Shut Up

As we know, Morena’s coalition lost the 2021 federal election, and that defeat did not translate into an opposition majority because of the spoiler role played by Movimiento Ciudadano, which has chosen to pursue its ambition of becoming the country’s second-largest political force, even if democracy disappears along the way. In that same election, Morena’s coalition won every state election along Mexico’s Pacific coast with the support of organized crime, a phenomenon that has been widely documented. It was precisely this development that triggered alarm bells in the United States, ultimately leading to Ovidio Guzmán’s extradition, El Mayo’s extraction, the designation of Mexican cartels as Foreign Terrorist Organizations, and, finally, the creation of U.S. Northern Command’s Joint Interagency Task Force, which this year has coordinated operations in Chihuahua, extradition requests, the capture of El Mencho, and, I assume, other actions that have received less public attention.

To win the 2024 election, López Obrador used public resources to fabricate the appearance of an economic recovery that did not exist. On the one hand, enormous sums were spent on the Maya Train and Dos Bocas; on the other, economic statistics were manipulated so that fictitious GDP growth would conceal the rapid increase in the fiscal deficit. At the same time, the government expanded both the number of beneficiaries and the size of its cash-transfer programs, ensuring that voters would have no doubt about which path to choose.

They won by a very narrow margin—54% of the vote—but then carried out what amounted to a coup d’état, through which they secured 74% of the seats in the Chamber of Deputies and just under 66% of the Senate. The remaining votes they needed were obtained through a combination of corruption and blackmail. On that basis, they dismantled the judiciary, eliminated the autonomous constitutional agencies, captured what remained of the National Electoral Institute (INE) and the Federal Electoral Tribunal (TEPJF), and are now trying to silence everyone else.

The reason is simple.

They no longer have any money. There is no way they can repeat what they did in 2024. To maintain the illusion of economic growth, all they have left is to manipulate the data once again—but there will be people who challenge them.

Those critics must be silenced.

Nor can they count much longer on the support of their criminal partners, who are now under increasing pressure from the United States. That pressure extends not only to the cartels themselves but also to the politicians who protected them—or who effectively worked for them.

To divert attention, the government has begun targeting other politicians, accusing Ernesto Ruffo of the very crime they themselves committed—fuel smuggling, which has also been extensively documented—while reviving the Iguala massacre case, increasing pressure on Alito, and whatever other distractions they can assemble. These cases are not comparable, but they do appear to share the same origin: an urgent need to deflect international scrutiny.

As we have discussed many times, this government governs very little.

It talks.

Its only real arena of action is the daily presidential press conference, and its only tools are lies.

That is why it is so eager to silence criticism.

That is why the issue of “audience rights” has suddenly been revived, though it obviously has nothing to do with protecting audiences. That is also why the government has begun drawing up lists of enemies.

There should be no doubt about what is happening.

Populism must cloak itself in moral superiority if it is to survive—especially under the deplorable conditions in which the country now finds itself, conditions that could prove extremely costly for the governing coalition.

Virtually everything depends on ensuring that its falsehoods are not challenged: the imaginary economic growth, the absence of job creation, the collapse of education and healthcare, the deterioration of infrastructure, and the supposed progress in public security.

Even its one genuine political success—the increase in household income resulting from cash transfers and a rising minimum wage—is beginning to turn into a burden through its negative effects on employment. People increasingly see those transfers as an entitlement rather than a gift, and the money no longer goes very far.

In other words, it no longer buys votes the way it once did.

That is why they are so desperate to silence criticism.

They will not succeed.

The collapse is approaching.