I kinda went on a rant here, lol, but feel free to not read. I have very similar opinions, but wanted to make a few points.

The Fidel types are the more colorful examples, but we have many more. There's also the not-quite-dictators-but-dangerously-close- types, who make use of authoritarianism, media control, persecution of political adversaries, and shady democratic tactics such as Hugo Chavez & Maduro, Juan Domingo Peron, Evo Morales, Rafael Correa, Christina Kirchner, Lula da Silva (don't have enough info on this guy to put him in the same bag w the rest)... I'm sure some other latinamerican will see this and tell me the alternatives were far worse, and they'll likely be right, but I'd bet money NO latin american will dare tell me any of these were fair ethical leaders with the best interest of their country in mind.

And I fully agree with your point. You guys went so far down right, (and you might hate me a bit for making this point) but your left parties are also the right wing. They might not cater to the same lobbyists, but it seems more and more to me than there is no true will to offer reasonable state services or social security nets for the vast majority of the population by either party of yours. The dems have been as much in bed with your highly toxic financial and pharma sectors as the republicans have for decades now. Your left wing politicians attempt to get elected by sending feel good messages to a comfortable middle class that wants to care but to not sacrifice anything of their own or even worse: to consort/share spaces with actual poor people.

I'm talking the people who have half of the male members of their family in prison. I'm talking people who's entire family is unemployed and unemployable. Generational misery. The people under the bridge. Sex workers, foster care kids, people in trailer parks with no running water and the roughest parts of the ghettos.

The actual poor people, ignorant and naive as they may be in many regards, saw right through charade of policies and philosophies that sound oh-so-humane but don't actually substantially help anyone in their precarious conditions, and said "fuck em", and in their anger, despair, naivete and ignorance went straight into the clutches of "the exact opposite of what I hate" and now we have Trump. I say we, because I consider my country a client/vassal state of the US.

And yeah, free healthcare sounds so foreign and far away nowadays, doesn't it? Yet poorer countries pull it off relatively well. Horrible that we've gotten to this point of brainwashing by big industries/interest groups.

I'm not sharing these thoughts to tell you your left wing is no good and nothing good can come from it. To the contrary. You guys (and we) need a strong, powerful and healthy left wing and I really really hope you can get there. I am, however, warning you against the perils of voting for "OMG THE COMPLETE OPPOSITE OF THIS" because in latina america we've seen that movie plenty of times and it ends in "so I guess now we have a dictator".

Sorry for the rant. Just felt like sharing my thoughts in this regard.

I truly wish you, your country and the world the very best, and I also think a healthy socialist system is the right path. Hopefully we get somewhere nice without any more atrocities happening.