The presidential plane trick again

Unlike Pedro, who lost credibility among his people for falsely warning the presence of the wolf so many times, President Andrés Manuel López Obrador keeps the attention of faithful and detractors every time he says something like, now yes, the car is for sale. presidential plane.

One of the favorite distractors in the morning is back with the latest news that the TP01 is now for sale. Of course, it has already been “sold” before, it has been raffled off, it has been rented for weddings and XV years, it has become the emblematic plane of the army airline, etc., and all with the same purpose, to distract.

It is a trick that, although it is worn out, continues to work and to the extent that it gains headlines it contributes to the need to preserve the monopoly of political conversation.

It is a fact that the administration of President López Obrador is accumulating issues that make his most informed faithful doubt the effectiveness of his government actions. In addition, of course, there is a wear and tear of his own due to the time he has been in power.

Not everyone will want to see their flagship works fail. There is the Felipe Ángeles airport, deserted and subsidized, the Mayan Train can only document, so far, ecological devastation and not a tourist success, and the Tabasco refinery is far from its first barrel of gasoline.

All of this is buried by the presidential plane or any other propaganda instrument from the extensive morning catalogue, because none of this has a direct impact on the daily life of the majority of the electoral clientele.

But the issues that do matter are those that have eroded presidential acceptance to the levels of sustained decline it maintains today.

People do care that 40 people have been burned to death due to the negligence of an immigration authority and that the crime remains unpunished.

The evidence of corruption and waste, the same with the distribution of basic food by Segalmex as with the sheikh-style trips of the Secretary of Defense, do permeate the minds of those who thought they were not the same.

But what brings down the good spirits of those who do not have a fanatical infatuation with this regime is what directly hits their people: insecurity and economy.

Violence, public insecurity and impunity do not need statistics to convince a majority that they are issues that have broken down during this administration.

And in the economic part, the lack of sufficient public services, such as health, generate additional costs for families that cannot cover these deficiencies with the direct allocations of resources from the regime.

Inflation does not subside, especially in basic foods and that complicates the fortnightly allocation of family spending. And gasolines are today at levels close to their all-time highs.

It was a presidential promise to control basic prices and have cheap gasoline at this point in his government. Non-compliance generates bills in popularity.

The rabbits in the hat, like the presidential plane, no longer cover so many claims. It is there where the space opens for more radical actions that can have more negative and important consequences.

The Felipe Ángeles airport is deserted and subsidized, the Mayan Train can only document, so far, ecological devastation and not a tourist success, and the Tabasco refinery is far from its first barrel of gasoline.

ecampos@eleconomista.mx