#anyways not even all the 70s nacionalistas were exactly fascists

[hazardous-waste-containment]

“Nationalist Movements and Fascist Ideology in Chile,” Jean Grugel (1985)

While they are relatively happy with the current personalist system of government built around the figure of Pinochet himself, [nacionalistas] regard this as only an interim solution. They would be happier still to see the formation of a movimiento cívico at base level to lend active popular support to the regime—though clearly, as Pinochet’s popularity steadily wanes, the time for this has past. In this sense the Constitution of 1980 was a disappointment for the nacionalistas, based as it was on the regime’s neo-liberalism. The nationalist magazine, Avanzada, criticized it as being ‘more or less the same as the constitution of 1925, with the addition of the [anti-communist] Ley de defensa de la democracia’. It added, ‘experience has demonstrated that this system has failed’.

Their own preferred project is one of ‘functionalist’ or ‘nationalist’ democracy, i.e. corporatism [..]. As yet, the grandiose constitutional and political model of the nacionalistas has met with as little success as their economic programme, and for the same reason: the military regime is intent, above all on demobilization, and the project of the nacionalistas is one of hierarchical controlled participation. [..]

Currently, while nacionalistas have close contacts with the Pinochet regime, they are as far removed as ever from real influence. As a result of their alienation from power, a few nacionalistas have gone into open opposition, and are attempting to forge links with small agriculturalists from Southern Chile—traditional supporters of nacionalismo—in protest at the government’s economic policies. These include Roberto Thieme, ex-Secretary of Patria y Libertad. Thieme criticizes the bulk of the nacionalistas because

I don’t understand how those hard-line nacionalistas . . . can continue to offer a nationalist alternative to a government serving only the interests of foreigners.

The majority, however, are tied to Pinochet, and to defending the ‘mission’ of the Armed Forces, because, policy differences notwithstanding, their fate is irrevocably bound up with that of the current military regime.