats in 1965; and radicals in 1920″. In other words, the usual elite.
This elite shares tastes and aesthetics, more generational than social, such as the preference for Ñuñoa [traditional neighborhood in the eastern sector of Santiago that is joked about for being
hipster
] and neighborhoods associated with the middle class, which they gentrify, making them stratospherically more expensive. Today anyone knows that the square meter in sectors of Ñuñoa is more expensive than that of buildings and condominiums in La Dehesa.
“Nothing left in La Dehesa or Vitacura is useful for them to live in, because those are the neighborhoods of power. Although many have grown up there, they feel
Nuñoínos
by essence. Not a single one lives in the Yungay neighborhood. Except for one, of course” [in reference to Boric].
A journalist (37), a friend of the president, mentions their meeting places:
-Before being the Government they went to La Terraza, one block from Plaza Italia, by Vicuña Mackenna, a typical soda fountain. Today you can find a motley Frontamplista swarm on La Isla, which is next to the Passapoga, there in the Torres de Tajamar. The owner is one of the editors of Planeta and in the afternoons you can see people like Miguel Crispi.
Others are La Factoría in the Franklin neighborhood; classic
ñuñoíno
establishments , such as Las Lanzas, and the Italia neighborhood, where one stands out that resembles a popular neighborhood soda fountain, a style that they love.
The historian father (82) of a member of the elite, confides: “They are educated
kids
, friends of their friends, good at celebrating in their homes, around the grill, listening to semi-tropical rhythms. They have simple tastes.”
woke him up
What do they read, who are their philosophers, their gurus, their intellectual references?
The
boomer interviewee,
but a friend, states: “They are re-little read. That's how it is. They have been formed in other orbits: video games, series, the
web
. Giorgio, for example, has never been a board chess player. He says he plays chess, but he does it on the screen. Boric breaks out of the mold of the general lack of reading, because he is truly interested in poetry.
-Don't you suffer from a kind of intellectual careerism?
-No. He is immature, but honest. It's curious, not dense. Kind too. It approaches naivety. More than an intellectual careerist, he is a guy eager to know more than he knows, because what he does know is that he knows very little.
-How do you explain your admiration for Allende?
-That's confusing. Although it is of great relevance to them, they have little deep knowledge of it. There are many more genuine Allendeistas in the concertationist generation than in this one. Boric despises the regimes of Venezuela and Nicaragua. And if he doesn't
fight
Cuba [he speaks badly about Cuba], it is to avoid fighting with the PC.
The Frente-Amplista journalist maintains that Boric's desire to look like Allende – the glasses with thick dark frames, the cloth coats, his arms behind his back, his rigid walk with his chest raised – is pure
cosplay
. “Costume, play, pop culture.” Stage pantomime, like the photo sitting on the floor of a Madrid bookstore.
Among the theoretical references are the Belgian philosopher Chantal Mouffe (80) and her partner and co-author of
Hegemony and Socialist Strategy
, the Argentine Ernesto Laclau (78). Both are the fathers of post-Marxism and are behind left-wing populist movements, such as the Spanish Podemos to which our
baby red set
feels kinship, or La France Insoumise. On the economic side, the great light is the Italian-American Mariana Mazzucato (55). She is director of the Institute for Innovation and Public Purpose at University College London (UCL), where some have done postgraduate degrees, such as the economist Rodrigo Echecopar, former president of the RD party, who today works at La Moneda.
In clear decline is the influence of the sociologist Carlos Ruiz (59), organizer of leaders such as the SurDA, the Autonomous Left and the Broad Front itself. And the lawyer and academic Fernando Atria (55). The first one ended up being lost by the episode of gender violence in which he was involved last year. Although the victim gave up legal action, the elite had no choice but
to fly him
out of paradise. Atria was liquidated by constitutional failure.
All of these inspirations, past or current, are linked to the emergence of
woke music
on university campuses around the world.
That's what gringa Susan Neiman was explaining a couple of weeks ago in Santiago.
Pure
red set , she is the author of
The left is not woke
, an essay that accurately describes where the
baby red set
could be making trouble . The intellectual makes an effort to preserve the furniture of well-inspired socialism, which she believes in the common good, in universal values, and not in a list of causes, ranging from animalism to LGBTB + all the letters you want to add.
The main and most obvious errors?
Turning victims into heroes and tribalism. This is how he explains it in his book: “The Bible warns us again and again of what happens when people unite around tribal identities: envy, conflict and war are usually the most common consequences. Tribalism describes the civil breakdown that occurs when people of any type think that the fundamental human difference is that between our type and everyone else's. “Tribalism is even more paradoxical today, given that we know that the idea of race was created by racists.”
Painted mouths
A former Bachelet minister gets excited interpreting the indelible seal of the painted mouths of prominent figures of the regime. Mouths outlined with the passionate red of a long-lasting
rouge
[lipstick] that we don't know where they buy and why they use with such relish.
It seems like a detail full of symbolism. “The Camilas, the Karols, are telling us: I paint for myself, not to seduce you, and I walk like this from morning to night, from 8:00 a.m. to midnight. I am the owner of my mouth, of my sayings. I believe death, I'm annoying and what."
A writer close to the lot also enjoys commenting on the use: “It's certainly not Pamela Grant, the product. It is
rouge
like from another planet.” He adds: “The triumph of aesthetic treatments with Botox is very interesting among women of that elite. Since they were very young, they have been making very effective minor touch-ups and they do not try to hide them.” A
millennial
observer adds: “There is a lot of
skin care
in them. "I don't know what time they take care of their skin so much."
They tell us that they buy the
rouge
in Korean makeup stores in Providencia. And they call their users “
glam
communists ”: the geographer Camila Vallejo (35), the cool girl of the group,
the spokesperson
. Her friend, deputy Karol Cariola (36), a midwife by profession; and the long-standing lawyer who was a former constituent of the first convention, Bárbara Sepúlveda (38). The mayor of Santiago, Irací Hassler, also tries it with dubious results. What fails there is the voice.
The thing about the painted mouths has to do deeply with “that this is a different generation from the one that preceded it.” They are pop and do not deny vanity. “They like to look pretty, dress well, they have no limits or contradictions. That nonsense of disqualifying a communist with an iPhone, presenting him as contradictory, is an old thing. They consume entertainment, they have all the Mac equipment (the
Apple watch
is essential), Alexa is their co-pilot. They dance salsa. They buy at Zara, but they value Chilean design. The handmade shoes, the designs of Lupe Gajardo, those of Palosanto, more accessible. They have no limits,” says a Frente Amplista journalist.
Velvet-peeled
Camila Antonia Amaranta Vallejo Dowling is the most representative leader of the progressivism that governs us. The truest one, because she “is from La Florida [an area in the south of Santiago], from a subsidized Florida school, Raimapu, with middle-class parents, not even that prosperous. A
beautiful
goat that
walked
[partyed] in Florida, with others poorer than her. She is the most solid for my taste.”
Another suggests that he manages all these virtues with a very studied political communication strategy. The popular, the cute, the
glam
. She brings him closer to the president. None of that is coincidental.
In the end, it's the girls who bring them. Strong and strategic.
Several of them, not just the
glam communists, have been seduced by the only
coated
paper magazine
that lasts in Chile:
Velvet
, by the tourism engineer who has ventured into politics with the support of Evópoli, Katherine Echaiz.
Kat
, as everyone knows her.
In its pages the troubles of the lawyer, founder of the Broad Front and Social Convergence – Boric's party – and conventional constituent, Constanza Schönhaut (35), Giorgio Jackson's ex, have been displayed. That of Antonia Cósmica Orellana Guarello (34), better known as
Toti
, journalist, feminist, founder of Convergencia Social and current Minister of Women and Gender Equality. That of Maite Orsini (36), actress, lawyer, activist of the Democratic Revolution, current deputy and girlfriend of the former national team soccer player
Mago
Valdivia.
In all cases, the content focuses on the difficulties of being a woman in a patriarchal, heteronormative, sexist, classist, prejudiced world...
Constanza says that her last name is confusing, that she studied on a scholarship and that no one in her family has their own home. Antonia, that her political capital lies in being “a militant
chasquilla
” [Improvised] and recounts her abortion experience that she had already narrated. She claims that that event made her have a political turn: she went from being more anarchist to not despising political work. Maite Orsini talks about the scandal of the agreements that she has in an agonizing state at her party, as if they had harmed her son. Son that he does not have nor does he believe he will have, because “Democratic Revolution is the most stable and lasting relationship I have ever had.”
Here we can see the
abasement
that our informants talk about. To expose a life that is not easy, suffered, hard.
Velvet
's photos and conversations
are not in private spaces. They are all in the offices. They do not usually open their homes.
But Camila did show her house. And the description given by journalist Carolina Urrejola (49) reflects the aesthetics and lifestyle of the group.
“It is in the vicinity of Villa Frei. It is warm, cozy and very
hippie
, according to its owner, who declares herself happy in this part of the city. There are plants in every corner of the open space she lives with Abel, her husband; Adela, her nine-year-old daughter; Tanga, a big cat, and the most recent addition to the family: Sakura, a recently spayed kitten. There are blankets, travel souvenirs, colored teapots, revolutionary posters, books on feminism, board games and a large collection of magnets on the refrigerator with classic references of leftist culture in Chile and Latin America.”
It does not mention the parquet floor, an essential element, and the walls full of typical UP posters, which are
from
[an essential] for a
baby red set
home .
The Karamanese dialect
–Do the members of the
baby red set
get married ?
–Progressivism gets married or enters into a civil union agreement with separation of property –answers journalist Nicolás Copano (37).
And he is an authoritative voice: he himself married on April 6 with his partner since 2006, the
podcaster
, journalist and writer María José Castro (37), better known as Lady Ganga. The wedding had a justice of the peace, parents and godparents making speeches, a flower cart, live music, food, dancing in the Diana Space, closed for the occasion. Since progressivism is a
long shot
[it leaves late], buses were available to take the most enthusiastic to continue the party at the Blondie nightclub.
Camila Vallejo married this year, with much more discretion, to Abel Zicavo (38), musician and member for 12 years of the band
La Moral Distracted
and today leader of the group
Plumas
. He is the son of a Chilean-Uruguayan couple. He lived in Sweden, Cuba, Uruguay and now here. Before, she was paired with the Cuban doctor Julio Sarmiento Machado (41), who is the father of Adela, her daughter.
Giorgio Jackson, before going into exile, as President Boric joked, signed a civil union agreement with the writer Camila Gutiérrez (38). And in March they left to live in Barcelona. Giorgio Kenneth's new partner became known for recounting his own experience as a young bisexual man in a conservative evangelical family in the commune of Peñalolén. Everything remained in the
Joven y Alocada
blog , which would become first a book and then the film directed by Marialy Rivas (47).
“I consider myself hetero curious. The game moves me more than desire. Many times, I have kissed with men, out of experimentation, but with its very erotic charge,” acknowledges a humanist Frente Amplista. And he remembers the nickname that came out in the British School yearbook when the current president graduated. “They called him
Gaybriel
, because of some similar experimental situations. "This is what he himself explained in an interview with Roka Valbuena."
That has to do with how fluid they declare themselves in sexual matters. With nothing heteronormative, a word that has come up a lot and is recurring in the language of
the former non-first lady
, the sociologist Irina Karamanos (34), who also gave an interview to
Velvet.
Although she entered La Moneda without signing a document, as Cecilia sang – there was neither a marriage nor a civil union agreement – and she left the same way, she imposed an unassailable feminist jargon that some called
the Karamanese dialect
.
Darkness in expression is a hallmark of the
woke
movement . And in that Irina is chemically pure: “The first lady cannot give the idea that she has a sexual body. The archetype is very maternal and there the truth no longer matters, because in politics the narrative, the performative and the image often weigh more. The president must seduce all of Chile, while the first lady must mother.”
Thus, in simple words, Irina explained the role that she did not want to play, but that still changed radically during her brief time in the palace.
“The expression
Mapadre bothers me, it makes me
cringe
a little
, but I think it's already on the decline. I also don't use greetings like: 'Hello girls, boys,
kids
', which is a very obvious way of expressing progressivism. It is true that there are a lot of
invented words
, like that of
mothering
,” says a publicist from the RD.
Many nouns changed into verbs; a lot of metaphor like “inhabiting the position”; a lot of uniformed discourse, where qualifying nouns such as “robust”, “relevant”, “territorial” are superfluous and nouns such as “actorías”, “sororo”, “inclusive” are heard in the mouths of “the technical cadres”.
The boomer
intellectual
close to the lot says: “That particular talk occurred a lot in the first Constitutional Convention. If Jaime Bassa said
we
and spoke everything in feminine! But inclusive language has suffered a strong push; "He doesn't run anymore."
The reference to Wallmapu was also blurred. You could put a date and a face to when: Izkia Siches
pushing
[leaving at full speed] from Temucuicui.
He came out of the scene in a very different way than Giorgio, who after debuting as Minister General Secretary of the Presidency had a second chance in Social Development, but was unable to overcome the
Agreements
scandal , the poor position of his DR and the lack of empathy that some They attribute it to “it's Asperger's” and others to simple arrogance. The friendship, the complicity, the social and political affinity with his friend the president kept him going much more than the passionate and popular Izkia.
Exits from office, like those, anticipate that others will come, because everything has its cycles and circles. The fall of Comunes and the extinction of the Democratic Revolution, to merge with Convergencia Social into the only Frente Amplio party, account for the same thing. The exhausting “something else is with guitar”, the inexorable passage of time, the baldness that is advancing on the presidential head and the proximity of 40, anticipate that the
baby red set
has arrived and is still here, but not to stay.