The Mexican Election: An Explainer

First, I am not a fan of MORENA, but not for the reasons I keep hearing on social media. Americans always compare our politics to everybody else’s. And we always do it wrong. So first, let me deal with some history and political theory, and finally, I will discuss who Claudia Sheinbaum is and the challenges of her Sexenio.

The first concept that matters is the Overton window. This is the allowable space for political discussion. The American Overton window is among the narrowest in the world, with a profound bias to conservative politics driven by market forces. Our so called left would barely make it onto the center left in most countries, this includes Mexico. Why, when people call our progressives leftist, worse communists, I laugh.

Trust me, I have broken bread with actual doctrinaire Marxists—some by accident, some because he was my sociology instructor. And to be blunt, the American left has no clue beyond empty slogans. Our Overton window was wider, but two red scares, plus the grave errors of the new left, mean it’s mostly a joke.

They would want to embrace revolution in some cases. But they are not even close to those very radical politics of actual doctrinaire revolutionary thinking. So, it’s primarily empty slogans. However, we may be heading towards a third red scare. And if that happens, our window will become even more…