Political Critique in Magic Realism
Magic Realism may be full of extraordinary, fantastic stuff, but that doesn't mean that it has nothing to do with the political reality of the world we live in. In fact, Magic Realist authors are famous for their political critique.
Many Magic Realists lived in dictatorships where freedom of expression was limited. You couldn't just up and write an open critique of the dictator and think that you wouldn't get into a boatload of trouble for it. Magical Realism offered a way of critiquing power structures in disguise: the fantastic storylines didn't look like political critique, but clever readers could read between the lines and figure out what was really being said underneath the fantasy.
It's also true that living in a dictatorship is a pretty fantastic thing—in a bad way. You might not be allowed to leave your house after 6PM because of a curfew. You might be thrown in prison and tortured for no reason. You might be accused of crimes you haven't committed. Anything could happen. In that way, Magic Realism actually reflected aspects of the reality these writers lived through.
Chew on This
Corrupt political power and class power are big issues in Isabel Allende's The House of the Spirits. Here (Quote #2) the narrator is commenting on the class divisions that are tearing society apart.
Salman Rushdie's Midnight's Children depicts the violence of British colonialism in India. Here (Quote #2) is a quote about the assassination of an anti-British activist.