In an eye-popping opinion column, Univision’s chief newsroom editor displays his contempt for the Canadian trucker protest and further clarifies the deep-seated institutional biases at the nation’s largest Spanish-language media outlet.
Daniel Morcate’s blast at the truckers, titled “Canada’s convoy of death,” reads like a conservative parody of what an apologist for totalitarianism might write about the trucker protest in Ottawa. Morcate’s role at the network makes the column all the more troubling. Per Univision insiders, Morcate has the final editorial say over the scripts read on Univision’s national newscasts. Morcate has held this role for over two decades, with the exception of a brief tenure as News Director at Univision’s Miami affiliate WLTV-23 during the Lee-Coronell Reign of Terror which, per insiders, ended in his ouster and return to the national news desk subsequent to a newsroom revolt.
We have most frequently looked at Jorge Ramos’ opinion columns, which is appropriate given his position at Univision and stature within the rest of corporate media. But Morcate’s role merits examination of his columns as well. This, after all, is the thinking of the man who oversees the scripts that are read to millions of viewers on a daily basis- published with Univision’s approval.
We made sure to archive the column, lest Univision try to nuke it like they did Maria Elena Salinas' unhinged rant after Jorge Ramos got himself thrown out of Donald Trump's press conference in Iowa in 2015.
Because it is impossible to pick and choose which portions of this wildly incendiary opinion column to highlight, again- published with Univision's consent, we have translated it from the original Spanish and posted it below in its entirety, as published on February 14th, 2022 (emphases ours).
Canada's Convoy of Death
By: Daniel Morcate
The truckers' protest that paralyzed Canada's borders with the United States is said to be on the way to becoming an international strategy. It already affects France, Australia, New Zealand and apparently threatens to spread to some regions of our country, such as New York. The Department of Homeland Security has sent a warning to law enforcement. That is why it is worth doing a brief analysis so that it is understood that, although it bears the attractive name of "freedom convoy", it was born rather as a nihilistic death rattle of uncouth and obscurantist right-wing radicals, such as those who wage a war without quarter against health precautions since the coronavirus pandemic began.
The Canadian protagonists of the protest are mainly people who don't mind getting infected with covid, much less infecting others- even members of their own family. Some belong to a minority of truck drivers who have refused to be vaccinated in a country where more than 80% of citizens have been vaccinated, including nine out of 10 truck drivers. And they had lost all the legal and political battles in their fanatical aspiration to refuse vaccination or observe pandemic restrictions. Well-meaning people, of course, have joined the campaign, monkey see monkey do, to display their weariness from the endless fight against the coronavirus.
If you look closely at footage of the protest, you will see Confederate flags from the racist South of the United States as well as neo-Nazi symbols. In fact, the Canadian media report that 60% of the funds raised by the protesters come from our country. The funds were collected online. And to a large extent far-right American media and politicians – like Fox News and Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky – are energizing the movement, not caring that it has cost an estimated $300 million a day in trade between the two neighboring countries, which in turn has exacerbated consumer product shortages and jeopardized thousands of jobs in the United States and Canada.
In their radicalism, the rebel truckers are not only opposed to getting vaccinated as required by a Canadian government mandate announced in mid-January. They also demand the lifting of all covid restrictions and the immediate resignation of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.
But in order to make their demands, they have placed themselves outside the law and the rules and regulations of one of the most stable and efficient democracies on the planet. They denounce as "arbitrary" the decisions of a legitimately constituted government, which they can question in the media, the courts and the ballot box. In reality, what is arbitrary is that for weeks they have obstructed public roads, threatened the safety and health of their Canadian compatriots and harmed trade between two nations whose governments were elected by popular will and who are subjected daily to the scrutiny of the free press and of public opinion. Their protest is an obscurantist fury similar to the one we have suffered from the beginning of the pandemic in the United States and in other countries.
The freedom that these angry protesters claim is none other than the freedom to get sick and infect us with covid. Whether they are entitled to the former is open for debate. But they definitely have no right to the latter. Their reckless attitude evokes that of the Spanish fascists who, in the midst of the Civil War, were guided by the slogan "long live death". Faced with this insane proposal, we must put forward exactly the opposite idea, that our lives and the lives of others have an intrinsic value that is worth protecting. That is why we must bet on health and observe the health precautions suggested by medical science and common sense; and support leaders who are guided by the same principles.
Canadian authorities have begun to break up the protests with ultimatums and arrests. For this they have the support of the Biden administration. But the siege of Ottawa, the Canadian capital, continues. We do not know how successful the extremists may be in spreading their obscurantist poison. But it cannot be ruled out while the pandemic lasts, with its aftermath of infections, deaths and economic volatility. What we do know is that extremists are fueled by a dangerous nihilistic morbidity that, in Canada at least, has only infected a small, ill-tempered and vociferous minority.
