Mexican Cartels, Saber-Rattling, And Crime In The Streets – A Very Vulnerable Joe Biden Prepares For 2024

Four Americans were kidnapped and two killed by one of Matamoros’ drug cartels and Joe Biden is outraged.  It is time to do something, he said.  If the shambled, corrupt, and in-the-pocket Lopez Obrador government cannot get its act together, the American military will show him how.  Images of phalanxes of heavily-armored soldiers rumbling into gangland flashed across television screens.  For a brief moment all of Biden’s troubles disappeared in loud outrage of righteous anger.

Not so fast said Biden’s Mexican counterpart.  This is our country, a sovereign, proud nation, he said, and we will never, ever let the marauding fascist American army set one boot on our land.

Now, in contrast to the desultory, pitiful attempts of the Obrador government to rid Mexico of its gangs, the El Salvador government has rounded up everyone with a Salvatrucha tattoo, thrown them in a ‘mega-prison’, stripped the  naked, and shown the world it means business.  American progressives cried foul.  Such extrajudicial arrests are beyond the pale.  Salvadorans have rights! they insisted regardless of the crime; but the government, fed up with the decades of gangland killings, assaults and mayhem which have turned the country into a chaotic, lawless place, took action.  Like the former President of the Philippines who endorsed extrajudicial action and was no sissy when it came to eliminating dangerous criminals; or the Government of Bangladesh which formed and strongly endorsed the RAB (Rapid Action Battalion) to root out violent crime in the nation’s capital (Bangladesh newspaper daily headlines announced ‘Dangerous criminal ringleader killed in crossfire’).  The government of former Brazilian President Bolsonaro organized and deployed para-military police units into the favelas, festering, crime-ridden slums in the hills above Rio de Janeiro.

In contrast the Mexican President played the sovereignty card.  After all what was the United States doing in Ukraine except defending that country’s rights as a sovereign nation?  Like playing the race card in the United States, sure to cloture all debate, Lopez Obrador knew how to rally his people and show a militant face of his own to the leader of El Norte. Of course his defiance had nothing to do with principle.  The Mexican drug cartels are worth billions, and Lopez Obrador and his political goons are the welcoming beneficiaries of their generosity.  Take it or be dead, the cartels have told provincial and federal governments for decades, compromising them with bribes and threatening them with the murder of their families.  Lopez Obrador knows quite well that the moment American troops set foot in Mexico, the slaughter of government officials high and low would begin.

So Biden, knowing all this but advised by his goons to rattle sabers and mobilize the troops matched blowhard rhetoric with windy threats of his own.  He had no intention of crossing the border – political pundits were quick to see the irony of an illegal crossing of the Rio Grande into Mexico – but needed to send a message to the American electorate a scant few months before the electoral campaign of 2024 heats up.

The Americans who were kidnapped ignored State Department warnings that travel to Matamoros was as stupid as a trip to Afghanistan or North Korea. A quick, cheap tummy tuck in a Mexican ‘hospital’ was worth the risk, they unconscionably reasoned.  However, politics being what they are, countries had to face off in an international incident.  The  ignorant bravado of the medical tourists was incidental.  So the shouting match across the border was the silliest and most transparently obvious ever.  The Mexican President postured on grounds of sovereignty when his real reason is a house in the south of France and saving his neck.  The American President went macho because his approval ratings are low and dropping.

On the national front, the District of Columbia City Council, a liberal claque reasoning that poor black people shouldn’t be penalized for crime, lightened up on sentencing for capital crimes and requiring jury trials for misdemeanors.  The Mayor vetoed the bill, but the Council overrode it, spurring the Congress which despite Home Rule still has powerful oversight of the District’s comings and goings, to pass a bill neutering the District legislation.  The outrage of progressives was loud and angry.  Not only was the sovereignty of the District being trampled upon, but the rights of black people, so long under the thumb of systemically racist white oppressors and consigned to prison for nothing more than a genocidal sweep of minorities, were being ignored.  Black people no longer mattered to the President.

Oh well, these progressives said, our President will veto the bill and the District will be able to right the racial ship.

No such luck.  Biden, seeing likely defeat in the 2024 Presidential election looming and the handwriting on the wall  - soft on crime Mayor of Chicago Lightfoot got no more than 17 percent in a recent municipal election; the liberal Mayor of New York issued a startling warning about taking crime seriously; – Biden did not veto the Congressional bill.  The foolhardy actions of the the DC City Council would be no more.  in one fell swoop Biden shut the lid on Defund the Police, Black Lives Matter extremism, and exaggerated racial politics. 

No one should be surprised at Biden’s moves.  Politicians have never been known for either consistency or good sense especially at election time; and Biden’s policies have been a ragtag, grab bag of giveaways and nonsensical decisions; but these recent actions are so barefaced, so transparently venal, so obviously and incontestably political, that even his supporters are fleeing for the exits.

Should conservatives cheer?  Perhaps. They know that Biden is evermore in the thrall of the Squad and their wannabee Congressional lackeys and who ran on a platform of ‘inclusivity and diversity’ and, regardless of his decision on DC crime, is still wedded to the woke agenda.  Conservatives also know that more and more Americans are fed up with LGBTQ+ indoctrination, accusations of racism, the cancel culture, and the erosion of free speech.  That plus porous borders, energy backwardness, promises of high taxes and punitive financial legislation and wobbly, intellectually shaky public appearances add up to electoral defeat.

What’s next?  Biden’s electoral base will not tolerate any more conservative reductionism.  There is a limit to aggressive, punitive crime-fighting.  He cannot round up Los Angeles and Baltimore minority gangs.  He cannot let capitalist pirates despoil the environment with illicit energy exploitation.  He cannot turn back the political dissidents that Nicaragua, Venezuela, and Cuba are happy to put on boats to the US. The more he lets his policies ride and the closer the election comes, the more vulnerable he becomes.  A conservative Republican victory in November 2024 is not only possible, it is likely.