Thinking outside the box, as the gurus of modern management say, can produce nonsense, but also fresh ideas and new directions. Andrés Manuel López Obrador, trained with one foot inside and one foot outside the “box” in which the Mexican political class has traditionally lived, has been a clear example of the best and worst of this slogan. Ideas drawn from the sleeve against the grain of an apparent common sense, such as the raffle for a plane without a plane, on one side, although on the other, controversial decisions, such as the move to Los Pinos or flights in tourist class, which together they redefine the uses and customs of the presidency. And depending on how you look at it, sometimes there are ideas that are both at the same time, apparent nonsense that turn into genius. Such is the case of the possibility of thinking about a lobby in the United States to pressure congressmen to vote in favor of key initiatives for Latinos.
At first it would seem like a politically incorrect approach, to say the least. The typical case of an initiative that would be urgent to carry out, but that should not be proclaimed aloud, much less by a Mexican president in office. This Tuesday López Obrador affirmed in La Mañanera (“because I cannot treat him so openly in the United States out of respect for the sovereignty of that country”) that, if President Biden presents in Congress the promised initiative for the regularization of 11 million migrants, Mexico would have to be attentive to the position taken by Republican and Democratic legislators. And in case some of these oppose this measure, it will be necessary to take a record and make it known to the 38 million Mexicans who live there, many of whom exercise the vote. AMLO cited the case of the Cubans and their lobbying who, despite representing only 4 million who reside in the United States, have enormous political influence.
It is certainly a powerful idea. Although he did not mention it, it is evident the disproportionate weight that the lobby has in favor of the State of Israel, capable of affecting the career of any politician who votes or expresses himself against such interests. Even more obvious is the lobbying exercised by the famous NRA, the National Rifle Association, which for years has boycotted any initiative to limit the indiscriminate sale of weapons, to the fear of every congressman of being criticized by this lobby.
López Obrador points, in effect, to a reality that is gradually making its way. It is true that the specific weight of the population of Latino origin is enormous in economic and social terms in many regions, but its political role is proportionally much less. The mere possibility of modifying that equation constitutes an explosive thesis. Of course, it is a much more diversified community than it seems, sometimes with conflicting interests. And there are the data of the election of Donald Trump, for which just over 20% of Latinos voted. But the numbers are so great that even if this thesis (offering a common goal to the Latino electorate) arouses the interest of a fraction, the scope could be very powerful. Many of the district elections are resolved by a narrow margin, which means that the contenders are not in a position to turn their backs on the vote of communities articulated around a common interest. And it should not be overlooked that the proportion of the Latino vote will only grow due to the combined effect of its growing demographic weight and the gradual incorporation into civic life of many descendants of immigrants. “There are millions of US-Mexican citizens who must be vigilant and have two objectives, only two: defend Mexicans and defend Mexico,” the president said Tuesday.
It is not clear whether these statements by López Obrador express mere hope or anticipate a lobbying project to be developed by the Mexican government. Certainly, AMLO is a political asset with ancestry among popular segments of the emigration rooted in the United States. A factor that unites groups as diverse as the hundreds of thousands of Poblanos settled in New York and the millions of Michoacanos, Zacatecanos and Guerrero settled on the west coast. The idea that López Obrador constitutes a catalyst for these groups may seem strange, but we must not forget that the social substratum from which most of these immigrants and their children come is the same that today gives the Mexican president such categorical levels of approval. It should be remembered the many times that not his person but the political phenomenon he represents has been underestimated. A few years ago no one would have guessed the possibility that a figure would achieve the general consensus of so many and divided progressive currents, from the left or from the opposition, always characterized by their deep-rooted cannibalism.
It could be said, with good reason, that the idea of putting together a lobbying strategy among the countrymen to advance Mexico’s agenda in the internal affairs of the United States, can be interpreted by Washington as an inadmissible interference. But considering the history of brazen and sometimes brutal interventionism by the United States on the political life of our countries, such questioning is naive. A couple of weeks ago, to go no further, several US congressmen demanded that their ambassador in Mexico put pressure on our authorities to guarantee the economic operations of some companies from that country in ours.
In short, occurrence or glimpse of a new strategy, the possibility of politically using the population of Latino origin in an orchestrated way is a transcendent approach. It is not an easy task from any point of view, but if there is something with the potential to promote it, it is the AMLO factor. We will see if it prospers.
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