We are reminded that Univision’s Special Editorial Advisor to the CEO, Jorge Ramos, is the ONLY national prime-time anchor with a syndicated weekly column. Surprising no one, his latest Trump-deranged column deems the indictment of the former president to be “a beautiful act”.
As readers of this byline know well, Ramos’ opinion columns give us an insight into the biases displayed on-camera. Past columns advocate for the repeal of the filibuster, gun control, deride persons of faith as “gullible”, and cheer the defeat of Senators Cruz and Rubio in the 2016 presidential primary- in addition to shilling for the Green New Deal.
Ramos’ Trump derangement is also a matter of public record. Recall the lengths that he went to in order to stage a confrontation with Trump over immigration (click “expand” to view transcript):
PETER MANSBRIDGE, CBC: Why did you make the decision that you had to go to Iowa to confront Donald Trump?
JORGE RAMOS, UNIVISION: As you know, television… television doesn't happen. Television is produced. It is created. And, so we brought three cameras, we brought microphones, and our purpose was to talk to Donald Trump. And confront Donald Trump. That was the purpose. As a journalist.
MANSBRIDGE: A confrontation.
RAMOS: I wanted to ask him a question- many questions, but (...) yes, it was going to be a confrontation.
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MANSBRIDGE: You keep calling it questions, your “questions”, where in fact you didn’t ask a question. They’re statements, not questions.
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MANSBRIDGE: You can not deport 11 million people
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RAMOS: You can not deport 11 million… you can not deport 11 million people.
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MANSBRIDGE: You can not deport 11 million… you can not deport 11 million people
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RAMOS: You can not build a 1900-mile wall.
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MANSBRIDGE: You can not deny citizenship to children in this country.
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RAMOS: You can not deny citizenship to children in this country.
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RAMOS: I confronted him on the fact that he wants to deport 11 million people, and build a wall, and deny citizenship.
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RAMOS: We thought that in Dubuque, Iowa, there would be just a few journalists following the candidate. And we were right. So we showed up like two hours before, we brought three cameras, and then we made a plan. I was going to be wearing a microphone so my voice would be at the exact same level as his when we start editing
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DONALD TRUMP: No, you haven’t you haven’t been called.
RAMOS: I have… I have the right to ask a question. And this is...no. And this is the question. You can not deport 11 million… you can not deport 11 million people. You can not build a 1900-mile wall. You can not deny citizenship to children in this country.
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RAMOS: Then we had the three cameras well-positioned, the lighting was right, and then I made a plan. (...) We planned everything.
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RAMOS: TV, television doesn't happen. You create it. You produce it. It doesn't happen just like that. And that’s exactly what we did. (...) We NEEDED TO CONFRONT HIM.
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CHRIS CUOMO, CNN: You wanted to get into a fight with him and you got your fight.
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RAMOS: We will be judged, as journalists, by how we responded to Donald Trump.
And so it is with this latest column, which begins with obligatory tie-ins to corruption in Mexico and throughout Latin America as an underlying rationale with which to bless the indictment in New York:
I come from a country – Mexico – where presidents and former presidents have been untouchable.
We have had presidents who were murderers, corrupt, election fraudsters and cheaters, thieves and magicians who suddenly made their relatives very wealthy. And all left office as free men, without facing justice. All of them. That's why I believe the indictment of former US President Donald Trump is so instructive.
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In Mexico, for example, they have a lot to answer for. All the presidents until 2000 were virtually appointed and elected with fraud. The ruler who ordered the murder of dozens and perhaps hundreds of students at the Tlatelolco plaza in 1968 was never put on trial. Nor the one who allowed the halconazo massacre in 1971. One built himself a tacky mansion in what Mexicans came to call Dog Hill, and another acquired a luxurious white home from a contractor in his government.
It's never been clear how some former presidents live well above the sum of their modest government salaries and pensions. It's hard to understand why some secret budgets have never been made public.
Latin America is also loaded with corrupt and super-wealthy former presidents. Some efforts, not so convincing, have been made to bring the worst abusers to justice in Argentina, Brazil, El Salvador, Honduras, Panama, Colombia and other places. But only in Peru has this practice become a kind of national sport: President is elected, president is jailed. Or almost so. Eight Peruvian presidents have been arrested or faced criminal charges since the end of the Alberto Fujimori presidency in 2000.
Ramos even goes on to lament that former dictators did not face justice But, as always and blinded by Trump derangement, Ramos missed a spot. There is no mention or acknowledgement of Daniel Ortega, the Nicaraguan dictator who rigged his recent “re-election” by prosecuting his potential opponents. He even wrote a column about this, titled “The Tyrant of Managua”:
Not satisfied with 20 years in the presidency, Ortega now wants five more. And that's why, five months before the election on Nov. 7, he has arrested nearly 20 opposition figures, including five presidential candidates. His strategy, like any other dictator's, is crude: arrest the main political adversaries in their homes, accuse them of crimes they did not commit, withstand international pressures and win reelection.
Ortega is following the same script as Venezuelan dictator Nicolás Maduro, who arrested or blocked several presidential candidates before the 2018 elections. “It is the enemies of the revolution who are screaming,” Ortega said recently, in his first public appearance in more than a month. He said the people arrested are “criminals … who want to overthrow the government.”
It is interesting that Ramos denounced the flimsy financial crime Ortega’s main opponent was charged with, given his insistence that Trump be prosecuted for an equally flimsy charge in New York. “Financial inconsistencies”, indeed:
She has been officially charged with “financial inconsistencies” in the amounts received from a foundation named after her father. But Cristiana asserts that the accusation “is made up. What's behind it is a politicized trial to bar my candidacy.” I have not been able to talk with her since that interview and her home arrest.
From these inconsistent positions, one might infer that Jorge Ramos is fine with strongman tactics so long as they are used against politicians he does not like, in which case the abhorrent becomes “beautiful”.
Whatever this is, it is not “Standing opposite to power”, but the exact opposite. And given his position as Special Editorial Advisor to the CEO and unless expressly indicated otherwise, this is also Univision’s official editorial position.
