Antonio Navalón
It seems that if there were any possibility that the 4T and President López Obrador’s message would fail in an electoral confrontation, it would only be due to evil arts or a conspiracy of planned events against him. Should this happen – even though it seems utopian, it is almost a given that the result would not be accepted. The Mexican leader has made it clear that the ills afflicting the administration he heads are not due to his way of exercising power but to the existing manipulation and to all the actors seeking to prevent the consolidation of his great transformation of the country.
It is curious and tragic to see the latest dispositions of this government, the most voted government in the history of Mexican democracy and the government that has had all the possibilities to rebuild the country in a high surgery operation, becoming a safer country avoiding an institutional breakdown. However, having before it that option of success and greatness, the current administration chose another path. This administration has used force to destroy and leave no trace of its political experience other than scorched earth.
The guilt of having allowed themselves to be governed or having governed under a corrupt system – according to President López Obrador’s permanent qualification – composed of people who never made mistakes, not because they were incapable of doing so, but because they deliberately made mistakes to achieve spurious benefits. This is the justification used by the Mexican leader to – as if it were Sodom and Gomorrah – demonstrate that all the vices of corruption and bad government are the fault of the neoliberals and those who succeeded them. They may justify or evade responsibility, but what is undeniable is the scorched earth that exemplifies and illustrates the landscapes of our country. Logically, López Obrador’s responsibility will never fall on his person or those around him. Still, on the contrary, his response to the facts that afflict the disturbing Mexican reality is that he received a country in flames.
Without much more to comment on what the frontal confrontation with the United States means, it is curious that the Mexican president is astonished that the U.S. government is spying on it. Everyone knows that, since the end of World War II, the United States has exercised its alliances on the mutual understanding that they had to be aware of what was going on. Because, among other things, we have lived in a world in which it was clear that the responsibility for defending ourselves – with all the implications that this entailed – was assumed by the Americans, and we accepted the commitment that the bad guys, especially their ideological enemies, would never get to the government by hook or by crook.
All this no longer exists. The United States is internally and externally challenged and facing well-emboldened enemies. It is another matter to suppose whether this situation will allow for a qualitative change in the structures and balances of power. In any case, our president and the group he heads and intends to continue governing as of next year have no interest in taking care of alliances or relations with almost anyone inside the country, much less beyond the borders. For this reason, especially concerning the United States, the system and the strategy consist of dynamiting any possibility of living as we live. And, as always, many things would need to be readjusted, although I have my doubts that even the most fanatic elements of this situation in which a country has been led know very well if they want to continue living in a world where the Americans only represent the most potent enemy.
In today’s Mexico, there is no other policy than the scorched earth policy. It is as if there were still any doubt that there is no possibility of turning back, and in the meantime – while studying how to repeal and how to replace the powers of the Supreme Court of Justice of the Nation – in no way, should it be accepted that there is any possibility of creating a political alternative. Since Sun Tzu wrote “The Art of War”, it has been known that if one finds oneself in the middle of a war, the most important thing to do is to deceive or make the enemy believe in the possibility of victory. A good winner wins wars and makes it impossible to believe in the enemy’s victory. In this sense, if one looks at the mistakes made by the opposition and the government’s implacability, we are already facing a much more serious problem than what it means to present a face and try to fight the electoral result. We are already in a situation in which the hope of the possibility of winning the war is disappearing. From here, the most important thing – in remembrance of the Pol Pot regime and the Khmer Rouge – was to make the country’s ruling class young. This has already been achieved. A few weeks ago, the Chamber of Deputies approved that the minimum age to become a deputy would be 18, while the minimum age to head a state secretariat will be 25.
As a member of the generation that has brought things this far, we have little reason to be proud of our work or the world we have left in our wake. However, if there is one thing we have been able to learn, it is the terrible consequences that can occur if a generation of power and political responsibility is deprived of the possibility of integral maturity. We must be optimistic since hope is the last thing to die, but above all, we must effectively understand the dimension of our problem. It is not that we are at war, but that war is total destruction.
Naturally, there is no surprise about what happened with the issue of the National Guard; the transfer of this institution to the Sedena has already been declared unconstitutional. Given the decision made by the Supreme Court, the only thing left for the 4T to do is to act as Donald Trump did at the time and justify the extension of the powers and faculties of the National Guard – suspending what is stipulated in the Constitution – under the pretext of the defense of the territory and the preservation of Mexican citizens. I do not believe that things are going to stay that way. The way the exercise of power in our country has been manifesting itself; it is not that the president wins some battles and loses others; it is that his power is absolute, and the consequences of the losses are much more severe than what it means to win or lose on a specific issue, which is: we live in a country where there is no room for the defeat of the providential man.
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