Ricardo Pascoe Pierce
A dark cloud of uncertainty exists like a cloak over the restless Mexican Republic. Rumors of possible attempts to retain power “at any cost” by the official party are intermingled with death struggles among the “transformist” factions to win their party’s presidential candidacy. Militarism advances unchecked, lacking a minimum of civilian control over its operations, expenses, projects, and business. At the side of the armed forces, or in tune with them, organized crime is becoming the de facto government in large areas of the country with blood, fire, and money.
The President is actively turning the relationship with the United States into a new object of national hatred. He has always made politics by promoting objects of hate: first, it was the power mafia, then Calderon and the 2006 elections, then neoliberalism, and now he is urging hatred for the United States. Why? Because the object of hatred incites the spirit of national sacrifice and the love of the national sport of focusing on others in order not to be aware of one’s own mistakes, limitations, and deficiencies.
To hate the United States, the President promotes the idea that we must believe that the CUSMA/USMCA/T-MEC existentially threatens the Mexican Oil Company (PEMEX) and the Federal Electricity Commission (CFE) and, therefore, Mexico. In response to a supposed threat from abroad, the President claims that he saved these companies from their inevitable demise. What does it have to do with the United States? It is unknown, but the insinuation that AMLO fought an artful aggression from abroad is fundamental to instilling a national spirit of struggle against an imaginary enemy.
It is also, he suggests, a mortal combat between David and Goliath. That truth is vague and imprecise, but what does it matter? What matters is that the myth is recreated in the minds of the movement’s followers and that they believe the leader did something no one else would have accomplished. What did he do, exactly? Nobody knows. What is important is the idea of presidential heroism—Nietzsche’s Superman.
Thus the Republic survives: from lie to lie, in vague suggestions and insinuations, in the repetition of heroic myths never verified but widely publicized.
The event’s sole purpose in the capital’s Zócalo was to instill in his followers the conviction that López Obrador surpassed Cárdenas and resisted the imperialist pretensions that wanted to strip Mexico of the most sacred part of its national identity. The reality is not very precise, but the emotions are real. AMLO governs by evoking emotions, such as fear of the outside world (proof of this is that he never travels outside the country) and hatred for what is different. And as a consequence of this ambiguous heroism, the President promotes the idea that he “deserves” the continuity of his project after 2024.
The discourse of this new ultra-nationalism is based on elements of fanaticism together with the pretension of setting the discursive pattern toward the 2024 presidential race. The idea goes beyond the populism of Trump and Bolsonaro because they finally had to accept their respective defeats due to the solidity of the electoral institutions.
But the Mexican case may be different. Morena’s capture of the Electoral National Institute (INE) by trying to place its “cachirules” (covert operatives) in the body’s leadership promises to compromise the electoral results seriously. He intends to coordinate reckless actions of the board members militant of the official party at the helm of INE, together with a secretariat of the Interior actively creating conditions of conflict to be able to challenge the election results throughout the country.
It seems that the government intends to create chaos and confusion to later impose itself by illegal and violent means “justified” by a great national crisis.
If this plan of chaos and confusion is carried out, it is because the government has no certainty of winning the elections cleanly and without objections. Moreover, the government, Morena and López Obrador, see a real possibility of losing the Presidency in 2024, despite what the polls say. This is the only explanation for the systematic, violent, and illegal attack on INE.
The President’s fear of losing in 2024 is not only due to political or ideological reasons. The presidential family fears judicial prosecution for their acts of corruption and those of their associates during his administration. Since they are incompetent administrators, they are leaving behind a trail of documentation of their kleptocratic practices. They are right to fear the judgment of history on their brief and chaotic reign.
This picture of imposition is being prepared from all angles. That means that they will “do whatever it takes” not to lose the 2024 elections, even with openly illegal actions, such as a declaration of a State of Exception to annul the electoral results, if they lose.
And to achieve his objectives, the President must count on the absolute loyalty of the armed forces high command. This explains why he has allowed the military high command to become a new bourgeois class with vast economic, institutional, and personal interests. AMLO knows that money can corrupt and become helpful to the interests of a politician who needs loyalty and submission. In that, AMLO is not wrong. Businessmen and bankers have shown a willingness to submit to presidential designs.
Every Mexican President has to consider two de facto powers: the Army and the United States. It is not unreasonable to think that if the Army is bent on the President’s interests, López Obrador could feel strong enough to confront the United States, neutralizing its capacity to influence Mexico, especially since that country will be absorbed in its electoral process.
He tested that new defiant tone to the United States in his speech in the Zócalo. He has been pushing those narratives recently, with his threats to destabilize the U.S. elections and to defy the basic rules of the CUSMA/USMCA/T-MEC, in addition to impeding the action of agencies such as the DEA in the national territory so that it does not act against his “policy of hugs, not bullets”. This distance he puts from the United States is to be able to resist pressures if he decides to impose himself illegally in the 2024 elections.
Threatening to intervene in the U.S. elections made the U.S. demand respect for its sovereignty. With that argument, AMLO will tell the United States not to interfere in Mexico when he destabilizes the Mexican elections, creating the conditions to declare null and void a result contrary to his interests.
AMLO’s strategy to control and dictate the election results is under construction. Everything is uncertain, tense, and highly volatile. That is the climate that pervades the whole country. It is the dark cloud of uncertainty that blankets the national environment.
[email protected]
@rpascoep
Further Reading: