Ricardo Pascoe Pierce
With every step taken by Morena’s administration to annul, cancel, or close a Mexican state body that served as a counterweight or autonomous watchdog for government activities, the perception of its invincibility grows among the ruling party’s ranks. I remember the cry of utopian Marxists: “We are doomed to win.”
López Obrador believed that his electoral mandate empowered him to begin the demolition of the state, colonizing its three traditional pillars: the judicial, legislative, and executive branches. He instituted the mañaneras as a method to hypnotize a country completely demoralized by the incompetence of previous governments and their corruption.
He ushered in an era of militarization as a central feature of the state apparatus and adopted an ideology of love for drug trafficking. He used public funds to buy consciences, leaving the national treasury starved, like a market dog. The new god he prayed to every day is Power. Power that is neither shared nor lent. Corruption became a family trait.
Sheinbaum is determined to complete the work begun by the owner of her government. She has been determined to push through judicial reform to turn that power into the party’s arm, reform to control the media, the use of censorship to annihilate opponents, authorization for espionage by the Army and the National Guard (reducing Harfuch’s role to a minimum) and now the transformation of the National Electoral Institute (INE) into Morena’s electoral arm and severe restrictions on the opposition’s access to Congress. All these reforms serve to complete the demolition of the Mexican state and the colonization of what remains standing.
Morena owns the country. It boasts every day of its moral superiority for being, it says, the authentic and only representative of the Mexican people. With all that power and political control over the country, one would think that Morena would govern with joy, generosity, and confidence in the future. However, something is amiss, as it does not govern with joy or confidence, but rather with anger, aggression, and a vengeful attitude.
Daily attacks on the opposition are the norm in this government. All the country’s ills are blamed on the pernicious past that refuses to leave the nation alone, despite Morena having been in power for seven years without engaging in dialogue with the opposition. In Congress, dialogue and negotiation between parliamentary groups are non-existent. Whatever Morena says goes, period. The judiciary is already becoming partisan. The army can spy on the opposition without a judge’s authorization. The pact with the drug traffickers continues, secretly, but it continues.
They attack the opposition as if it were two minutes away from taking power. What is really happening?
What is happening is reality. Despite Morena’s almost absolute control over political power in Mexico, it cannot control the economic, labor, criminal, and international events that occur daily and surround Mexico, essentially defining what will happen in the near future. They know, or perceive, that their invincibility is merely a veneer covering the gangrene that is relentlessly corroding the nation.
They talk about the country as if it were an island with complete autonomy. They don’t want to answer to anyone or be subordinate to anything. But they are doomed to the collapse of their fantasy that the country owes nothing to anyone. They believe themselves to be invincible, in the depths of their blindness.
Andrés Manuel López Obrador left Mexico on the brink of economic collapse. He plundered public finances to pay for his pharaonic projects, which are now bankrupt. His oil dream absurdly persists with the current government, because they dare not do what must be done to heal the finances of that enterprise. Social programs are significantly contributing to the country’s financial strain. The “exceptional” public debt incurred to buy the 2024 elections will be paid for by the country with a prolonged recession. The recession, in turn, reduces tax revenues, leading many companies to disappear or migrate to the informal sector.
Andrés Manuel López Obrador is responsible for the disappearance of thousands of companies, according to data from the Mexican Social Security Institute. The closure of companies leads to growth in formal unemployment and the accelerated growth of the informal sector. This informality, in turn, reduces the government’s tax revenue. Now the government is tempted to print money on a massive scale to cover its growing deficit. This “printing money” will stimulate higher inflation, and Mexico will likely enter a state of stagflation. It will bring about the worst of all worlds.
Andrés Manuel López Obrador left the country in the hands of drug traffickers. His “peace” strategy was to establish a functional political relationship with criminals, supposedly to reduce violence. As we know, the effect was totally the opposite: there was a spectacular increase in the territorial presence of crime and much more violence. It must also be said that some claim that he received many millions of pesos in electoral support from the cartels, which was an incentive for the “hugs, not bullets” strategy. There will surely be revealing news on this front in the coming days.
The Sheinbaum government has been more aggressive with the cartels, more out of necessity than conviction. US pressure has been intense and promises to be even stronger when the testimonies of the “Chapitos” and Mayo Zambada in those remote northern lands come to an end. However, the essential relationship between organized crime and politics remains unaddressed. The cases of Rubén Rocha and Adán Augusto López serve as confirmation. Until that relationship is broken, Sheinbaum will be dominated by US pressure.
Andrés Manuel López Obrador left the bilateral relationship with the United States, as expressed in the USMCA, in tatters. Apart from ignoring crucial aspects of the treaty, such as a level playing field in energy and mining, he tried to dismiss claims in secondary activities that led to inter-sectoral conflicts. Thus, problems such as those related to avocados, lemons, cattle, copper, steel, aluminum, and the airline industry were points of constant and unnecessary friction. Today, it is clear that an earthquake is looming in the trade renegotiation, which is also a political issue. The USMCA may be scrapped in favor of bilateral agreements.
The crisis we are in is multifaceted. And it is a deliberate and conscious creation of Morena and its leader, Andrés Manuel López Obrador. Believing themselves to be invincible and morally superior, they did not create any exit doors. Trapped in their own demagoguery, they cannot stop subsidizing AMLO’s bankrupt mega-projects, nor can they halt the funding of social programs, nor can they propose a tax reform to boost government revenues. The only thing they can do, from their perspective, is print more money and reduce the quality of education, health care, and other services that the government should provide. They are leading Mexico into deep impoverishment, causing inflation and stagnation, but believing themselves to be invincible.
This misery is leading the country to the brink of a precipice from which it will be difficult to return. It is not an impossible task, but it is very difficult. It requires a change of political regime, rejecting the Morenista model of fanaticism and radicalism. It requires consensus, tolerance, agreements, a down-to-earth approach, and a great deal of humility. Saving ourselves from the precipice requires all of that.
ricardopascoe@hotmail.com
@rpascoep
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