Members stevenkesslar Posted May 6 Members Posted May 6 I've been bitching for months that nobody in the US media seems to have heard of a country called Mexico. At least when it comes to things other than deporting bad hombres. Mexico beat the incumbent curse in 2024 and elected a leftist Jewish woman to succeed AMLO in a whopping landslide. Why couldn't the US do that? And why isn't the media talking about it? It was funny that The Liberal Patriot, which is Ruy Teixeira's perma-scold on unpopular Democratic policies that turn off moderates, did very quickly come up with an article about what Democrats can learn from Carney's win in Canada. Mostly: be more moderate. But I would think they'd be a natural to sing the praises of Morena in Mexico. Since Teixeira keeps ranting, appropriately, about how Democrats are losing the Latino working class. So I was delighted to finally see this informative article from The New Republic appear: The Democrats Could Learn a Lot From Mexico’s Claudia Sheinbaum I think a lot of the formula about what Democrats need to do is right there. I will highlight two parts: Quote AMLO’s government brought 5.1 million people out of poverty and increased the minimum wage by 85 percent above inflation, bringing wages overall to record highs for Mexico and shrinking income disparity. Fourteen million Mexicans received cash transfers as part of an unprecedented expansion of social programs for retirees, disabled people, and students. One analysis I read quoted someone saying it was this simple: we literally put money in people's hands. I will go to the grave believing Harris would have won if Democrats had picked a few things - especially the expanded child credit that helped tens of millions of working class families during peak inflation, and cut child poverty in half for one year - and fought like holy hell to keep them in 2022 and then to fight for them in 2024. Child poverty versus tax cuts for Elon Musk? Harris could have won. Quote Morena had “demonstrated to the people that if the government intervenes in the market and imposes conditions, they’re going to have a better life,” as Romero put it. “Industrial policy builds on that trust.” I don't think Bidenomics ever passed that test. This goes to Ezra Klein's scolding about how it's not about how much money Democrats spend. It's about building shit fast that people feel improves their lives. Where is all the rural broadband? Where are all the electric chargers? I don't know any more about Plan Mexico than what I just read in that article. But I just took a big swipe at progressive climate changers in another post. What this article strongly suggests is you can push things like electric cars in ways that mean creating good jobs. As I posted elsewhere, Democrats seem to have lost fossil fuel states where we used to win Senate races, like Montana and the Dakotas and maybe now Pennsylvania, because we basically convinced people we would take their fossil fuel jobs away. Maybe we should be deporting our best and brightest to Mexico .... to learn something Quote
Members stevenkesslar Posted May 17 Author Members Posted May 17 What Democrats Can Learn From Morena The Mexican left combined ideological diversity on cultural issues with a shared, populist vision on material concerns. Another great article about the success of Mexico's working class Morena Party, and what Democrats can learn. AMLO is definitely an amazing leader. FDR is the suitable comparison. He spent his life changing the country, probably forever. And now he goes off to his farm in Chiapas with his wildly popular successor continuing his reforms. Fellow Liberal Patriot author Ruy Teixiera recently gave Democrats D's and F's on a lot of the issues discussed here: being against fossil fuels, a seeming obsession with identity politics, and immigration policies that are all out of touch with the US working class. AMLO is living proof of concept that Teixeira has a good argument. Because he pretty much did the exact opposite in Mexico. It was wildly popular, and his political movement is dominant. But more than anything it was the populist economics and a focus on wages and poverty that Democrats should embrace. There may be hope for a US version of this, perhaps with a Mexican American flavor. Like Ruben Gallego talking about how he is a patriot, Hispanics are not for illegal immigrants, and what every Mexican American man wants is a big ass truck and cheap gas to put in it. That has potential. Quote
