Mexico chooses leftist, populist hope and change
As predicted, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador won an overwhelming victory in this weekend’s Mexican election. He’s a leftist who made a lot of promises: clean up corruption and illegal drugs, improve the economy, help the plight of the poor.
So, is Mexico poised to go the way of Venezuela? Maybe. Is there any chance he can deliver on any of his promises, much less all of them? I strongly doubt it. But I can understand why Mexicans decided to give it a try. The country’s a mess and they’re desperate. Who wouldn’t want to end corruption and help the economy?
One thing AMLO (that’s what he’s called for short) is not is a newcomer to the political game. He’s sixty-four years old and has been in politics and/or public office for over 40 years (mostly politics rather than office)—in other words, he seems to be a career politician, who’s been involved in a dizzying array of parties. He’s got a Wiki entry a mile long.
Nor is this the first time he’s run for the presidency. In 2006 he almost won:
López Obrador resigned the Mexico City headship in July 2005 to enter the 2006 presidential election, representing the Coalition for the Good of All, which was led by the Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD) and included the Citizens’ Movement party and the Labor Party. He received 35.31% of the vote and lost by 0.58%. López Obrador subsequently alleged electoral fraud and refused to concede, leading a several-months-long takeover of Paseo de la Reforma and the Zócalo in protest.
López Obrador was a candidate in the 2012 presidential election representing a coalition of the PRD, Labor Party and Citizens’ Movement. He finished second with 31.59% of the vote. He left the PRD in 2012 and in 2014 he founded the National Regeneration Movement (MORENA), leading that party until 2018.
His present party is a coalition of the left and right:
The alliance has received criticism as it is a coalition between two left-wing parties (MORENA and the PT) with a formation related to the evangelical right (PES). In response, the national president of MORENA, Yeidckol Polevnsky, mentioned that her party believes in inclusion, joint work to “rescue Mexico” and that they will continue to defend human rights, while Hugo Eric Flores Cervantes, national president of the PES, mentioned that “the only possibility of real change in our country is the one headed by Andrés Manuel López Obrador” and that his party had decided to be “on the right side of history.”
Some of the US coverage plays up a “Trump critic” angle for AMLO, but that doesn’t seem to me to be a particularly important part of his appeal, which is more oriented towards ending corruption and helping the economy, and certainly long predated the rise of Trump. He and Trump exchanged cordial words after his victory, although those cordial words don’t really tell much about the future.
Personally, I get a Peron vibe from him. Populist, hard to pin down, charismatic, appealing to the poor. I Googled his name together with Peron’s, and got this, which is translated from the original Spanish:
From the ideological point of view it is difficult to pigeonhole, although often he is called a leftist politician…After having lost in the elections of 2006 and 2012, in the current campaign he moderated his speech to attract sectors that previously distrusted and slipped more towards the center…
The critics of López Obrador say that he is a populist caudillo and they compare him with the American president Donald Trump [!!] and with the Venezuelan Nicolás Maduro , something that the protagonist rejects…
For the writer and analyst Jorge Zepeda Patterson , López Obrador is more like the personal leadership of Juan Domingo Perón than other leaders with whom he is associated. To me, however, it makes me think of Perón, every proportion saved: his ideological ambiguity, his ability to float above definitions or to summon the most divergent political fractions and his ability to negotiate with the existing union structures remind the figure of the Argentine leader, “he wrote in his column in the newspaper El País .
So apparently I’m not the only one.
Prior to AMLO’s election, there was a big brouhaha about some remarks he made concerning immigration to the US.
Here’s the quote in Spanish:
Y ya pronto, muy pronto, al triunfo de nuestro movimiento vamos a defender a los migrantes de todo el continente Americano y todos los migrantes del mundo que, por necesidad, tienen que abandonar sus pueblos para buscar la vida en Estados Unidos, es un derecho humano que vamos a defender,” El Universal quotes López Obrador saying in a speech on June 19.
My high school Spanish was never very good, and by now I’ve forgotten a great deal of what I knew back then, but even I can translate that pretty well all by myself (I think, anyway). What he seems to have said is that soon “our movement” will triumph and will defend as a human right the migrants who, through necessity, have to abandon their homes (towns?) in order to seek a life in the US. No surprise there.
And how will this defense be mounted? Will it be any different from his predecessor and his attitude towards the “migrants”?
Mexico runs a NAFTA-protected $70 billion trade surplus with the U.S…The architects of NAFTA long ago assured Americans that such a trade war would not break out, or that we should not worry over trade imbalances, given the desirability of outsourcing to take advantage of Mexico’s cheaper labor costs.
A supposedly affluent Mexico was supposed to achieve near parity with the U.S., as immigration and trade soon neutralized. Despite Mexico’s economic growth, no such symmetry has followed NAFTA. What did, however, 34 years later, was the establishment of a dysfunctional Mexican state, whose drug cartels all but run the country on the basis of their enormous profits from unfettered dope-running and human-trafficking into the United States. NAFTA certainly did not make Mexico a safer, kinder, and gentler nation.
In addition, Mexican citizens who enter and reside as illegal immigrants in the U.S. are mostly responsible for sending an approximate $30 billion in remittances home to Mexico. That sum has now surpassed oil and tourism as the largest source of Mexican foreign exchange. That huge cash influx is the concrete reality behind Obrador’s otherwise unhinged rhetoric about exercising veto power over U.S. immigration law…
Why the U.S. government does not tax remittances and why it does not prohibit foreign nationals on public assistance from sending cash out of the country are some of the stranger phenomena of the entire strange illegal-immigration matrix.
Promises to be—interesting.
Of course you know this means war!
“Obrador is probably a good result for Americans. He will no doubt make an excellent bad guy in the coming war with Mexico. That’s where things are headed, whether anyone realizes it. The Mexican government is incapable of ending the flow of drugs into the US and they have no choice but to facilitate the flow of migrants. That means the border will have to be closed and most likely guarded by the US military. That’s an option the public will support if Mexico is led by a nutty Marxist who hates America.”
http://thezman.com/wordpress/?p=14280
Weren’t a lot of candidates for lower offices killed by police forces in Mexico? Nothing will change.
We’ve been at war with Mexico for a long time. It’s always good to remember that while Congress declares war in the legal sense that it only takes one side to make war. Now, it’s really going to heat up.
The invasion (bio warfare, if you will) has been largely, but not entirely, just immigration. AMLO’s election is really going to ramp things up considerably.
But, I think this is a net positive: Soon, many millions of Americans are going to have all of their precious assumptions regarding immigration and our neighbor to the south revealed to be horrible delusions. That bubble will pop and its going to be a doozy.
If he’s another Peron that’s not a recommendation. I remember how Peron fought inflation by threatening to shoot business owners who raised prices. Those business owners closed their businesses and went into the black market to survive.
Ray:
I certainly didn’t mean it to be a recommendation.
Isn’t one Venezuela enough?
Reportedly, Columbia’s poor have learned from Venezuela’s example. Clearly, Mexico’s poor have not.
“Ignorance can be educated and crazy can be medicated but there’s no cure for stupid.” attribution unknown
“But I can understand why Mexicans decided to give it a try. The country’s a mess and they’re desperate. Who wouldn’t want to end corruption and help the economy?”
A friend (U.S. citizen with family still in Venezuela) said that this was why her family and friends originally voted for Chavez. The previous regime was so corrupt that they figured Chavez had to be better. They soon realized their mistake, but it was too late.
“They soon realized their mistake, but it was too late.”
Those who cannot remember communist history are doomed to have their bones in mass graves.
“A friend (U.S. citizen with family still in Venezuela) said that this was why her family and friends originally voted for Chavez. The previous regime was so corrupt that they figured Chavez had to be better. They soon realized their mistake, but it was too late.”
There’s a sucker born every minute.
At Bloomberg — “Mexico’s Likely President Won’t Govern as a Populist”:
We’re going to need the wall more than ever, and President Trump can easily keep his promise to “make Mexico pay for it” by taxing remittances.
I’m wondering if Trump is saving that for a strong response the first time AMLO says or does something outrageously against US interests. I think it would put AMLO in his place and be very popular here.
Ann,
What would we do without your hangdog, Eeyore-like Sisyphean self pushing that giant boulder of concern and worry and “That’s not who we are” up the hill toward us, just so we can push it back down for you to do it again?
And again. And again.
More on Amlo’s pragmatic approach — from 2002, when he was mayor of Mexico City:
The previous regime was so corrupt that they figured Chavez had to be better.
A lot of the corruption would be due to people like Chavez. Either they are taking advantage or priming the pump.
Normal people don’t think that far especially if the state run media doesn’t tell them.
People also forgot that Chavez was backed by people like US Hussein, and economic problems would also be contingent upon the US’ actions.
This wouldn’t be the first time that the Left destroyed a country’s economy, to motivate people to choose socialism.
Geoffrey Brittain:
Reportedly, Columbia’s poor have learned from Venezuela’s example. Clearly, Mexico’s poor have not.
Did Colombia’s poor learn from Venezuela? In some cases yes, in some cases no. Petro ran as a “friend of the poor.” Overall, Petro had success with that theme. If you run a correlation of per capita income with % Petro vote for Colombia’s Departments, you get a moderate negative correlation of -0.38, which indicates that the poorer Departments tended to vote for the “friend of the poor.”
However there is a very interesting geographical correlation of Petro’s vote. Petro won NONE of the Departments that border Venezuela. Norte de Santander, with Cucutá as its capital, is probably the Colombian Department with the most exposure to Venezuelan refugees. Norte de Santander is where Petro ran the worst, with only 18% of the vote.
Guainía, for example, is the fourth-poorest Department in Colombia. But as it borders Venezuela, its citizens are quite aware of what is going on in Veneuela. Petro got a solid 57-40 thrashing in Guainía.
The Departments where Petro got his highest percentages are on the Pacific coast or in the far southwest. Petro got his highest percent of votes in Departments which, by virtue of being as far away from Venezuela as possible, were the least likely to have Venezuelan refugees.
Department Petro Vote location
Putumayo 70% Ecuador-Peru border
Cauca 65% Pacific , far SW
Nariño 64% Ecuador border
Vaupés 60% Far SE Brazil border
Chocó 58% Pacific
Petro had been Mayor of Bogotá, a prosperous place, and won there in the Presidential vote.
There was an article that pointed out that Petro lost big in a poor barrio of Medellín. Medellín, whose murder rate has plummeted in the last 15 years, wasn’t likely to listen to the siren song of a lefty. In addition, it is probably the most entrepreneurial city in Colombia. The saying is that if there is anything going on in Colombia, someone from Medellín is involved. Those attitudes “trickle down.”
El Tiempo: Election results w map.
Colombia Departments Income
Neo: Here’s the quote in Spanish:
My translation:
June 19 AMLO speech.
Doesn’t look like he has any intention of enforcing the Guatemalan border- which Mexico used to do. I have been on buses from the Guatemalan border where Mexican Migra has taken off passengers.
Google Translate does a serviceable job.
This will not end well.
Chris B — yes, and the Feds can tax remittances without going to Congress and without even prior announcement, as “Temporary and Proposed” Regulations. Only reason I can think of that they haven’t done it yet is, as I’ve said before, all the illegals will go home and there will be no more money going into Social Security which will never be paid out to the worker, and the whole Ponzi scheme will go bust!
Richard–there is that, but there is also this: It’s not Juan and his thrifty wife Esmerelda that are the problem. It’s that Juan wants to bring his father and mother, and Esmerelda’s father and mother, both of whom will be immediately enrolled in Social Security and Medicare. You can bet that Juan and Esmerelda are signed up for every program that Catholic Family Services can come up with.
The cost to the US of the parents will far exceed any taxes paid by Juan and Esmerelda.
Gordon Scott:
That DOES happen. After a month at a drilling rig in the jungle, I took a flight from Guatemala City. My seat mate was a 60-something Guatemalan who very proudly indicated to me that courtesy of his immigrant son, he was receiving US government support, complete with Social Security card. Come to the US and get on government money from the start. Not exactly what I had in mind.
Not to mention all the Food Stamps legal and not-legal immigrants take.
Here is an interesting take on AMLO, from The DiploMad: A Leftist Nationalist in Mexico? OK.
But the mainstream media won’t pay any attention to that.
Time will tell.
If you seek a degree in social work these days, you pretty much have to sign on to social justice in all its forms. It’s pretty explicit at some schools. This plays out in the following:
I was chatting with an acquaintance who had just acquired her social work degree. One topic was welfare fraud, specifically food stamps. She stated that in fact there was almost no fraud, and “they” had a study proving this.
I said I didn’t need a study, I just needed to stand near the registers at the north Minneapolis Cub Foods and I could point out the near constant fraud as EBT cards are being traded for cash or drugs in plain sight. But hey, if I was in the welfare industry, I’d have a study too.
I will watching exactly one thing with regards to Obrador- when exactly his party starts trying to change the one-term limit of the president. That was when we knew Chavez was only leaving office in a casket. If Obrador can avoid that lust for lifelong presidency, he might do well for Mexico. I certainly understand the Mexicans’ abhorrence of their present rulers, and why they thought any change would be something to try.
The most likely outcome, however, is that Obrador fails to do any better- Mexico is just not a first world country, and probably never will be.
Gordon Scott,
“It’s not that Juan and his thrifty wife Esmeralda are the problem.”
I disagree.
If they, like many Central Americans, come here with the same sympathies toward Socialism and vote that way they are the problem. And the vast majority vote that way. See California.
Importing people from other cultures with no respect for our cultural traditions, who will vote to change those traditions, is suicidal. It doesn’t matter how nice Juan and Esmeralda are, how ‘conservative’ and Catholic they are: they will vote the American way of life out of existence.
In the context of this immigration debate, I note that those on the Left—politicians, commentators, activists, clergy—are weeping and wailing over the fact that, when illegal alien parents bring their illegal alien children across the border with them, when the whole “family” illegally sneaks across our borders and they have broken our laws, their children are “separated” from their parents.
Take a look at Live PD sometime; a TV show that covers the activities of U.S. police departments spread out, all over our country.
Nowhere in all this Leftist hand-wringing is it mentioned or acknowledged that, if there is a family of American citizens—parents and minor children—and the parents are found to have violated the laws in some major way, say, the parents and their children are at home, or in a car that’s stopped, and the cops find drugs, or an illegal gun, or something else illegal in the home or car, or the adults in the home or car have arrest warrants, the car is stolen, etc. then, routine police procedure—apparently everywhere in our country—is that, unless there is a responsible relative to take custody of the their minor children, the police “separate” the children from their parents, and the children are given into the care of some form of Child Protect Services.
I note no comparable protests by the Left against this routine police policy, or that they are saying that this routine police procedure, applicable to American citizens, is akin to how the Nazis used to “separate children from their parents.”
In the context of this immigration debate, I note that those on the Left—politicians, commentators, activists, clergy—are weeping and wailing over the fact that, when illegal alien parents bring their illegal alien children across the border with them, when the whole “family” illegally sneaks across our borders and they have broken our laws, their children are “separated” from their parents.
Take a look at Live PD sometime; a TV show that covers the activities of U.S. police departments spread out, all over our country.
Nowhere in all this Leftist hand-wringing is it mentioned or acknowledged that, if there is a family of American citizens—parents and minor children—and the parents are found to have violated the laws in some major way, say, the parents and their children are at home, or in a car that’s stopped, and the cops find drugs, or an illegal gun, or something else illegal in the home or car, or the adults in the home or car have arrest warrants, the car is stolen, etc. then, routine police procedure—apparently everywhere in our country—is that, unless there is a responsible relative to take custody of the their minor children, the police “separate” the children from their parents, and the children are given into the care of some form of Child Protect Services.
I note no comparable protests by the Left against this routine police policy, or that they are saying that this routine police procedure, applicable to American citizens, is akin to how the Nazis used to “separate children from their parents.”
Snow on Pine Says:
July 3rd, 2018 at 10:03 am
In the context of this immigration debate, I note that those on the Left—politicians, commentators, activists, clergy—are weeping and wailing over the fact that, when illegal alien parents bring their illegal alien children across the border with them, when the whole “family” illegally sneaks across our borders and they have broken our laws, their children are “separated” from their parents.
I have heard from my sources that the reason the Left moves so many children from the border is because it fuels their pedo gate, pedo vore, clients or allies.
They don’t want children removed from the guardians because the guardians are sex slave and human coyote traffickers. Hussein when he did it, made sure to grease the wheels so that nobody could prosecute. Prosecute, who would do that, Holder?
Many Mexicans have no desire or need to bring their families over. That is because it is far less risky than sending their paychecks home at a 50% taxation rate to Mexico. They still got enough cash for phones and uber here in the States to do the work. Using up thousands to send to coyotes to bring their families over to be raped en route and or kidnapped for greater ransom? Not worth the risk.
Except for those with already Green cards and marriages in line, of course. No need to rush things in those circumstances. For people with money, they can hire mercenaries for escort. Pretty sure I knew a few bounty hunters that would escort people across the border, for a few k in US dollars. It may be a lot less risky than going for bounties in mexico city, where they imprison you if you lack bribes or family backgrounds protecting you from the corruption.
Lots of reports that many of the adults illegally bringing their “families” across the border are not really the parents but are, instead smugglers, Cayotes, human traffickers.
I believe that midget Sessions, our usually somnolent AG, recently said that the government was going to us DNA tests to find out if such “families” were actually related.
The only problem is that, if you the weeks it takes Ancestry to analyze their DNA samples as the norm, it’s also going to take weeks or even months to process such DNA samples.
As well, it occurs to me that the Feds are going to run into the problem of how to legally obtain the “consent” of such lawbreakers to test their DNA.
The problem here is that Mexico is really a failed, ungovernable state, so it makes little difference who is a nominal ruler. In practice, it is run by drug cartels only.
Snow on Pine:
Another problem is that there are a significant number of bona fide families where the DNA doesn’t match, either through infidelity or adoption.
As well, it occurs to me that the Feds are going to run into the problem of how to legally obtain the “consent” of such lawbreakers to test their DNA.
Jeff Sessions doesn’t need it to filter out all the families. All he needs is a few DNA proof to serve as the Grand Jury justification to launch an investigation into human trafficking. Once he can do that, then he can subpoena all the Democrats involved and thus shut them up with a gag order or something.
With a “justifiable” reason to commence searches and seizures and arrests, the child trafficking ring can be smashed apart. And this is realistic, since Trum for whatever reason is already using the DOJ to get rid of pedo rings. That’s been going on for years, but the prosecution hasn’t started until he got into office.
DNA sequencing is much faster with quantum computers. All they have to do is to break out the NSA data banks and supercomputers and various other stuff the black and white intel groups use.
The time limit is merely for you civilians ; )
Ann, although one can wish it were not so, unfortunately AMLO is likely a sheep in wolf’s clothing. Here he is sharing the stage with firebrand Taibo and their friend “Che”:
https://mexiconewsdaily.com/news/morena-co-founder-advocates-expropriation/
‘If businesses won’t cooperate, expropriate’
That ol’ dyslexia at it again:
…a wolf in sheep’s clothing. Jeesh.
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