Chile rising, Boric wins big

Plus Weekend Quotables

At 35, Gabriel Boric will become Chile’s youngest modern president when he takes office in March. With 56% of the votes, Boric on Sunday handily defeated his right-wing opponent, José Antonio Kast, by more than 10 points.

The election offered voters a clear choice between the two candidates offering starkly different visions of the future. Kast, 55, the son of a former German Nazi, ran a law-and-order campaign and was a defender of former dictator Augusto Pinochet.

Boric, leader of the leftist coalition Frente Amplio, was among several activists elected to Congress in 2014 after leading protests for higher quality education. On the stump, he vowed to “bury” the neoliberal economic model left by Pinochet’s dictatorship and raise taxes on the “super rich” to expand social services, fight inequality, and boost protection of the environment.

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WEEKEND QUOTABLES

Lucrecia Cornejo, 72, Santiago seamstress

“I want equality, for us not to be as they call us, the ‘broken ones,’ more fairness in education, health and salaries,” she said. “I want real change.” — The Wire

Congresswoman Cori Bush

Honestly, I’m frustrated with every Democrat who agreed to tie the fate of our most vulnerable communities to the corporatist ego of one Senator. No one should have backed out of our initial strategy that would have kept Build Back Better alive. —@CoriBush

Barbara Ransby on bell hooks

She is forever a foundational force in Black feminist thought and praxis, and in the work of all movements that are attempting to take us beyond, to paraphrase hooks, imperialism, white supremacy, capitalism, and patriarchy. Rest in power, dear sister, your work is done and we are better for it. — Guardian

Randi Weingarten

If prominent school choice advocates shift to attacking schools for teaching too much about racism, it becomes a lot harder for them to pose as heirs to the civil rights movement. “You’re going to tell Black people that racism doesn’t exist in this country, and you’re going to expect that somebody’s going to embrace you for that?” — New York Times

Cathy Kennedy, co-president of the California Nurses Association

Increasingly and unerringly, health outcomes in the state are driven by such factors as race, ethnicity, and income — and the divide between the haves and have-nots is growing. — Capital & Main

Stacey Abrams, next Georgia governor

“I will do everything in my power to make certain that these new onerous voter suppression laws do not effectively block voters from their right to vote,” she said. “And so yes, there’s absolutely a pathway to win.” — AP

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