"Here, so they can learn," Andrés Manuel López Obrador has thrown at the "neoliberals" this Wednesday after listing the seven economic "records" achieved in his administration during the reading of the third government report.
The last time in Mexico anyone could boast of something like this was in June 2018 when Chuky Lozano, in a spectacular counterattack, cut Özil, left Kroos standing and beat Neuer in the goal that gave him victory against Germany in the World Cup.
Those who did not like the presidential report will find in his book
Half the way
(Editorial Planeta) 328 pages of his "have, so they can learn."
Those who did like it have a new tome to recreate their best plays.
More information
Opinion |
López Obrador or the domestication of rancor
Since 45 years ago López Obrador began to participate in public life, he has written 19 books. In them, he empties his frustrations, expresses wishes or collects pending bills. And this is no different. Of the 19 books published so far, three of them have the word "Tabasco", as many the word "Mexico" ("
The great temptation: Mexico's oil
", "
The mafia that took over Mexico
" and "
The exit Decline and rebirth of Mexico
”), two more include in the title the term“ mafia ”(“
The mafia stole the Presidency from us
”,“
The mafia that took over Mexico
”) and two others the word“ hope ”(“
Not saying goodbye to hope
"and"
Between History and Hope: corruption and democratic struggle in Tabasco
”). Until now, none of them carried the word "road," so after 45 years in public life, when López Obrador dubbed it
'Halfway through the road', it
overwhelms anyone.
Editors say that political books are neither books nor political books, implying that someone else is in charge of landing the leader's thoughts. This is not the case. The folksy style, the chaotic organization of ideas such as jostling thoughts, the linguistic twists and turns from the perverse past to the idyllic present bear his stamp throughout the book's four chapters:
The President, Foreign Policy, Opposition
and
To come
. In the
middle of the road
, López Obrador distributes philias and phobias between Trump, Evo Morales or General Cienfuegos, in the first group, and the opposition, intellectuals or the middle classes, clearly in the group of phobias.
After 19 books, aware of the stupor that a mere extension of the mornings can produce or the mere confession of someone who always gives himself absolution, the president enlivens his book with some experiences and documents that go from joke to anecdote.
“They are not going to get bored, they are not going to yawn.
They are going to like it, even if we disagree, "he said about his book on the day of its presentation.
López Obrador shows his new book, 'Halfway through the road.' Mario Guzmán / EFE
In the chapter
El Presente he
describes an administration in which corruption no longer exists, grows economically despite the pandemic, public accounts have been taken care of and "thieves no longer live in the National Palace." López Obrador is satisfied with being able to reverse the project “of the neoliberal period” and invests in rescuing Mexican oil. The president reviews the new regime he represents, the economic recovery and the good management of the pandemic. However, even when he refers to the drama of the covid-19, on which he does not give figures, but it is estimated that it is close to 500,000 dead, it seems a plot of the dark forces against him.
His management has laid the foundations for there to be no setbacks. And all this he has achieved despite the opposition of the economic and political power, the conservative press, the organic intellectuals of the old regime and the conservatism of the middle classes to whom he dedicates 100 pages, of the almost 300 that the book has, to to point out them, with names and surnames, Héctor Aguilar Camín, Enrique Krauze, the Coppel group, the conservative media as part of a reactionary bloc that seeks to stop their project at any cost. Among the most criticized are businessmen and the media that were favored in previous governments. His theory, repeated a thousand times, is that "the anger of them intellectuals against the 4T is for money that they stopped receiving from the Government" (page 248).
In the chapter dedicated to Trump, López Obrador presents himself as the man capable of avoiding the train crash that never occurred thanks to the chemistry between the two and in the second half of the book he defines the priorities: energy self-sufficiency and projects for the south of the country. On the violence López Obrador blames the inheritance received and the cartels that grew up with Felipe Calderón and Peña Nieto “The difficulty lies in how deeply rooted the organized crime gangs or cartels are. It is an evil that comes from afar (…) the Jalisco Cartel grew up under Felipe Calderón's administration; and the Santa Rosa de Lima Cartel was developed under the control of the PAN in the Government of Guanajuato ”.
Among other anecdotes, López Obrador reveals that his secret weapon if Donald Trump told him about the wall he wanted to build during his visit to the White House was to read a poem by Nicolás Guillén entitled
La muralla
. Eventually Trump behaved like a statesman "and I didn't have to use that missile" and the poem was kept in his jacket pocket. The book publishes the handwritten letter sent by the former Secretary of Defense, Salvador Cienfuegos, detained by the DEA in the United States. One of the few phrases that he rescues from Peña Nieto is also the bitter advice of someone who today lives besieged by corruption when he recalled that the last president of the PRI "complained bitterly about those who received favors during his government and then ignored him."
Throughout more than 300 pages, her silence about feminism and some of the social achievements achieved in the country draws attention.
If there is a movement that has stood up to her during this first half of the journey, it has been the feminist movement.
In their protests, they have taken over public buildings, they have forced the zócalo to entrench, and before them López Obrador has committed the most serious dialectical blunders.
At the same time, in the book, any nod to the people who will inherit his legacy, Claudia Sheinbaum or Marcelo Ebrard, have been filed with calculated skill.
The book number 20 has begun to be written, but in this the phrase with which he will end his mandate is already announced: "Mission accomplished."
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