Ricardo Pascoe Pierce
Porfirio Díaz’s phrase “kill them in the heat of the moment” was not only an order; it was the expression of a method of government. The same method has been adopted and adapted by López Obrador. Since he was head of government, he showed this method, which his followers refused to see.
In these times, the “kill them in the heat of the moment” method is accompanied by a fanatic group of followers through multiple forms of corruption. The most popular is the handing out of cash to millions of desperate people who receive the precise instruction: if you do not support AMLO, your support will be taken away. Therefore, millions of Mexicans live under blackmail. Included in that blackmail is the obligation to vote for the official party (there is nothing new in Mexican political culture). Machiavellianly, money is distributed individually to prevent people from collectively organizing to demand improvements. An individualized and disorganized populace is easy to manipulate.
What is relevant in the case of this conditional economic support is that, unlike Porfirio Diaz, who ordered his rural troops to kill the insurgents physically, nowadays, the implicit threat is that “if you do not support me, I will kill you, yes, but by starvation”. This is what an economic policy that does not create jobs or greater investment serves for, but rather economic stagnation is turned into an instrument of political warfare to keep the masses on the defensive and under state control. (Remember the Russians shelling Ukrainian granaries).
Extremely cruel and ruthless is the modern adaptation of the “kill them in the heat of the moment” order in reference to the free press in Mexico. The government has sought to silence voices, pressuring the “mainstream” media to fire rebellious journalists such as Loret, Brozo, Ferriz, Hiriart, and Alazraki, among many others. He also pressures the owners of the broadcast licenses with economic threats so that they include pro-government commentators in their programs. These commentators are being planted in all radio and TV media. In addition, the media become “soft” critics of the regime’s most crude and violent political actions.
And, not to lose the “Porfirian touch”, there is the indirect governmental promotion of the systematic and permanent murder of journalists who fly a little under the radar, with local or regional journalistic media, whose absence will not be felt nationally or internationally. Fortunately, the Inter-American Press Association does protest all murders of journalists in Mexico, as do Reporters Without Borders and the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, among other international organizations, for the “kill them in the heat of the moment” in Mexico.
López Obrador is also blatant in his disdain for the independent press and critical voices. He not only despises them; he considers them enemies of the State, well, of his State. He has attacked the free press, creating the false figure of a press conference every morning, which is as abusive an instrument of power as Porfirio Diaz’s Rurales were. His voice is the primary mouthpiece in Mexico that endorses attacking critical voices and even assassinating them. In this light, the morning press conference is the modern adaptation of the Porfirian adage of “kill them in the heat of the moment” concerning the press and critical voices.
Although there is no clear evidence of the case or its intellectual authorship, the attempted assassination of Ciro Gómez Leyva, which would have been the highest-profile murder since the assassination of Manuel Buendía, illustrates the opacity of this government in investigating the deaths of journalists. And it is known that Buendía’s murder was ordered and orchestrated at the highest levels of Miguel de la Madrid’s government.
AMLO has not met once with opposition leaders. Nor with the opposition legislative benches or their leaders. But he has used the presidential pulpit to attack and despise them systematically. Not welcoming them or recognizing them as valid voices in a plural society is the modern equivalent of “killing them in the heat of the moment”. It is as if they do not exist or live in Mexico. It is to treat them as “non-persons”.
In a democracy, such treatment is unacceptable. In other words, it is the behavior of a dictatorial regime similar to that of Porfirio Diaz. Of course, in its modern version.
The idea of eliminating the three Powers of the Union to rule by presidential decree without counterweights is clearly expressed in the Morenista masses stationed at the door of the Supreme Court of Justice of the Nation daily insulting the majority of the Justices for defending their independence of judgment and for defending to the letter the Political Constitution of the United Mexican States. If AMLO could kill them in the heat of the moment, I have no doubt he would try. For now, he wants to eliminate them from the national map with the aberrant proposal of forcing them to resign en masse to elect others, his own, by popular vote. Even if his proposal does not come to fruition, the fact that he has proposed the idea that the President should control the other branches of government reveals the Porfirian autocrat who governs us.
Together with the above, it is not surprising that President López Obrador is applying the phrase “kill her in the heat of the moment” about Xóchitl Gálvez. He has launched missile after missile against a pre-candidate to destroy her from now on. That is how dangerous he perceives her. Of course: dangerous for his re-election pretensions under the Maximato (Strong man) modality. He has launched all the power of the State against a woman who has shown, with her brief exposition, that the so-called corcholatas are ineffective, irrelevant, and, in a phrase, an absolute failure. None of them energizes society. They are animals whose reach serves only to cheer up the Morenista corral. On the other hand, AMLO sees that Xóchitl has a vast multi-class appeal and, most importantly, she is authentic. What his corcholatas do not have, in short, is authenticity. Hence the presidential panic.
AMLO apparently considers that the course of the rest of the presidential race is being defined now. If he does not stop Xóchitl now, tomorrow will be too late. And he knows that she has the possibility of creating that broad multi-classist alliance that he obtained in 2018, not because of him, but because of the weariness and contempt for Peña Nieto, together with the destruction, by judicial means, of Ricardo Anaya’s candidacy. That pluriclassist vote that López Obrador received six years ago is no longer with him. He knows it, and he also knows that elections are not won only with welfare votes.
The President was not prepared for this scenario of a truly competitive election. He was expecting Claudia to blitzkrieg the Morenista ranks and win the approval of the middle classes by combining her university identity with a certain resignation in the face of an inevitable Morenista victory. But this is not how things have turned out. What should have been a picnic has turned into a black specter with no real possibility of predicting the outcome. In a direct fight with Xóchitl, Claudia seems headed for a humiliating defeat due to arrogance, lack of empathy, and a notable dose of authoritarianism. And because of her own history.
Hence the thermonuclear war strategy against Xóchitl. He wants to “kill” her right now, without hesitation. The President thinks that if he does not stop her now, tomorrow, it will be too late. Perhaps he is right.
The method of governing by ordering the “kill them in the heat of the moment” clearly unites these two kindred spirits: Porfirio Diaz and AMLO.
[email protected]
@rpascoep
Further Reading: