Lourdes Casares de Félix: AMLO and the bickering

AMLO calls Milei, president of Argentina, a “conservative fascist”; He answers that it is a compliment that an ignorant person like López Obrador speaks badly of him, and then the president of Mexico rebukes him by saying “…I still do not understand how the Argentines, being so intelligent, voted for someone who is not accurate, who despises to town…”

The president of Colombia also had Milei call him a “terrorist murderer.” In his defense, López Obrador sent “a hug” to Colombian President Gustavo Petro, who in response ordered the expulsion of the entire Argentine diplomatic corps from his country.

Thus the back and forth of the high command in Latin America. They team up and discuss who started and launched the first offense. Something like “he who takes, endures”. It seems like a proxy war, and it is in the sense that these leaders have different ideologies and perspectives to govern.

To understand the grievance, let’s look at the meaning of the word that started it. The Royal Spanish Academy (RAE) defines “facho” as a derogatory adjective used to talk regarding people who are fascist or who support “a reactionary political ideology.” It is a pejorative expression that is used synonymously with retrograde. The expression “facho” derives from fascism, this term refers to being authoritarian, dictator. It is curious that AMLO criticizes Milei as authoritarian when he is also authoritarian. “Facha” is also a way of calling someone “a jerk or an eyesore.”

The candidates for the presidency of Mexico, Sheinbaum and Xóchitl Gálvez, expressed their opinion in the face of Milei’s insults. Sheinbaum asked for respect and Gálvez, with his well-known humorous style, joked saying: “I do not allow President Milei to speak ill of López Obrador, I will take care of that.” He reminded me of the phrase attributed to the president of the United States Franklin Delano Roosevelt in reference to the Nicaraguan dictator Anastasio Somoza when he said “he may be a son of a bitch, but he is our son of a bitch.”

The intrusions don’t stop there. Agustín Laje, an Argentine political scientist and lecturer classified by various media as extreme right-wing, criticized Xóchitl Gálvez for not allowing Milei to speak badly of AMLO. Laje describes Gálvez as a leftist and denigrates his candidacy while mentioning that Morena and she are the same in promoting an ultra-progressive cultural agenda, and concludes by saying that the PAN deserves to lose for having abandoned its principles by electing this candidate.

This nosy foreigner does not understand that for Mexico the most important thing is to defend democracy, freedom and institutions that AMLO and Morena are taking from us by building an authoritarianism that concentrates power in a single person, very different from what Xóchitl offers. Laje is not doing us any favors by attacking our only option to escape the disastrous Morena government. If people do not see it, we will be lost and we will suffer the government of Claudia Sheinbaum with serious consequences.— León, Guanajuato.

Activist and writer