Luis Rubio
Morena came to power convinced that history was on its side—that moral superiority and political will were enough to cure Mexico’s deepest ills. Like Fox before them, and later Peña Nieto, they assumed they would never resemble the governments they so eagerly condemned. Seven years later, that illusion has collapsed. What remains is a country in fragile condition, temporarily cushioned only by reforms inherited from the very “neoliberal” era Morena despises, especially NAFTA/USMCA, which has so far spared the government a full-blown economic reckoning.
But that cushion is thinning. Five forces suggest that Morena’s grip on power is far weaker than it believes.
First, corruption. Not the old kind that skimmed rents while allowing growth, but a new, exclusionary model in which only those aligned with Morena or its favored business allies thrive. The rest are shut out. Paralysis follows. Worse still is the impunity: yesterday’s anti-corruption crusaders have fallen silent, absorbed or neutralized by proximity to power.
Second, the math doesn’t work. Morena’s political strategy depends on expanding social transfers, yet those transfers require growth that the government itself has undermined. With oil revenues gone, the state relies almost entirely on taxes. Without economic dynamism, the fiscal pyramid eventually collapses.
Third, the government’s institutional overhaul—chaotic, hurried, and dismissive of consequences—has left a lasting mark. Power concentration, digital surveillance, political persecution, legal vulnerability, and sheer unpredictability have become defining features of public life. Uncertainty is no longer episodic; it is structural.
Fourth, internal fractures within Morena are deep and irreversible. Only the permanent return of Andrés Manuel López Obrador could hold them together—and even that is doubtful.
Finally, and most decisively, Morena’s greatest weakness is its ideological closure. Convinced of its own moral infallibility, it cannot acknowledge error or tolerate alternative views. Democracies thrive precisely because they reject official truths and absolute myths. Undermining that principle comes at a cost.
Morena governs as if its will were the only limit. Yet with every step, it lays the groundwork for its own decline. Peña Nieto attempted to advance his agenda without open discussion and failed miserably: popularity cannot substitute for legitimacy or results. Today’s president remains highly popular, largely because, as Edna Jaime put it, “visible benefits outweigh diffuse costs.” Social transfers are tangible; stagnation is gradual. But stagnation accumulates, and eventually the bill comes due.
Within Morena’s political imagination, losing power is unthinkable. That is why, as Luis Farías Mackey notes, the president insists—unasked—that such a scenario will never occur in Mexico. It is a revealing anxiety.
The government behaves as if its financial, political, and institutional resources were inexhaustible. They are not. And that realization may arrive sooner than expected—especially with mounting pressure from the north.
Max Weber warned that politics guided by intention rather than responsibility leads to unintended chaos. Citizens, in the end, judge governments by outcomes, not ideals. Mexico is moving closer to that reckoning.
@lrubiof
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