U.S. Nationalism Rises While Mexican Sovereignty Has Been Surrendered Lorenzo Meyer - Reforma
go to original November 25, 2016

In his well-known essay, “Mexico’s Crisis” (Cuadernos Americanos, March, 1947), Daniel Cosío Villegas concluded that if those who governed did not recognize that Mexico was going through a profound political crisis - the product of the abandonment of the Mexican Revolution and the absence of democratic mechanisms that forced accountability and attacked corruption and the degradation of institutions - and react in time, then Mexico:

“may have no other way than to entrust its future to the United States. Many of its problems would thus be solved; but it would cease to be Mexico, as its life would come from outside.”

In the end, the authoritarian system did not change and so deepened the corruption. When the 1968 political crisis [student demonstrations for democracy, ending in the Tlatelolco Massacre] was joined by the 1982 economic [foreign debt] crisis, Carlos Salinas [1988-94] decided “to entrust the future to the United States” by way of the “Washington Consensus” - of neoliberalism and globalization - and the signing of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). Apparently, as Cosío also predicted in relation to the country, “many of our problems would be resolved” but at a price: the cost of throwing overboard the relative sovereignty that the Mexico Revolution had won with difficulty.

What the “Profit Daniel” feared became a reality: in order to facilitate the country’s adaptation to the United States Project they gave up on nationalism. What the author of “Mexico’s Crisis” could not foresee was that a moment could come in which a fundamental change in the nature of the United States’ internal and external political landscape would change its traditional imperial nationalism to the point where a right-wing government would propose transforming it to what some today call “new nationalism”, others “white nationalism” or, in a more general sense, “ethnic nationalism.”

One of the main reasons that explain the nature of the political change in the US is a mixture of feelings of aggravation and pessimism among less fortunate white Americans, and those who accuse the elites of treachery. This source of frustration, which was well exploited by Donald Trump for electoral purposes, has led the aggrieved parties to see the non-white minorities - among them Mexicans and Hispanics - as the new internal enemy.

In order to confront this, according to Trump supporters, it is necessary to “take back” their country through the deportation of illegal immigrants - previously characterized as criminals and rapists closing the factories of US companies in countries with cheap labor costs and reimposing itself politically on non-white minorities, which, although they cannot be legally deported from the country because they are citizens, they must be subordinated to the white majority; in short, no more Barack Obamas.

For his part and on a farewell tour of Europe, Obama warned about the dangers of a rise in “crude nationalism.” In an obvious way, Obama referred to the positions assumed by Trump and his inner circle: Stephen K. Bannon, considered as a right wing ultranationalist; Reince Priebus; Mike Pompeo, member of the Tea Party; General Michael Flynn, etc.

This very radical change in Washington’s priorities, the product of an election, leaves a denationalized Mexico in an extremely vulnerable position: hit by uncontrolled violence, low and stunted economic growth and a corrupt and illegitimate government.

Translated by Rebecca Nannery

Read the rest at Mexico Voices

Mexico Voices is a blogging endeavor aimed at raising the awareness of U.S. citizens regarding the destructive impact of the U.S. economic policy and the War on Drugs on Mexico - on its people, their economic and physical security and their human rights, on the nation’s dysfunctional justice system, and on the rule of law and Mexico’s fragile democracy. Visit the website at MexicoVoices.blogspot.mx

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