Ever since the first day of a campaign that would later turn out to be — unfortunately — Trump’s ascent to the White House, he has consistently used an offensive rhetoric towards what is the essential, historical, character of the American people(s): immigration. International reactions to this rhetoric have consistently condemned its ethical and political stance. Enrique Peña Nieto, Mexico’s president, was almost obliged to oppose the now President of the United States’ assessment that Mexico is a nation of criminals and rapists. However, this position changed when a diplomatic disaster occurred on August 31st, 2016: Trump’s visit to Mexico as the official Republican candidate. From then on, Mexico’s official position would shift into a dangerously friendly position, contrary to what most of the Mexican society think about Donald Trump.
The gap between these two positions, one that may have closed in the last 24 hours, was apparent last weekend. On Friday, as in many other places around the world, there was a counter inaugural march in Mexico City, followed by a ‘Woman’s March’ on Saturday, and yet another on Sunday. For the past twenty days, Mexico has been living in a state of social unrest: Trump’s election stirred our spirit. We raged against the fact that somebody who had overtly insulted our society, could be, in fact, the President of a nation which has a monumental influence on our country. The return of Videgaray — (who, as Minister of Finance, invited Trump to Mexico, and was then forced to resign) to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs testified to the other side of the coin: our government’s attempt to appease Trump, a position which falsely represents Mexican society before the world.
The arousal of anti-Trump sentiment that has been consistently rising in Mexico is partially due to the famous gasolinazo, the increase in oil prices last week; on Friday, for the first time, there was an Anti-Trump protest. Like 2012, when Mexican protests sought to delegitimize Peña Nieto as Mexico’s future president, on Friday the general outcry was to respond to Trump administration’s policy of exclusion. ‘We will not pay for the wall!” and “death to the yankee imperialism” were heard throughout the crowd of about 1,500 people. Diverse political movements participated in solidarity, all the way from student contingents representing the UNAM (the country’s highest superior education institution), to the Neighborhood Council. Civil society, in general, was represented in the march, which symbolically started at the US Embassy. While some contingents planned the march towards the Zócalo (downtown Mexico City), many remained at the embassy to protest Trump and the Wall we absolutely reject.
This past weekend marked the third consecutive week in which Mexico, as a country, has marched against the imposition of what society does not want anymore: Trump’s archaic political ideologies , and his probable repression of Mexico and its people on both sides of the border. Mexico, like the whole world, is entering a phase of change in which politics are not going to be accepted in the present terms. The denial of politics is a symptom which should be analyzed as a denial of the political state of the art; to deny the politics of Trumpism today may be a way to build a different kind of politics, for we are essentially political animals, as Aristotle said. Demonstrations against politics as they are help to construct a new politics. The character of the latter shall be discovered in the first; whether the future is positive or negative is in our hands.
