Translated from the blog Aurora Roja, of the Revolutionary Communist Organization, Mexico:

AMLO—Faithful to Fascist Trump Until the End

January 18, 2021 | revcom.us

 

A fascist, racist and misogynist mob incited by President Trump stormed the U.S. Capitol on January 6. It was the continuation of Trump’s attempts for months to deny the results of the election that he lost by seven million votes and to carry out a coup to stay in power and consolidate fascism.

Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO), the president of Mexico, refused to comment on this attempted coup, so as to not “intervene” in the internal affairs of the United States. However, he had no qualms about intervening to defend Trump’s supposed “freedom of expression” when Facebook and Twitter blocked the accounts he used to continue whipping up his fascist hordes, proclaiming about them that “they are very special” and “we love them.”

Faced with broad condemnation of his completely reactionary and criminal actions, Trump was forced to pretend to accept a “peaceful transition” of power in a brief, obviously forced and hypocritical speech, while continuing to repeat his outrageous lies of nonexistent “electoral fraud.” AMLO took this opportunity to intervene in the affairs of United States for the second time this week to praise this statement, saying that this guarantees “an orderly, peaceful transition” in the United States. Thus, he objectively spoke out against the voices of many in the U.S. and around the world who insist that Trump must be removed from power immediately, before he commits more crimes. By openly praising Trump’s hypocritical speech, AMLO covers up the sinister campaign of lies, threats and reactionary violence led by Trump and his cohorts to deny the elections and carry out a fascist coup.

Why Is AMLO Only Intervening in the Situation in the United States to Support the Fascist Trump?

This support for Trump is nothing new, but rather the continuation of a shameful history of conciliation and collaboration with U.S. fascism throughout the AMLO administration. When he was campaigning, AMLO correctly compared Trump to Hitler and the Nazis. But when leading the capitalist state in Mexico, he has praised as a “friend” the man who has never stopped calling Mexicans rapists and murderers, among other racist, misogynistic and xenophobic (hatred of foreigners) diatribes. When the U.S. Migra began to rip children from the arms of their migrant parents and lock them in cages (with hundreds still separated from their parents), the Mexican government basically did nothing, in order to maintain “good relations” with the monster in the White House.

When Trump demanded that Mexico hunt down and repress migrants with the same effort as the reactionary Yankee Migra, AMLO obeyed and commanded the Mexican National Guard to do just that. When Trump ordered that applicants for asylum in the U.S. to be thrown out on the Mexican side of the border with the “Stay in Mexico” program, in complete violation of international law, the Morena [AMLO’s political party] government accepted this without flinching. When several dozen Mexican women and other migrants denounced that they were subjected without their consent to unnecessary gynecological procedures that threatened their health and deprived several of the possibility of giving birth, the Mexican government proclaimed that it was going to investigate but ended up minimizing this terrible outrage. As is known, AMLO traveled to the U.S. during the U.S. electoral campaign to join in the Ugly Celebration in which he praised Trump so much that his electoral campaign used him to win, with some success, votes among Mexicans and other Latinos. Trump insisted throughout his campaign that the only outcome he would accept was his own victory. When he lost by seven million votes, he called his defeat “fraudulent,” without any evidence. AMLO lent credibility to Trump’s blatant lies by comparing it to actual electoral fraud in Mexico, and refused to recognize Biden as president-elect for more than a month.

Whatever you think of AMLO and his government, to not call out the attempted fascist coup in the U.S. or to not criticize the collaboration of the Mexican government with the fascist Trump/Pence regime is to conciliate with fascism and is totally reactionary and unacceptable.

It is very important to defend the right to free expression, and social networks should be managed by society in the interests of the people, and not by billionaires like the owners of Facebook and Twitter. But free expression does not and should not include the right to shout “fire!” in a crowded room when there is no fire. Nor does it include the “right” to incite and lead a coup which, had it been successful, would have led to the abolition of all rights for everyone, except the fascist-in-chief and his cohorts. Does anyone really want to argue that it was right to respect Hitler’s “free speech” after his first failed attempt to impose fascism through the infamous Munich “Putsch”?

And where is AMLO’s concern for the right to free expression of peaceful protesters against racist police brutality in the United States who have been repressed with gases, batons and stun grenades, in addition to being picked up and disappeared for hours or days by unidentified state agents in unmarked vehicles at Trump’s orders? Or his concern for the progressive protesters killed by the fascist hordes with the open approval of the shithole resident in the White House? Or for the 16 journalists killed in Mexico during the current government, which led Reporters Without Borders to classify Mexico as the most dangerous country without a war for journalists? Or for the dozens of activists assassinated under the current Mexican government, such as Samir Flores, assassinated with impunity for opposing the murderous thermoelectric plant project in Huexca, Morelos, which as a candidate AMLO promised to stop, but once president of the capitalist state, he is attempting to impose by force?

To the followers of AMLO and others who have argued that for Mexico, Trump would be better than Biden, we only want to say two things. First, even if it were true, putting the supposed interests of the stability of the oppressive social order in Mexico above the interests of humanity is completely reactionary narrow bourgeois nationalism that has something in common with the rabid “United States First” of the fascists in the U.S. Second, although it is true that Biden is a representative of the capitalist-imperialist ruling class in the U.S. and his government is inevitably going to be bad, both for the masses in the U.S. and for people around the world, the consolidation of fascism would be infinitely worse. The post WW2 German governments have been, like the U.S. governments, reactionary, capitalist and imperialist governments. The post WW2 German governments have been, like the U.S. governments, reactionary, capitalist and imperialist governments. But does anyone really want to argue that the fascist regime of Hitler and the Nazis is the same thing, which massacred more than six million Jews, communists, gypsies, gays, and other supposedly “undesirables”? If you think that it is an exaggeration to say that Trump’s and other fascists’ extreme program of white supremacy, male supremacy and pro U.S. supremacy would not lead to such horrors, you haven’t been paying attention.

Finally, the attempts of the Mexican bourgeois right (the political parties PAN, PRI, PRD, etc.) to turn things to their advantage, by condemning the attempted coup in the United States, represent ugly hypocrisy, when they themselves harbor a good number of fascists from El Yunque [a fascist religious organization] and others in their own ranks, and their hands are stained with blood from countless crimes against the people during their governments. But their vile hypocrisy does not justify the silence or complicity of progressive people with respect to fascism.

This first attempted fascist coup in the U.S. failed. However, the threat of fascism is still very present, as an extreme “solution” of the ruling class to the acute crises of their system, in the U.S., in Mexico and in the world in general. It is necessary to overthrow the current capitalist system, responsible for so many crimes and so much unnecessary suffering in the world. The struggle against fascism is an integral part of the revolutionary struggle to end the capitalist system that engenders it.

In the Name of Humanity, No Conciliation or Collaboration with Fascism!

The System Is the Problem, Revolution Is the Solution!

Aurora Roja
Voice of the Revolutionary Communist Organization, Mexico

auroraroja.mx@gmail.com | aurora-roja.blogspot.com

Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO), the president of Mexico, and Donald Trump