People are supposed to galvanize themselves against a common enemy, put their daily quarrels on pause and march together to war. It happened with George Bush when the crisis due to the destruction of the New York towers brought approval levels to the ceiling, which days before were on the ground. It even worked, at least momentarily, for the discredited Military Junta in Argentina by declaring war on the United Kingdom over the Falkland Islands. But that is not happening now in Spain, England, the United States or Mexico in the face of the health and economic tragedy that Covid-19 has unleashed. Far from strengthening the political leadership of the leaders, the crisis has caused in these countries an acceleration of the customary cannibalism in the political sphere and on social networks.
Each nation has its own explanation, of course. In the case of Mexico, you don't have to go very far to find it. The environment prior to the outbreak of the pandemic was already feverish; now it has become suffocating, toxic. Andrés Manuel López Obrador arouses mixed feelings since he took office, but since the coronavirus an atmosphere of lynchings and incendiary provocations has been unleashed. Both, president and followers, on the one hand, and some media, press and elite sectors, on the other, have engaged in an exchange of insults under the pretext of the virus, as two adversaries willing to continue exchanging blows in the midst of a shipwreck.
Everything that the 4T Government does or does not do shows its lack of skill, its negligence and its harmful naivete, in the eyes of its adversaries. If it does not, because it is taking time, and if it does because it is wrong. There is no technical explanation that is worth it, whether it comes from a qualified expert such as Dr. Hugo López-Gatell, responsible for the campaign against the spread of the virus. For the anti- lopezobradoristas the tragedy that is coming already has a Tabasco name and surname, this is happening in the rest of the planet. Ultimately, for them, it all goes back to the bubble of denial in which the President is lost, a denial that will plunge the country into the abyss. The animosity is such that in the reactions caused by each bad news, be it the deterioration of the currency or the shortage of a medicine, the muffled feast of all those who celebrate the fulfillment, finally, of the black prophecy that they had anticipated regarding AMLO.
The unorthodox attitude of the president is not that he is helping much to calm the spirits either. Faced with the crisis of the pandemic and what comes with it, he has tried to hold on to his life-long compasses: the notion that the priority is the poor and unlimited confidence in the virtues of the Mexican people. Compasses that will undoubtedly serve so that the calamities to come do not feed on the most vulnerable, as has always been the case. But to many it seems that it is a horizon of visibility that falls short in the face of the unprecedented moment that the planet is experiencing and the complex effects that the crisis will cause throughout the society and economy of the country.
On the contrary, others may think that it is convenient to have a president who makes decisions according to deep and well-intentioned convictions. In the deliberations of some leaders, very clearly the case of Donald Trump, it would seem that immediate political interest and pressure from interest groups with greater power outweighed the well-being of society as a whole.
In any case, it is still too early to make a full evaluation of the strategy of each Government in the face of the crisis. Especially in the Mexican case, which until next weekend will announce the package of economic measures to be taken to alleviate the crisis that the emergency has unleashed.
Unfortunately, the climate of confrontation is such that we can anticipate that, regardless of what is announced, the proposals will only serve to stoke the fire of mutual recriminations. They will be inexorably ridiculed by adversaries, and the government will accuse critics of being morally unpresentable.
The funny thing is that the two sides call each other to a truce without giving up. A few days ago Denise Dresser, an emblematic columnist, justly titled her article in the newspaper Reforma: La tregua. A long disqualification of the President and his Government culminated in a conciliatory paragraph. Not unlike the spirit of AMLO in the morning, in which after two sentences intended to summon sanity and concord, he deviates in a long tirade against the conservatives who sabotage his Administration.
Many things have changed in two months throughout the world, nothing has been immune to the pandemic. Except for hatred, perhaps, that has simply flared up without being distracted by the Apocalypse.
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