How Mexico's Upcoming Election Impacts the US
Mexico's historic national election happening this weekend should be of great interest to American voters because of the potential fallout along the US-Mexican border and who wins the White House in November.
Millions of Mexicans will head to the polls June 2 to choose a new president, as well as cast their votes for tens of thousands of state and local candidates.
It is the country’s largest election, according to the National Electoral Institute, and slated — a first in the country’s history — to put a woman in the president’s seat.
But, regardless of which woman wins, the flow of illegals into the US will continue across the Mexican border unless Donald Trump wins. Neither candidate has any reason to stop the outflow of criminals, homeless and peasants out of the country into the United States.
Ignoring the illegal immigration angle, mainstream media are touting this as a welcome countermove against Mexican "macho" culture and male chauvinism, as well as a truly "historic" election.
Two candidates — establishment-preferred Claudia Sheinbaum and her opposition Xóchitl Gálvez — have risen to the top political positions.
Both have their loyal followers, with Gálvez’ down-to-earth campaign style attracting enthusiastic support from the people.
Polling data for the election show Sheinbaum, hand-picked by outgoing president Andrés Manuel López Obrador, safely leading Gálvez 56%-34%.
What is the difference between the two?
Native Guatemalan writer/reporter Martin Barillas told Souls and Liberty what is becoming apparent to many looking beyond mainstream media: "The two candidates each represent the very slightest gradations of difference and would probably govern with similar policies."
Gálvez is rather like "a Romney Republican — she has support from the business community and World Economic Forum," says Barillas, a former State Department Foreign Service Officer, "while Sheinbaum enjoys the weighty political support of the incumbent."
"I would say that regardless of who wins, there will be business as usual as long as Mexico City remains largely above the fray between the cartels, and the products flowing from Durango and Nuevo Leon [sites of auto plants] continue unimpeded toward the US," he added.
But the real difference is what happens, Barillas notes, in the US November presidential election.
"If Trump wins in November, he can be relied upon to enforce border controls and start deporting illegals. Neither Sheinbaum nor Gálvez would be able to do much about that," Barillas says. "He would be active, and they would be passive."
"There is nothing to be gained for Sheinbaum or Gálvez in stopping the flow of migrants. They have everything to gain by offloading poor and landless peasants, and foreigners, into the US."
It's no wonder Mexican president Andrés Manuel López Obrador has publicly intoned many times –
“Blessed Mexico, so close to God and not so far from the United States.”
A quick look at the candidates supports what Barillas and many others are now noting.
Claudia Sheinbaum
Establishment-preferred Claudia Sheinbaum of the Morena party (National Regeneration Movement), the party of Mexico's current president, is the frontrunner.
On course to win, which means keeping López Obrador’s leftist legacy on track, many see Sheinbaum more leftist than the current president himself.
The Associated Press (AP) reports that that favored candidate follows the leftist footsteps her parents, leading activists in Mexico’s 1968 student democracy movement.
Antonio Santos, a person who has known Sheinbaum since the mid-1980s when both were leaders of a leftist university student movement, said of the candidate, "She went to these schools where the 'children of ‘68' went, they were active-learning schools run by Spanish Republican exiles, they were free-thinking schools."
Sheinbaum, who has an impressive academic resume, went on to complete a PhD in energy engineering at the University of California, Berkeley in 1995.
According to many who interact with her, the candidate carries an elitist aura about her, if not of old money, then of a respected old left family, at times being described as "dismissive" and "cold."
In a country of 98 million Catholics, the frontrunner promotes many unCatholic, leftist positions.
The 61-year-old politician is an ardent supporter of so-called reproductive "rights" across the globe, according to information gathered by the Catholic News Agency.
When the US Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022, she declared that it is a "setback” for the US to declare abortion, which she deems “a right,” illegal.
When so-called homosexual “marriage” was passed in two of the country's states in that same year, Sheinbaum exclaimed: “Today the entire country advances in equal rights with the passage of marriage equality in Guerrero and Tamaulipas. I celebrate this demonstration of the will of the people and the search for justice for all men and women ... Love is love.”
She publicly condemned so-called conversion therapy for those suffering from unwanted same-sex attraction, describing it as “from the Inquisition.”
Sheinbaum, the first woman mayor of Mexico City, and the first Jewish person to attain that position, seems poised to become the first woman president of Mexico, a feat Hillary Clinton, and so far Kamala Harris, have not been able to achieve north of the border.
Xóchitl Gálvez
Opposition candidate Xóchitl Gálvez is backed by an alliance of Mexico’s three oldest parties — the center-right PAN (National Action Party), the leftist PRD (Party of the Democratic Revolution), and the once-powerful PRI (Institutional Revolutionary Party.)
Members of the politically-diverse alliance, known as Strength and Heart for Mexico, have set aside previous rivalries in hope of dislodging the Morena party's grip on power.
Unlike her opponent, Gálvez is noted for her down-to-earth, charismatic, demeanor. She presents herself as "one of the people."
She often iterates her rags-to-riches story, of growing up in a small town and selling tamales and candy to support her family.
The 61-year-old opposition candidate can be seen riding her motor bike around Mexico City, wearing a traditional embroidered blouse, and conversing easily — reportedly often with profane language — with ordinary Mexicans on the street.
Gálvez studied at the National Autonomous University of Mexico, obtaining a degree in Computer Engineering in 2010 and going on to become a successful entrepreneur.
Despite professing to be a devout Catholic (in the fashion of Biden), Gálvez also supports a number of anti-Catholic positions.
“Abortion is an individual decision of the woman. If she makes this determination, she should be accompanied, not judged,” the candidate has declared, according to the Catholic News Agency.
“I don’t agree with criminalizing any woman who has an abortion, I am totally against it,” she said recently.
During her years in the Mexican Senate, she consistently voted in favor of criminalizing “conversion therapy.” Under her watch, the Mexican Senate approved sentences of up to six years in prison for those who carry out or promote treatments that seek to change a person's sexual orientation or gender identity.
Gálvez has worked to embed legalization of LGBT unions into government policy. “There’s no wiser saying than love is love, period. All people have the right to love each other,” she stated in approving social security reform for same-sex couples.
“There’s no wiser saying than love is love, period."
Massive crowds of Gálvez-supporting Mexicans took to the streets in various cities recently, including Guadalajara, in a march called "Pink Tide." (Pink Tide – marea rosa in Spanish — refers to a century-long political turning toward left-wing governments in Latin America.)
"This Mexico does not want to talk about left or right," Gálvez maintains. "Right now, Mexico wants us to solve the serious problems. And if you are looking for an engineer to solve problems, here I am," she said referring to her bachelor's degree.
Not every one agrees with Barillas' position. One commentator rooting for Gálvez argues that Democracy is at stake in the election.
Writer Jorge G. Castañeda sees the election systematically rigged for López Obrador’s protégée.
He says, "the playing field is tilted so far in favor of Claudia Sheinbaum, the ruling party’s presidential candidate, that it recalls the heyday of one-party rule under the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI)."
The writer goes on to claim that the fixed playing field "raises the question of whether [López Obrador] will leave office if Gálvez ekes out a victory."
"The president’s drive for power ... suggests that the answer may be no, and the electoral authorities would likely be too debilitated to oppose him," he maintains.
Indeed López Obrador has strong allies in and out of Mexico. In a move that pleased globalists, he had advocated for a European-style union of North American countries modeled after the European Union.
According to international journalist Alex Newman, the Mexican incumbent offers “obligatory lip service to preserving Mexican sovereignty and independence,” while working to promote the European Union as a role model to be adopted in North America.
However the Mexican people or the pundits see the significance of the upcoming Mexican elections, the Trump card must be figured in.
"An effective US border policy would actually be a crisis for Mexico — whoever is elected," Barillas says.
Dr. Barbara Toth has a doctorate in rhetoric and composition from Bowling Green State University. She has taught at universities in the US, China and Saudi Arabia. Her work in setting up a writing center at Princess Nourah bint Abdulrahmen University, an all-women's university in Riyadh, has been cited in American journals. Toth has published academic and non-academic articles and poems internationally.
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