Ricardo Pascoe Pierce
When President López Obrador explained the reasons that led him to fire Rogelio Jiménez Pons as the person in charge of the Mayan Train project, he bluntly stated: “…. above all is the higher interest, the interest of the people and the nation and we have a commitment with the transformation of the country…if that person does not internalize…that we are living in a historic time…if he thinks that it is the same routine life of the government, that everything is orthodox, flat…then he does not understand that a transformation is a deep change, a revolution of consciences”.
Then he finished with a phrase that summarizes what he said: “Politics is not even about becoming a statesman, politics is about becoming a man of the nation”.
Obviously, he was referring to himself in this juxtaposition between “statesman” and “man of the nation”. He conceives himself as the sole driver of the train that promotes a profound change, “a revolution of consciences”, in Mexico.
As the President considers that each of his works has an epic character, in his logic, whoever fails in the undertaken enterprise is obviously a counterrevolutionary opposed to “a revolution of consciences”.
What is important to note is that the President believes that each of his works initiated during his administration is unique, unusual, and represents something never done or seen before. He describes himself as an exceptional President like no other in national history.
In short, his administration as President of the Republic has, by his own definition, the character of a historical epic. It is a tremendous historical feat as never seen or experienced before in the country’s entire history. Embodying the feeling and responsibility of an epic makes him immune to malicious criticism, the insidiousness of affected or disturbed interests, to possible but uncriticizable mistakes made by him or his staff, and resistant to the pressures of malicious foreign governments.
To embody an epic is equivalent to possessing a protective cloak where one is not a statesman but something more magnificent: a man of the nation. “I do not belong to myself,” he said in some moment of strange euphoria.
And, despite his euphoria, he is still, in fact, the President of the Republic. And the citizens continue to suffer from a government management devoid of professionalism, and that dedicates a great deal of energy and time to destroy everything that could point out or identify the multiple errors committed by a government that advances, relentlessly, towards the fourth of its six years of duration.
And that is precisely the problem. The six-year clock is ticking without stopping. The issues of public administration are not being solved. Instead, they accumulate daily, both the old unresolved problems and the new ones that are being tackled every day. The six-year clock and the accumulating issues conspire against the heroism and the Obradorist heroic epic. With each passing day, the problems are worse, and the heroic narrative is less and less credible. And the heroic epic is turning into a mirage.
At this point of the six-year term, Jiménez Pons’ departure from the Mayan Train cannot be considered an act to save the revolution of consciences, but as the dismissal of an employee who did not do his job as the boss wanted. It is ridiculous to present the dismissal of Jiménez Pons as a heroic act in order not to hinder the relentless advance of the epic.
This cover-up conceals another, deeper, and more worrying cover-up. It refers to the loss of sense of the reality of the President of the Republic himself. It is evident that the Presidential House is beginning to feel anguish for the end of the six-year term and that the heroic deed is fading. It is losing its luster amid the internal decomposition of the ruling party, the growing widespread anxiety due to the economic crisis, the increasing inflation and unemployment, the pandemic that promises to take new and insulting forms to continue harassing the country, the growing violence and the organized crime that every day occupies new spaces and the widespread perception that corruption is equal or worse than in previous governments.
The distorted perception of reality is summarized in the video where the President pretends to teach young people not to accumulate wealth when his own children are basking in the gardens and swimming pool of their mansion in the United States. The level of presidential detachment from reality seen in this image is already a serious concern.
At this moment, the bubble bursts, and reality shows itself in all its rawness and violence. The protective mattresses, the containment dikes, and the mediations between the heroic presidential narrative and the crude reality were shattered and disappeared in the slippery and treacherous night, vanished by the truth that always takes preeminence over any fantastical human narrative.
The epic comes to its sad and inglorious end, showing itself now like a mirage. While the government demonstrates total incapability to solve the country’s problems (it is not even capable of buying medicines in its fourth year), the presidential narrative is increasingly fantasy, not to say imaginary. His distance from reality must scare and worry both Tyrians and Trojans.
The era of the fools is coming, those who seek to wrap the President in arguments and proposals that are increasingly aberrant and, frankly, far from reality. Those who exist in all societies: the sycophants of power, the gold diggers under the rubble of the collapse of the institutional edifice of the State. Today they are perhaps more dangerous than the President himself because he seeks confirmation of his fantasy, while they pursue an ephemeral advantage in the weakness of power. In the attempt to elevate his discourse and impose his narrative against reality, the decibels of polarization can grow alarmingly. And beware of arms control.
What is finally certain is that the historical epic turned into a mirage already has an expiration date. And that fact throws a flash of terror into the hearts of the sycophants and the faithful. Because the departure of the President, whenever and however, will be the end of that fantasy that decided to turn its back on reality and spin its tale in a separate unknown dimension.
What must be ensured is that the disappearance of that mirage does not mean the cataclysmic end of Mexico’s future. Because then we will have the arduous task of building a new Republic that represents everyone, in peace and democracy.
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