Face of megalomania

OUR PRESIDENT in Mexico has a problem with the Kung Flu. At the outset, he basically said don’t fret about it, and he continued trekking around the nation, hugging and kissing everyone within reach. He loves to connect with his people.

And, sadly, his people love it too.

At times he seems to take Kung Flu seriously, other times, no. Just a couple of days ago, he announced the problem was resolved. So go about your business.

While his medical appointees have advocated the usual recommendations of social distancing and staying at home, as do most governors and mayors, our president says the people are wise and know what is best. Stay at home if you wish. Or don’t.

Make up your own mind. You are wise.

Meanwhile, his medical spokesman, Dr. Hugo López-Gatell, holds obligated (by the president) daily news briefings, and the president later contradicts him.

The president also stages daily press briefings, something he’s done every weekday at 7 a.m. since he was inaugurated in December 2018. Every freaking weekday. He loves to talk, and he loves to be on camera. He often rambles, and he compares himself with Benito Juárez, the indigenous president (1861-72) and national hero.

Reporters during his morning news conferences at times ask him difficult questions. If he doesn’t like where the issue is going, his standard response is that he has “other information,” and that’s the end of that.

He inherited a presidential plane, which he’s never used, preferring to fly commercial with “the people.” This creates issues for other passengers who sometimes just get off the flight entirely because they worry about security issues.

While many Mexicans love him, others decidedly do not.

Like Bernie Sanders, he’s fond of “free stuff,” and the people who get his “free stuff” just love him all the more. His party controls the legislative branch, and I fully expect him to have the constitution changed to make reelection possible.

Currently, Mexican presidents are limited to one six-year term.

President for Life? Sounds good, and the people are dumb enough to do it. He’s always speaking of “the poor,” “the poor,” “the poor,” which is well known as the cock-a-doodle-do of that fowl called the Common Demagogue.

Our president has been bad news for Mexico. Here are just two examples. One, he canceled a new and much-needed Mexico City airport that was almost completed. It would have been a financial boon to the entire nation.

Another is that he canceled the education reform that was under way. The public education system here is bad and corrupt. Teachers, on retiring, can hand their jobs over to friends and family, no qualifications required.

Our president caved to teacher unions that are famed for corruption and violence.

Both the new airport and the education reform were initiated under the previous administration, and our president hates with a blue passion all things done by previous presidents. He absolutely loathes them, something he often makes clear during his rambling morning news conferences.

And then there is Pemex, the national oil company. International rating agencies have reduced Pemex bonds to junk status.

It brings to mind the quote of H.L. Mencken: “Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard.”

Megalomania: A symptom of mental illness marked by delusions of greatness.

Mexico elects its own Trump

THE CANDIDATE called AMLO won Mexico’s presidency yesterday, big-time.

As Donald Trump won the U.S. presidency because people were fed up with the corrupt status quo, AMLO won for precisely the same reason.

While Americans chose the conservative firebrand Trump intelligently, I fret that Mexicans chose the left-wing firebrand ALMO unintelligently. Leftism is a loser philosophy that has led nowhere good countless times.

My only solace comes from the fact that AMLO was the mayor of Mexico City for a spell, and he didn’t turn it into Havana. Time will tell.

I leave you with the following quote from H.L. Mencken:

Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard.

 

Loony Latino politics

I’VE VOTED IN every Mexican presidential election since I became a citizen in 2005. The first election after that was in 2006. The presidential elections happen every six years, so I’ve only voted in two so far.

Another is coming this summer.

In 2006, things were pretty clear-cut. There were three major parties: PAN (National Action Party, right-wing), PRD (Party of the Democratic Revolution, left-wing) and the PRI (Institutional Revolutionary Party, self-serving).

The PRI came into existence in 1929 and rigged elections to keep its presidents in power till the system failed in 2000 and the loudmouth Vicente Fox (PAN) was elected. Following him in 2006 was Felipe Calderón (PAN) and in 2012 we got Enrique Peña Nieto (PRI again). I voted for both Calderón and Peña Nieto.

So I’m batting 1,000.

I’m thinking Mexicans, after electing two PAN presidents and not seeing manna falling from heaven, decided to give PRI another chance, a chance most have regretted. I saw a poll recently in which about 65 percent of all Mexicans said they would never, ever vote for a PRI candidate again, and I cannot blame them.

During this back and forth between PRI and PAN has been the phenomenon of a nincompoop named Andrés Manuel López Obrador who goes by the initials AMLO. He almost won in 2006 and again in 2012 as the candidate of the PRD.

AMLO

In 2006, AMLO lost by just 0.58 percent of the vote. He’s not a good loser, so he caused lots of demonstrations, especially in Mexico City, for a fair spell after the election. He roamed the nation, calling himself the “legitimate president.”

The bozo ran again in 2012 as the candidate of a political coalition headed by the PRD. After losing again, he and the PRD parted ways, and two years later he formed his own party, the National Regeneration Movement which goes by the initials MORENA, a flagrantly racist come-on.

Morena or its masculine form, Moreno, is Spanish for brown-skinned person, and since 90 percent of Mexicans are brown-skinned people, the none-too-subtle message here is “We are your party!” Forget the issues, vote your skin color.

Yes, American thinking has moved over the Rio Bravo. Just freaking great. Ironically, AMLO is not moreno. He’s just another of those old white guys.

Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard. — H.L. Mencken

After Mexicans voted twice for the PAN and not seeing manna fall from heaven, and then returning to the Devil They Knew, and seeing general corruption get even worse than normal, and that’s saying something, they’re ready for a change.

MORENA is that change, and AMLO currently leads in the polls. Unfortunately, the Mexican system does not require a majority of the votes to be president. You just have to get more votes than any other guy. You can become president with, say, 35 percent of the vote, with 65 percent wishing you’d take a hike.

There are no runoffs of the two top candidates. This is dumb, of course.

AMLO has opposed most every national reform of recent years. Education, Energy, Law. He doesn’t like gas stations from other countries here. He’s one with troublesome teacher unions. He’s a man of “the people,” if you know what I mean.

To quote H.L. Mencken: Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard.

* * * *

Get-Out-the-Vote Campaigns

Campaigns to get people registered to vote and to inspire them to vote because it’s their civic responsibility … Lord, what a lousy idea.

We’re seeing a lot of that here.

People who must be pushed to vote should not vote because they lack information and are easily manipulated. Not only should people not be encouraged to vote, the right to vote should be restricted in a number of ways. Universal suffrage is an insufferable notion.

By the way, we have voter-ID cards. No card, no vote. And absolutely no one thinks that getting one is an outrageous imposition.

* * * *

I just wanna license to steal job!

Over the past few years in Mexico, a disturbing trend has emerged. Coalitions of political parties. Back in the olden days, if someone was, say, a PAN candidate you could, with some degree of certainty, know that person was a conservative. If someone was a candidate of the Workers Party (read communist), you could pretty much be assured the person was a nincompoop.

Now, however, there are coalitions of parties that put up a single candidate, and the coalition can include both the conservative PAN and the left-wing PRD, even the commie Workers Party (PT). This is ridiculous.

I read a news story recently of a woman candidate who has been on the ticket of all the major parties and most of the fringe parties as well. She is now a candidate for MORENA, of course. What does she believe in? Getting a political post, and nothing more. It can be a cash cow. (See note at bottom.)

* * * *

Election day

We will vote for our next president on July 1. AMLO likely will be ahead in the polls. My vote will go to whomever is No. 2. Alas, there are five candidates on the ballot, and AMLO only has to win more than any one of the others.

With two candidates, he would lose. Five presents a problem. Three of the five are affiliated with major parties. Two are independents. This race is the first time that independents have been allowed to run.

If AMLO loses again, he might become Mexico’s Hillary, touring the nation and world to weep, moan, groan and say it’s just not fair. He’ll blame his loss on deplorable, uneducated peons (Mexican rednecks) who should have known better, and women who couldn’t stand up to their husbands.

With luck, my perfect batting average in elections here will continue.

Let us pray so.

* * * *

(Note 1: AMLO is the candidate of a coalition known as the “Together We Will Make History.” It includes MORENA, the Workers Party, i.e. communists, and something called the Social Encounter Party. Ricardo Anaya, currently No. 2 in the polling, is the candidate of a coalition known as the “Front for Mexico,” which includes the right-wing PAN, the left-wing PRD and a party called the Citizen Movement. José Antonio Meade is the candidate of a coalition called “Everyone for Mexico.” It is made up of the PRI, the Greens, which is a right-wing party in Mexico (Go figger!) and a fringe party called the New Alliance. All of this is pure nuts.)

(Note 2: Candidates in Mexico are legally restricted to three months of campaigning. It started this month. Contrast that to the United States where people can kick off campaigns, officially or not, years in advance. I prefer our system.)