Social media functions as a public meeting place that, beyond its tendency to sometimes enclose us in bubbles, allows us to sound out opinions on current events. Recently, for instance, we have been able to witness the demand that a certain part of the left close ranks with the government of Evo Morales regarding the political crisis following the presidential election in Bolivia.

Here, to close ranks means that any analysis of the situation that entails a certain level of complexity is rejected out of hand. If anyone dares to criticize the Morales government’s policies or echo the popular discontent contained in the protests against him, they can only be serving Yankee imperialism.

The main lesson of correísmo is that no project of transformation, if it wants to sustain and even deepen social change, can weaken the people who propel it forward.

The Ecuadorian government of Rafael Correa (2007–2017) stirred hopeful expectations in the continental and global lefts. Although the young economist did not have a record of participation in social movements and had not played any direct role in resistance to neoliberalism, he had been part of a group of heterodox economists known as the Foro Ecuador Alternativo (Ecuador Alternative Forum), some of whom were critics of structural adjustment.

Julian Assange’s sanctuary in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London has been transformed into a little shop of horrors. He has been largely cut off from communicating with the outside world for the last seven months. His Ecuadorian citizenship, granted to him as an asylum seeker, is in the process of being revoked. His health is failing. He is being denied medical care. His efforts for legal redress have been crippled by the gag rules, including Ecuadorian orders that he cannot make public his conditions inside the embassy in fighting revocation of his Ecuadorian citizenship.