Throughout the first week of December, I spent a number of days doing talking engagements in Mexico. Though I’ve beforehand visited a number of Latin American nations, and even twice served as a visiting professor in Argentina, this was my first-ever go to to our southern neighbor. I spoke on a panel on “Migration within the twenty first Century” on the FIL Guadalajara International Book Fair (one of many largest ebook gala’s within the Spanish-speaking world), and gave two talks on democracy and political ignorance on the Monterrey Institute of Expertise and Increased Training (Tec de Monterrey), one of many nation’s main universities. The expertise gave me some attention-grabbing new perspective on our vitally essential neighbor to the south.
Earlier than persevering with, I ought to emphasize I’m not an knowledgeable on Mexico, and I converse little Spanish (although my spouse, who got here with me on the journey, is fluent within the language). As well as, I clearly didn’t encounter something like a statistically consultant pattern of Mexicans. This put up, due to this fact, can present solely very modest perception. However that modest perception may nonetheless have some worth.
No less than on the subject of Guadalajara and Monterrey, Mexico appears a way more prosperous nation than many People may assume. My household and I noticed little, if any of the grinding poverty that’s commonplace in lots of poor nations I’ve been to, resembling China, Russia, El Salvador, and Uruguay. For instance, we noticed nearly no homeless folks or beggars.
Guadalajara and Monterrey are two of Mexico’s wealthiest cities; thus not consultant. However, in lots of poor nations, poverty is clear in comparatively prosperous areas. Mexico’s financial progress can also be evident from per capita GDP statistics, which present speedy positive aspects in recent times. The nation is now not the cesspool of poverty some within the US think about it to be.
This progress was, additionally, in some methods, in proof on the FIL Guadaljara ebook honest, once I spoke there. Not surprisingly, the opposite panelists and most viewers members had been sympathetic to my pro-immigration and anti-restrictionist perspective. However one of many panelists – outstanding Mexican political marketing consultant and former diplomat Gabriel Guerra – famous that Mexico itself has been dealing with an inflow of migrants in recent times, and the federal government’s remedy of them has typically been unjust and indefensible. Mexico has gone from being the largest supply of migrants to the US, to itself being a magnet for migrants from Central America and Venezuela. The Mexican authorities’s flawed insurance policies don’t justify these of the US (and vice versa). However these points do throw a wrench within the conventional view of the US-Mexican relationship, on the subject of migration. The altering migration patterns, clearly, replicate Mexico’s growing relative affluence.
Not all is rosy in Mexico, by any means. Mexican lecturers and coverage consultants I spoke to are deeply involved in regards to the state of the US-Mexican relationship, given Donald Trump’s unleashing of large new tariffs, and harsh immigration insurance policies. After the Guadalajara panel, I spoke at size with Guerra and others, together with Arturo Sarukhan, former Mexican ambassador to the US. They famous that Trump’s insurance policies haven’t but generated a “nationalist backlash” in Mexico (their time period, not mine), however that such a backlash was more likely to develop. They famous that many Mexicans have mates and family amongst Mexican immigrants within the US, who’re feeling the results of the brand new administration’s insurance policies of racial profiling and expanded detention and deportation. That, together with the commerce warfare, is sure to trigger anger and poison relations between the 2 nations.
I identified that Trump won’t be in energy ceaselessly (or maybe even for very lengthy), and a future administration may properly revoke his insurance policies. My Mexican interlocutors weren’t mollified. They emphasised that a lot harm has already been achieved to the US-Mexican relationship, and that it will likely be troublesome to reverse.
I have no idea to what extent they’re proper about this. However, regardless, alienating our most populous neighbor and largest buying and selling companion is not Making American Nice Once more. Precisely the alternative, in actual fact. The extra we harm relationships with neighbors and allies, the more durable it will likely be to counter adversaries like Russia and China.
The overall sense of progress and rising affluence was additionally partly offset by the – in Guadalajara – ubiquitous posters depicting “desaparecidos” – “disappeared” folks believed to have been kidnapped by drug cartels (or, in some instances, to have joined them voluntarily).
Sadly, the cartels are certainly a major presence in Mexican society, even in comparatively prosperous cities. One outstanding Mexican educational recounted a narrative of how he had been “mugged” by cartel operatives who searched him “like skilled safety guards.” He was, he stated, relieved they “solely” took his smartphone, and nothing else. The federal government estimates there are over 130,000 “disappeared” people in Mexico, as of July 2025, lots of them believed to be taken by the cartels and different organized crime teams.
These revelations don’t shake my opposition to the Battle on Medicine. In each Mexico and elsewhere, felony cartels have the facility they do as a result of prohibitionist insurance policies have created an enormous black marketplace for them to use. Legalization would undermine the cartels, and remove a lot of the violence related to their operations, simply as the tip of Prohibition largely eradicated the function of organized crime within the sale of alcoholic drinks. However, no matter coverage classes, the impression of the drug cartels on Mexican society is a major one.
After Guadalajara, we went to Monterrey, the place I gave two talks on the Tec de Monterrey, and likewise met with regulation and social science college students and school. These occasions had been organized by my graduate college classmate Gabriel Aguilera, who’s now the Dean of the Faculty of Social Sciences and Authorities there.
I supplied a spread of various lecture matters inside my areas of experience, resembling points associated to migration rights, federalism, property rights, constitutional principle, and extra. However Gabriel and his colleagues selected to have me do each talks on points associated to political ignorance. In recent times, I see rising curiosity on this subject around the globe. One may say it has been “made nice once more.” However, in fact, it goes past anyone one nation or political motion, and has lengthy been a serious problem for democracy.
Once I first began writing about political ignorance over 25 years in the past, many students and others argued that voter data ranges should not a major downside, as a result of voters who know little or no about authorities and public coverage can nonetheless do an excellent job because of data shortcuts, the “miracle of aggregation,” and different workarounds.
Such optimism is much much less prevalent at present. In Mexico, as in current talks I’ve given about political ignorance elsewhere, nearly all of the questioners presumed that voter ignorance is certainly a significant issue, although some took challenge with my proposals for mitigating it. That occurs even supposing I all the time make a degree of together with shortcuts and associated points in my shows about ignorance.
Voter ignorance is, in actual fact, a significant issue in democracies around the globe. However at the least there’s rising cross-national recognition of its significance. In Mexico, considerations about this subject have lately been heightened by the federal government’s erosion of judicial independence, which has weakened a major verify on demagogic populist leaders and political majorities.
My time at Tec de Monterrey additionally gave me some new perspective on Mexican academia. A variety of the regulation and social science college I met should not from Mexico or elsewhere in Latin America, however from nations around the globe, together with some from east Asian nations, resembling China and South Korea. I requested Gabriel if these non-Hispanic lecturers already spoke Spanish earlier than being employed, or had been required to study after taking on their positions. He famous that lots of them truly train and write in English, which is the language by which many social science programs at Tec are taught. If that is any indication, Mexican academia is changing into extra cosmopolitan, and is a competitor for hiring expertise from around the globe. Gabriel himself got here to the US as a poor immigrant, held plenty of educational positions at American universities, and returned to Mexico to take his present high-level put up.
On a much less educational/mental observe, I do not assume I’ve ever seen a college wherever on this planet that has as many peacocks and deer on campus as Tec does:
Â
