Throughout the first week of December, I spent a number of days doing talking engagements in Mexico. Though I’ve beforehand visited a number of Latin American nations, and even twice served as a visiting professor in Argentina, this was my first-ever go to to our southern neighbor. I spoke on a panel on “Migration within the twenty first Century” on the FIL Guadalajara International Book Fair (one of many largest e-book festivals within the Spanish-speaking world), and gave two talks on democracy and political ignorance on the Monterrey Institute of Expertise and Greater Training (Tec de Monterrey), one of many nation’s main universities. The expertise gave me some attention-grabbing new perspective on our vitally vital neighbor to the south.
Earlier than persevering with, I ought to emphasize I’m not an professional on Mexico, and I converse little Spanish (although my spouse, who got here with me on the journey, is fluent within the language). As well as, I clearly didn’t encounter something like a statistically consultant pattern of Mexicans. This submit, subsequently, can present solely very modest perception. However that modest perception would possibly nonetheless have some worth.
At the least in terms of Guadalajara and Monterrey, Mexico appears a way more prosperous nation than many Individuals would possibly assume. My household and I noticed little, if any of the grinding poverty that’s commonplace in lots of poor nations I’ve been to, equivalent to China, Russia, El Salvador, and Uruguay. For instance, we noticed nearly no homeless individuals or beggars.
Guadalajara and Monterrey are two of Mexico’s wealthiest cities; thus not consultant. However, in lots of poor nations, poverty is obvious in comparatively prosperous areas. Mexico’s financial progress can be evident from per capita GDP statistics, which present fast good points lately. The nation is now not the cesspool of poverty some within the US think about it to be.
This progress was, additionally, in some methods, in proof on the FIL Guadaljara e-book honest, once I spoke there. Not surprisingly, the opposite panelists and most viewers members had been sympathetic to my pro-immigration and anti-restrictionist perspective. However one of many panelists – outstanding Mexican political advisor and former diplomat Gabriel Guerra – famous that Mexico itself has been dealing with an inflow of migrants lately, and the federal government’s remedy of them has typically been unjust and indefensible. Mexico has gone from being the largest supply of migrants to the US, to itself being a magnet for migrants from Central America and Venezuela. The Mexican authorities’s flawed insurance policies don’t justify these of the US (and vice versa). However these points do throw a wrench within the conventional view of the US-Mexican relationship, in terms of migration. The altering migration patterns, clearly, mirror Mexico’s growing relative affluence.
Not all is rosy in Mexico, by any means. Mexican teachers and coverage consultants I spoke to are deeply involved concerning the state of the US-Mexican relationship, given Donald Trump’s unleashing of large new tariffs, and harsh immigration insurance policies. After the Guadalajara panel, I spoke at size with Guerra and others, together with Arturo Sarukhan, former Mexican ambassador to the US. They famous that Trump’s insurance policies haven’t but generated a “nationalist backlash” in Mexico (their time period, not mine), however that such a backlash was more likely to develop. They famous that many Mexicans have buddies and family amongst Mexican immigrants within the US, who’re feeling the results of the brand new administration’s insurance policies of racial profiling and expanded detention and deportation. That, together with the commerce struggle, is sure to trigger anger and poison relations between the 2 nations.
I identified that Trump won’t be in energy endlessly (or even perhaps for very lengthy), and a future administration would possibly properly revoke his insurance policies. My Mexican interlocutors weren’t mollified. They emphasised that a lot injury has already been finished to the US-Mexican relationship, and that will probably be troublesome to reverse.
I have no idea to what extent they’re proper about this. However, regardless, alienating our most populous neighbor and largest buying and selling associate is not Making American Nice Once more. Precisely the alternative, actually. The extra we injury relationships with neighbors and allies, the more durable will probably be to counter adversaries like Russia and China.
The overall sense of progress and rising affluence was additionally partly offset by the – in Guadalajara – ubiquitous posters depicting “desaparecidos” – “disappeared” individuals believed to have been kidnapped by drug cartels (or, in some circumstances, to have joined them voluntarily).
Sadly, the cartels are certainly a big presence in Mexican society, even in comparatively prosperous cities. One outstanding Mexican tutorial recounted a narrative of how he had been “mugged” by cartel operatives who searched him “like skilled safety guards.” He was, he stated, relieved they “solely” took his smartphone, and nothing else. The federal government estimates there are over 130,000 “disappeared” people in Mexico, as of July 2025, lots of them believed to be taken by the cartels and different organized crime teams.
These revelations don’t shake my opposition to the Conflict on Medicine. In each Mexico and elsewhere, legal cartels have the facility they do as a result of prohibitionist insurance policies have created an unlimited black marketplace for them to use. Legalization would undermine the cartels, and eradicate a lot of the violence related to their operations, simply as the tip of Prohibition largely eradicated the position of organized crime within the sale of alcoholic drinks. However, no matter coverage classes, the impression of the drug cartels on Mexican society is a big one.
After Guadalajara, we went to Monterrey, the place I gave two talks on the Tec de Monterrey, and in addition met with regulation and social science college students and school. These occasions had been organized by my graduate faculty classmate Gabriel Aguilera, who’s now the Dean of the Faculty of Social Sciences and Authorities there.
I supplied a spread of various lecture subjects inside my areas of experience, equivalent to points associated to migration rights, federalism, property rights, constitutional idea, and extra. However Gabriel and his colleagues selected to have me do each talks on points associated to political ignorance. Lately, I see rising curiosity on this matter all over the world. One would possibly say it has been “made nice once more.” However, in reality, it goes past anybody one nation or political motion, and has lengthy been a significant problem for democracy.
Once I first began writing about political ignorance over 25 years in the past, many students and others argued that voter information ranges will not be a big downside, as a result of voters who know little or no about authorities and public coverage can nonetheless do a very good job because of data shortcuts, the “miracle of aggregation,” and different workarounds.
Such optimism is much much less prevalent at the moment. In Mexico, as in latest talks I’ve given about political ignorance elsewhere, nearly all of the questioners presumed that voter ignorance is certainly a significant issue, although some took concern with my proposals for mitigating it. That occurs even if I all the time make a degree of together with shortcuts and associated points in my shows about ignorance.
Voter ignorance is, actually, a significant issue in democracies all over the world. However at the very least there’s rising cross-national recognition of its significance. In Mexico, considerations about this matter have lately been heightened by the federal government’s erosion of judicial independence, which has weakened a big examine on demagogic populist leaders and political majorities.
My time at Tec de Monterrey additionally gave me some new perspective on Mexican academia. A lot of the regulation and social science school I met will not be from Mexico or elsewhere in Latin America, however from nations all over the world, together with some from east Asian nations, equivalent to China and South Korea. I requested Gabriel if these non-Hispanic teachers already spoke Spanish earlier than being employed, or had been required to be taught after taking over their positions. He famous that lots of them truly train and write in English, which is the language by which many social science programs at Tec are taught. If that is any indication, Mexican academia is turning into extra cosmopolitan, and is a competitor for hiring expertise from all over the world. Gabriel himself got here to the US as a poor immigrant, held various tutorial positions at American universities, and returned to Mexico to take his present high-level submit.
On a much less tutorial/mental be aware, I do not suppose I’ve ever seen a college wherever on the planet that has as many peacocks and deer on campus as Tec does:
