This is Democracy – Episode 267: Mexican Elections

[00:00:00] Intro: This is democracy, a podcast about the people of the United States, a podcast about citizenship, about engaging with politics and the world around you, a podcast about educating yourself on today’s important issues and how to have a voice in what happens next.

[00:00:24] Jeremi: Welcome to our new episode of This Is Democracy.

I’ve been looking forward to this episode all week. Today we are going to discuss the very important and potentially transformative, or maybe not, elections in Mexico. This is a year, as we’ve discussed many times on our podcast, when more countries in the world and more people around the world are voting in democratic or semi democratic elections than any ever before in human history.

And of course, that’s fascinating for a historian like me. And one of the things we are trying to do is to make sense of what’s happening in various different democracies. We’ve talked about India and we’ve talked about a number of other countries. And today we’re going to have the privilege to talk about Mexico.

What has happened in the recent. early June elections in Mexico, and what do those elections tell us about the state of democracy in Mexico, in North America, in the Western Hemisphere, and in the larger world. We are fortunate to be joined today by my colleague and leading scholar on Mexican elections and politics, Dr.

Kenneth Green. Professor Green, thanks for joining us today.

[00:01:34] Kenneth: Sure thing. Thanks for having me.

[00:01:37] Jeremi: Uh, Ken Green is the associate professor of government at UT Austin. His research focuses on democratization, political parties, and voting behavior, as well as Mexico’s politics. He’s the author of a major work called Why Dominant Parties Lose, Mexico’s Democratization and Comparative Perspective, and he’s been writing quite a bit on related issues, uh, in recent years.

And he, of course, teaches these issues, uh, as well. Before we get to our discussion with Ken, uh, about Mexican elections and democracy, we have, of course, our scene setting poem from Mr. Zachary Suri. Zachary, what’s the title of your poem today? Across the Moat. Across the Moat. Sounds almost medieval, Zachary.

I

[00:02:24] Zachary: guess

[00:02:24] Jeremi: so. Okay. Well, I don’t think it is medieval. Let’s hear it.

[00:02:28] Zachary: We all are seething with hope on top of our box of soap, or we are seething with rage No one even looks downstage. No one even cares to note that our neighbor’s gone to vote. We all are waiting for light and not this unending fight, a new face and a clear head to drag us all out of bed.

Still no one sees across the moat. our neighbors as they go to vote. While we are hoping for a new voice, while we are pining for a better choice, or at least an end to this, the jeer, the smirk, the hiss, beyond our hoarse and tired throats, our neighbor too has gone to vote. They have found themselves a new face, a new start in an old man’s place.

Still, it seems we have but two old men. May the best one win. Amen.

[00:03:26] Jeremi: Zachary, I like how you’ve connected, uh, Mexican and American politics there. What, what’s the point of your poem?

[00:03:33] Zachary: The point of the poem, I think, is, uh, to maybe draw the contrast between, uh, what was seen by some, at least, certainly to a limited extent, as a, as a hopeful moment, uh, in Mexican politics with the election of first woman president, um, and, uh, what we are experiencing in the United States in this election cycle where we have the two oldest presidential candidates in American history in the country.

Uh, going head to head, um, and sort of contrasting those two, uh, moments, uh, in, in, in democratic development of the two respective, uh, democracies. Uh,

[00:04:07] Jeremi: Ken, are, are these two democracies as different as Zachary makes it out?

[00:04:11] Kenneth: They are tremendously different, yes, in, in a whole variety of ways. Um, I mean, I could take the entire time just to paint the contrasts.

Um, should I start in? Please. Well, uh, actually let me draw one, um, uh, similarity between the two. Uh, the U S of course has a two party system, which is, um, one of the reasons that we’re stuck with the candidates that, uh, that we have, uh, there’s disappointing to so many. Mexico has long had a multi party system, or at least since it became a fully competitive democracy in 2000.

But increasingly, we’re seeing a two block system, uh, a block led by Morena, the incumbent party, uh, and a block that brings together a variety of opposition parties from across the traditional ideological spectrum. So, in that sense, the two democracies are parallel. Uh, pretty similar. Um, but in a lot of ways, they’re extremely different.

So for instance, Mexico has, uh, very strict limits on campaign finance. It’s all public finance with the exception of about three percent of the money that the parties spend. The candidates can’t even spend their own money on elections. And of course, in the U. S. we have virtually unlimited political finance, uh, without disclosure through PACs and Citizens United.

Uh, in Mexico there’s a National Electoral Institute that organizes elections at the federal level, uh, and, um, and of course in the U. S. we have county by county, uh, organization of elections. Um, in, uh, in Mexico, um, uh, let’s see, how, how, how deep do we want to go with this?

[00:06:05] Jeremi: Uh,

[00:06:06] Kenneth: well, Mexico, of course, is going to say that Mexico is a new democracy, uh, uh, since 2000, and the U.

S. counts as, as now an old democracy.

[00:06:17] Jeremi: And I was just going to go exactly in that direction, um, Mexico is not only a newer democracy, though it’s about a century old, of course, right? But it, it has now a new kind of presidency, um, that your comments can lead us exactly to where, uh, we thought we would start our first question actually, uh, was going to be about Claudia Scheinbaum, uh, the, the newly elected president of Mexico.

Uh, she is the first, uh, female president of Mexico. The United States has not had a female president, obviously. She’s also the first Jewish president of Mexico. The United States has not had a Jewish president. Does, does that point to some of the differences you described so well in action or is, is that another phenomenon that we’re looking at here?

[00:07:03] Kenneth: You know, I think that, um, I mean, those characteristics, those personal characteristics, uh, are potentially very meaningful. Of course. Um, they, uh, they’re meaningful for, uh, women all over Mexico, perhaps beyond. Um, uh, I don’t think her, uh, Claudia Sheinbaum’s Jewish identity plays as large a role as her identity as a woman may.

Um, but in another sense, um, these personal characteristics really didn’t matter very much. I mean, the, This election wasn’t so much about the individual candidates as it was about the continuation of the fourth transformation, which is the sitting president’s plan to transform Mexico’s political institutions and public life.

It’s about the continuation of that versus a new course, or maybe a reverse course, Uh, to, uh, to keep the sort of politics of yesteryear, um, under, uh, this ideologically heterogeneous coalition that included two parties that had governed Mexico since 2000.

[00:08:18] Jeremi: And is she therefore more of a conservative candidate? Not, not, not even taking politics as ideology, but more in terms of following the path of her predecessor or, or is she a breakthrough candidate or how do we even begin to address that question, Ken?

[00:08:34] Kenneth: Right. Well, I’d say a few things. Um, the, the major thing to say is we just don’t know.

Um, she has been very quiet about her own course in politics. Um, she, she hasn’t been in political life all that long. Uh, she became an important figure inside Morena, the, the party of the incumbent president, Lopez Obrador, and served as Mexico city’s mayor. Um, she was his favorite, uh, candidate for the presidency and, um, and largely she has adopted his program.

Um, strikingly, he came. out with a plan for 20 major reforms, many that include constitutional reforms, just a handful of months ago. And, uh, Claudia Shainbaum incorporated all of those into her campaign platform. So, uh, and there really weren’t many other differences, um, that, uh, at least not that received much attention in the national media.

So I can point to a couple of things that I think she might do in office that are different from, uh, what her predecessor has done or would do, um, but there isn’t much. So let me, let me point out a couple of things. Um, she’s talked about establishing an office, uh, that would investigate every murder.

every homicide, excuse me, of a woman as a potential femicide. Um, Mexico has a significant problem with femicides, although they’re very difficult to classify and count. Um, the data that we do have says that 10 to 11 women are killed every day and that a large proportion of those may be femicides, maybe killing of women because of their gender.

So Claudia Sheinbaum has said that she will establish this new office to investigate these, these crimes. How successful that will be, we won’t know for quite some time. The other area where she differs has to do with, uh, environmental policy. Uh, Mexico is, of course, a major oil producer. It’s the 11th largest oil producer in the world.

And López Obrador, the incumbent president, has deepened Mexico’s oil dependency. Claudia Shanebaum has a PhD in environmental engineering, uh, and, um, is very interested in electrification and more broadly decarbonization. So she has proposed, uh, a number of, uh, means to try to move toward renewables. She’s claimed that she’ll, uh, Uh, be at 50 percent renewables by 2030.

And this is going to be kicked off with almost a 14 billion investment in solar energy, but beyond those things, uh, at least on policy matters. I don’t have a great sense of where Shane Baum will go and how different she will be from the incumbent president to AMLO.

[00:11:34] Jeremi: And Ken, this is actually very enlightening for you to, to, to honestly reflect on the fact that even an expert like yourself, uh, when you’re analyzing someone who’s newly elected, at the office.

There are a lot of things, more question marks than there are exclamation points, more things we don’t know. And part of the mystery of politics is how people operate in an office like this. So I think that’s actually very revealing for us as we think about democracy in Mexico and elsewhere.

[00:12:01] Zachary: Zachary, you had a question?

Yeah. I wanted to ask if you might contextualize Obrador and his policies and his vision for Mexico’s democratic institutions, uh, in the context of Mexico’s, uh, democratic development overall. What is this movement that she is sort of the standard bearer of now?

[00:12:20] Kenneth: Sure. Um, so it’s been called the fourth transformation and it was, uh, on those, uh, platform in, in 2018 when he won the presidency with about, uh, 52, 53 percent of the vote in a multi party election.

That was his third run for the presidency. Uh, she lost in 2006, barely. And in 2012 by a little bit more. Finally successful in, in 2018. And, um, and the fourth transformation is so called because, uh, Lopez obor thought about independence as the first major transformation in Mexico. Uh, the separation between church and state.

Is the second major transformation, uh, Mexico’s revolution in 1910 as the third and his election to office as the fourth transformation. Um, so of course, uh, a little bit of ego involved, um, the, uh, the idea behind the fourth transformation would be a complete change in the nature of public life. He thought that, uh, Mexico’s newly democratic institutions were, um, there to serve elite interests, uh, as well as, uh, as those in public life that were sort of in league with those elite interests.

He referred to them together as the Mafia of Power, uh, and, um, the sense was that, uh, public life needed to be purified and, uh, and, and completely revamped to serve the public interest. For the good of all, the poor should be first was his, his slogan. I probably mistranslated it. There’s probably a pithier way of saying it.

Um, and, and he’s gone about, uh, doing many of the things that he said he, he would do. Um, there is of course, a major debate about the manner in which he has done it. So, um, in order to, uh, root out what he thought of as deep seated corruption, he’s centralized authority in the executive branch. Um, and he’s done that in a variety of ways I’d be happy to get into.

Um, from his perspective, it’s, it’s a way of overhauling rotten institutions and turning them into, uh, institutions that serve the public Interest for his critics. It’s a major assault on democracy.

[00:14:55] Jeremi: Ken, do you see, um, Scheinbaum as going in one of those two directions? Is, is she continuing? Um, perhaps authoritarian tendency that I know others have associated with her, with her predecessor, Obrador, or is she going in a different direction or is that a not fair characterization of her predecessor?

[00:15:15] Kenneth: I think it’s a fair characterization of her predecessor from the perspective of his critics.

Uh, again, he would say that he is, um, He’s trying to, uh, root out corruption and, um, and turn institutions, uh, in a direction that would genuinely serve Mexico’s citizens. I mean, it, it’s essentially a socioeconomic view of democracy. Redistribution is key. And, um, and the way he thought that he could, uh, go about efficiently redistributing resources was to centralize them in the executive branch.

Of course, that gives him an incredible amount of fiscal authority. Um, there are a number of other things that sort of come along the way, uh, a huge increase in the power of Mexico’s military, uh, something that Mexico really hasn’t seen since the revolution of 1910, um, and a series of constitutional reforms that are on deck that I, I hope we’ll have a chance to talk about.

Will Shane Bowne continue in this direction while she’s adopted, uh, AMLO’s entire, uh, 20 point platform for reform. Um, some of those reforms will be teed up, uh, before she takes office. So there’s, there’s an interesting, uh, sort of misalignment, uh, of the new office holders. The, um, Congress will, uh, be sworn in at the beginning of September.

New president won’t be sworn in until October. So there’s an entire month. When I’m low, uh, rather than being a lame duck has at this point, uh, an overwhelming majority in both houses and can start to push through constitutional reforms. Um, will Shane Baum continue down that path? She said that. The reforms that he has proposed and she’s incorporated into her platform should be debated.

And, and that’s a sign that maybe she’s interested in taking a hard look at them. But we don’t have any other sense that, uh, that she would move in a different direction. She hasn’t made any pronouncements that would indicate that she wants to do something different.

[00:17:30] Jeremi: Interesting. This is really fascinating.

And obviously, one could do a whole podcast or multiple podcasts on, um, on those, um, on Obrador’s reform package. What, what are the pieces you would pick out as most significant and perhaps most controversial?

[00:17:47] Kenneth: Well, the, the top of the list and one that Amlo has said he will do during September is a major overhaul of the judiciary.

And this would involve, uh, electing all federal judges, including those in the Supreme Court. So, you would essentially purge the entire existing judiciary and approximately 1, 600 federal judges Would then be become elected positions as I say, including all of the magistrates on the Supreme Court. Um, and, uh, in fact, I was just reading a study, uh, the other day, um, by, uh, binational, uh, team of lawyers.

And the quote that stuck out to me is said, this would eliminate the separation of powers and the system of checks and balance is crucial to the survival of constitutional democracy. So that’s the major reform. Uh, that’s the first one, at least, uh, one of, one of 20. Um, the, the, I think there is at least one other that’ll go through in September, and that is to formally incorporate the relatively new National Guard into the military.

The National Guard is a new body that was created to replace the federal police and has been charged with a lot of policing, um, uh, uh, duties, including, uh, guarding Mexico’s southern border. And um, and the hope was that the National Guard would be under civilian control, but uh, it seems like with this reform, it will be under federal control.

Military control. And as I say, the military’s power is more generally expanded quite dramatically. I would say alarmingly.

[00:19:36] Zachary: Zachary, how do you think Sean Shinebaum’s election and the sort of continued or potential for the continued implement implementation of overdose reforms will affect Mexico’s relationship with the United States?

Uh, particularly over border issues, which are playing such a big role in our election in November,

[00:19:56] Kenneth: right? I’m glad you brought that up. I mean, it’s been quite striking that, um, the U. S. really hasn’t said much, uh, that’s critical of, of AMLO. Um, I would have expected more, frankly, I would have expected some, some alarm bells to have rung in Washington, some concern over creeping authoritarianism, some criticism perhaps of his, uh, redistribution policies.

Um, we really haven’t heard much of that at all. And I think that’s because Mexico has played a very smart strategic game. Game with respect to U. S. Politics. Mexico controls, of course, its southern border and therefore really controls the flow of immigrants to the U. S. Southern border. And, um, and of course, the Biden administration knows this and knows they’re extremely vulnerable on this issue because it is such a hot button issue in U.

S. Politics. So if, if AMLO were to, uh, essentially open Mexico’s southern border, or at least allow for an increased flow, it would tip the balance of US politics toward Trump. And, uh, and of course, after last night’s debate, I think this becomes even more important. Uh, I, I, I suspect that Mexico has just gained a lot of currency with the Biden administration because they want to keep immigration issues off of the front page of the newspaper as much as possible.

[00:21:33] Jeremi: And do you see that as, um, a motivating factor in Mexican politics? Uh, there must be close attention among Mexican leaders as well as citizens to the U. S. electoral system. What influence has that had and will that have on Mexican politics in the coming months?

[00:21:51] Kenneth: Well, um, strikingly, AMLO had a pretty good relationship with Trump, and I think the deal that was struck was that Mexico would do the U.

S. bidding, uh, with respect to immigration issues, and the U. S. would remain relatively quiet about, uh, things that, uh, that AMLO was doing, um, You know, we had this, in some senses, dramatic renegotiation of NAFTA under Trump. But really, the USMCA didn’t make very many changes. In fact, uh, the, uh, one of the major documents associated with USMCA was, incorrectly titled NAFTA 2.

0. Um, of course, Trump tried to make a big deal out of the minor differences between the two agreements, but they were, they were really quite similar. Um, and, uh, Um, on other issues, you know, we’ve heard a little bit of, of noise, certainly surrounding fentanyl and occasionally we’ll hear Republican lawmakers saying that we should invade or bomb or something along those lines to try to, uh, discourage fentanyl trafficking.

Um, on a lot of other issues, Mexico has really. been able to write its own ticket.

[00:23:13] Jeremi: And, and is that a good sign? I mean, one could argue that, um, getting out from under the shadow to some extent of the United States and being able to pursue a reform package and elect a new leader who, uh, seems to be in line with that reform package, but is also perhaps, uh, as you’ve described it, Ken, perhaps she’s also, uh, acting in somewhat, uh, ambiguous ways to leave her options open.

I mean, is that not a good sign for Mexico?

[00:23:42] Kenneth: I mean, I guess it could be seen as a good sign with respect to Mexican sovereignty, um, and, uh, its independent role in hemispheric relations. At the same time, it’s come at a certain kind of a cost. Um, intelligence sharing between the two countries is at an all time low.

After a spat over the arrest of, uh, uh, a general, um, a Mexican general in the U. S., and ultimately he was, he was sent back to Mexico. But, um, that’s left some, some real scars in the relationship. And, um, you know, I, I think more generally that the two countries are so incredibly linked USMCA by national trade, I should say more generally is so important for both countries, not just for Mexico, but it’s so important for both countries, especially Texas, where we are.

Now, um, and of course, security cooperation is incredibly important, uh, when we’re facing, uh, a real epidemic with respect to, to drug use and overdoses. So we just need more cooperation. Now if Mexico could sort of establish its independence and reassert its sovereignty and that led to increased Cooperation on a multitude of issues.

I would really welcome it. But I’m concerned about the lack of cooperation we’ve had over the last few years.

[00:25:07] Jeremi: Of course, of course. That makes a lot of a lot of sense. And I think that’s very well put. Are you optimistic about the state of Mexican democracy? Do you see this as an election, which is at least solidifying some good and positive democratic practices in Mexico?

Or is that an overly optimistic reading of this?

[00:25:29] Kenneth: I would say, unfortunately, exactly the opposite. Uh, Claudia Shanebaum will be incredibly powerful. She will be a government of one, essentially. So Morena has, uh, well, of course she went, she won, uh, nearly 60 percent of the vote. So she has an incredible mandate.

But Morena will have a super majority, a two thirds majority in the lower house. It would just be three senators shy of a super majority in the upper house. And they will have, um, more than 17 state houses. They’ll have a simple majority and more than 17 state houses. So they have everything that they need for constitutional reforms.

They don’t need the opposition at all. They can govern alone. And the, the Congress doesn’t really serve as a counterweight. to the president as, as, uh, it may at times in the U. S. So Claudia Shane Baum will be incredibly powerful. She would be able to pass ordinary legislation and constitutional reforms all by herself with no other allies.

I was talking with a colleague earlier today. Uh, and he said something that struck, struck me quite a bit. He said that, um, you know, to the extent that there are any conflicts between outgoing president Lopez Obrador and incoming president Claudia Schoenbaum, Obrador, Lopez Obrador serves as a check. And a balance on Shane Bell as if that’s the only check and balance in the system.

[00:27:08] Jeremi: So, so you see this going in an

[00:27:10] Kenneth: authoritarian direction? Well, potentially, I mean, what we have now is, um, the essentially a dominant party. Right. I mean, uh, I wrote in my book that you need a certain number of terms, uh, or years in office to really count as a dominant party, but we have the, let’s at least say the ingredients for a long term dominant party.

Um, under López Obrador, the, uh, Morena and, and, and sort of his administration. Has not been shy about using institutions, uh, for their own political purposes. They’ve tried to tremendously weaken the election management bodies and, uh, by the end of AMLO’s administration, they will have done it. They will slash the budget for the National Electoral Institute.

They will put through a constitutional reform that makes all of the elections tribunal judges elected positions, and that will tremendously undermine the election management apparatus. They’ve used the attorney general’s office, which is entirely controlled by the executive branch. It’s not, it’s not independent the way it is in the US.

They’ve used the attorney general’s office to go after their, their enemies. Uh, and in a number of other ways, they’ve, they’ve really gone after people all the way down to individual academics and journalists. Um, so Shane Baum will have. capacity to act in ways that are authoritarian in style, uh, if not more, whether she does, uh, or not, you know, we’ll have to find out.

I’m not sure which direction she’ll go.

[00:28:56] Jeremi: Right. And, and this is a big question and it’s probably an unfair question to ask as we, as we’re nearing the end of our conversation, but you of course have studied, uh, as, as many historians have as well, the, the long one party rule of the PRI, the Institutional Revolutionary Party in Mexico, which of course is a different party from Morena.

Do you see a parallel here?

[00:29:19] Kenneth: I see increasing similarities. So, um, so the pre, uh, controlled elections, of course, they controlled, uh, the counting of ballots. Um, Moreno doesn’t do that, but by weakening the autonomous election management bodies, um, they’ll be able to get away with, with more, uh, that they want to.

Um, so, yeah. The, but the major element I would say is that the pre controlled, um, federal resources at a time when, um, the state owned a pretty large proportion of Mexico’s economy, up to 22 and a half percent of the entire economy was public, uh, during the period of PRI dominance. So controlling those resources meant that it had a huge advantage.

Now, I saw it that way. Um, no incumbent party would be able to claim, um, such fiscal advantages after 2000. And uh, so we wouldn’t have to worry about that. But so many resources have been centralized with the executive branch now. Um, basically all the anti poverty programs that provided services have been canceled and the money has been transferred to the executive branch so it can be distributed in the form of unconditional.

cash transfers to people. It’s so much money. About 50 percent of citizens in Mexico are receiving some kind of monthly transfer from the executive branch. And, and we don’t really know very much about those resources and whether they’re being politicized. Um, there has been a real resistance to transparency on the part of the Lopez Obrador administration.

Um, we haven’t been able to see how that money is being. used and accounted for. We haven’t been able to, uh, sort of find out whether there’s political pressure that’s being put on individual people. Um, I’ve just run, uh, an election season survey, a panel survey to try to figure out a little bit more about this kind of political pressure.

So I’ll be able to report back, uh, in a couple of months when I’ve been able to analyze the data. Um, but it, it, it leads to a real concern. Is, is Morena able to use its fiscal power, uh, to bias elections in its favor? That would make it look a lot more like the PRI of old. Well,

[00:31:48] Jeremi: that, that is not an optimistic story.

Um, and, and I want to close, Ken, by asking that the question we ask of all of our guests, It’s virtually every week, uh, what do we do about this? And I don’t mean how do we solve this problem tomorrow? You and I and even an army of our friends can’t solve this ourselves, nor are we really equipped to do that.

But, but I guess the real question is, you know, those of us who care about, um, democracy and are concerned about the trends towards authoritarianism that you’re one of the leading people writing about, what, what do we do? What, what are the. positive directions one can go in studying and looking at and trying in a small way to influence Mexican politics and, and, and the larger state of democracy in North America as you see it.

[00:32:34] Kenneth: It’s a great question and one I’m completely unprepared for. Um, well, look, uh, unlike, unlike many other countries around the world, um, the, the U. S. and Mexico are so tightly linked that we have a lot of people who pay close attention to to Mexico’s politics. Um, we have a whole cadre of journalists. We have a ton of academics in both countries, and I, I think we need to continue studying what’s going on in Mexico, shedding light on it and, and being very vocal about what we, what we find.

Um, we have a number of research institutes in the U. S. and, and of course a number in, in Mexico, although some have been, now been, um, taken over or, or, you know, or cowed by the López Obrador administration, um, but these, these institutes, um, one of which is at the UT Austin, uh, we need to continue to invest our time, uh, and our resources in studying Mexico, uh, teaching about Mexico, um, and in covering Mexico in the future.

[00:33:43] Jeremi: Ken, do you agree with Zachary’s poem that I think made a very clear and compelling point that we don’t pay enough attention to Mexico? Is that part of the problem?

[00:33:51] Kenneth: I think there’s never enough attention paid to Mexico because it is so important to us. And I think that, um, You know, although there are, uh, quite a few experts, um, uh, in the U S on Mexico’s politics and society and economics.

Um, I think too many people have kind of a caricatured view of Mexico, um, that, uh, that we could really do without. Um, I mean, um, I, I am concerned about press coverage, um, press rooms, of course, around the country have been cutting back on the number of foreign correspondents relying too much on wire services.

Um, I, I do worry that we don’t have enough people, uh, on the ground to really get the important stories out. Uh, I’m thankful for, um, the emergence of podcasts like yours, um, that allow for a different forum and a. plethora of voices. And I just hope that continues to blossom.

[00:34:54] Jeremi: Zachary, what do you think? Does, does this discussion and the set of issues that Ken has, I think, elucidated so, so well, uh, are these the kinds of issues that will draw more young people like yourself to pay attention, to study Mexico and to think about democracy, not just in the United States and in Europe, but in Mexico as well?

[00:35:12] Zachary: Yes, I think so. I think also, um, it’s important to recognize that as, uh, the U. S. Mexico border plays an ever more critical role in our politics, that there is a sort of political discussion on the other side of that border that really matters, and that there’s a politics there that really influences American policy and politics, um, and I think it’s very important that young people have the In that context, pay attention to Mexican politics, not just because it’s important enough itself, but also because of how, how greatly it influences our own politics.

[00:35:46] Jeremi: Right. Right. And looking beyond the, uh, the two old men running in the U S in particular, Ken, Zachary, this has been a fascinating and enlightening discussion. I know my understanding, Ken, of the election and the challenges to democracy in Mexico has been multiplied many times over by your comments today.

I, I hope our listeners will, um, make a special effort to, uh, get a hold of Kenneth Green, Professor Kenneth Green’s work. Uh, he’s written a major book, as I mentioned, and he’s quite active as an art, as a writer of articles, somewhat interviewed frequently. Uh, and as he said, it’s more important than ever that we pay attention to these issues and develop a greater knowledge base for understanding what’s happening south of the border as we’re constantly.

bombarded with, I think, propaganda about the border of one kind or, or another. Ken, thank you so much for joining us today. Thank you for making the time. Zachary, thank you for your thoughtful poem and your excellent questions as always. And I just want to remind our listeners that we have our daily newsletter as well, Democracy of Hope.

We just began it about a week ago and already we have a lot of subscribers, but we’d always like to have more. Not simply because we want subscribers, but because just as Ken said so well, we’re hoping that there’s some way, we have. We can build a hopeful, substantive discussion about democracy beyond the limited coverage and distorted coverage that we often receive, uh, in our social media and other sources.

Uh, so thank you to our listeners for joining us today and for being part of this important discussion.

[00:37:34] Outro: This podcast is produced by the Liberal Arts ITS Development Studio and the College of Liberal Arts at the University of Texas at Austin. The music in this episode was written and recorded by Harris Codini. Stay tuned for a new episode every week. You can find This Is Democracy on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and Stitcher. See you next time.