‘We are Poland, and Trump is Germany’
A TV journalist who works for Canal Once, or the “Mexican PBS,” Federico Campbell Peña has followed Trump’s campaign from Day One. And he is certain that Trump, whom he calls a “unique species,” will win.
That’s a disconcerting prognostication from a man who also recently wrote a self-published book, Stop Trump: Una cronología abreviada, or an “abridged chronology.” But Campbell doesn’t want Trump to move in to the White House. His hope with the book is to inspire Mexican leadership to develop a plan to deal with the possibility of a Trump presidency.
The writer partially attributes Trump’s appeal in the United States to the scandals that have beset Hillary Clinton. But he also believes that global instability is setting the table for a Trump presidency.
“ISIS is helping Mr. Trump,” he explained, “and also the police attacks.”
If Trump becomes president, Campbell predicted that the billionaire would immediately enact a series of “publicity policies,” such as building a border wall, to prove his might.
Another demonstration of power Campbell expects in Trump’s hypothetical first year is the cessation of diplomatic relations between Mexico and America — as crazy as that sounds.
“We are not going to have ambassador[s] in D.C. and in Mexico City,” he predicted.
But Campbell does not believe Mexico would fork over the billions of dollars needed to erect Trump’s notorious wall. He cited President Enrique Peña Nieto, who recently said, “There is no way that Mexico can pay.”
Campbell does expect a truly massive deportation effort, although not of every undocumented immigrant, as Trump has promised. Campbell feels that would be physically impossible. “But he is going to deport more people than Obama” has.
If that happens, Campbell predicted the U.S. economy could collapse, due to the sudden removal of a large percentage of its labor force and consumer base. And the situation would be equally as dire on the receiving end.
“Mexico cannot receive a lot of migrants,” he said.
And with the loss of remittances from Mexicans that had been living in the states, the Mexican economy could fold, too.
In an interesting twist, Campbell said conspiracy theories about Trump abound. “A taxi [driver] told me that Peña Nieto has just been with Donald Trump,” he said, implying that the two are somehow in cahoots. He explained that many Mexicans share an inherent distrust of mainstream news outlets, because of their close ties to government.
But it’s also possible that conspiracy theories are simply a means for those who feel disempowered to make sense of Trump’s madness.
Speaking of which: How does it feel to be Mexican and hear Trump’s vitriolic message?
Campbell was blunt: “We feel as [though we are] Polish in 1938, when Adolf Hitler reached power in Germany. … We are Poland, and Trump is Germany.”
‘Little Trumps’
When Maritza Waldo Molina crossed the border with a coyote, she didn’t even realize it was illegal. She lived for more than five years in North Carolina, beginning in 2005. And she returned to Mexico only for her the sake of her parents, who still live there. But she still has family in the United States, some of whom are legal residents, some still undocumented.
Waldo, now an English teacher, said that her view of Trump is akin to that of the majority of Mexicans: “Everybody thinks he’s a jerk.”
How she explains the candidate’s popularity, however, is unique: People become defensive when they feel threatened — “The problem is, like, we blame everybody” — and Trump is the ultimate defense mechanism.
As a Mexican, she isn’t offended by Americans who love Trump — because she isn’t surprised. “I’m not 100 percent neutral, but I know you can expect anything” from politics on both sides of the border.
Her big-picture attitude is that the president doesn’t matter: The rich will get richer, and they’ll continue to ignore the working class.
To that skeptical end, she described Trump as a “Muppet,” who’s “part of a malicious plan.” (More of those conspiracy theories.) She views Trump’s role as the distraction, the guy who says hateful and outrageous things to keep people distracted, while the powerful elite do the real damage.
That’s one reason why she thinks Trump will win.
She’s equally jaded when it comes to Mexican politics. Waldo mentioned the most recent presidential race, in which Peña Nieto won with less than half of the popular vote, an election reminiscent of the Bush-Gore standoff of 2000.
She also thinks we all have some of Trump’s flaws in us, to varying degrees. She called these our “little Trumps.”
‘Mexico belongs to the United States’
On most days, you’ll find Cuauhtli Contreras at his news kiosk in Mexico City’s zócalo, where he sells papers and magazines, bottled drinks, and loose cigarettes. He’s a man of the news — so you might be surprised, then, that he sympathizes with Trump.
“He’s defending his country,” Contreras argued. “No one sees it that way, but it’s true.”
He still believes Trump will lose, because his vitriol disassociates so many voters. “If you’re not blonde and tall, you’re opposed to Trump,” he explained in Spanish.
For Contreras, Trump isn’t directly threatening Mexico. His message is not about Mexicans. “His whole campaign of hate is against Mexicans in the United States,” he said.
Contreras’ views also stand out because, he said, if Trump were to win, he thinks the Mexican government would in fact go along with his plans. “Mexico belongs to the United States,” he said.
Contreras pointed out that it has been this way since the Mexican-American War, when the U.S. Army occupied Mexico City and flew the Stars and Stripes over the very square where he runs his kiosk.
That’s why Contreras believes that Mexico might bend to pressure and pay for a border wall — even though his country would have to borrow money from the World Bank, International Monetary Fund, or possibly the United States itself to make it happen. If that occurred, Mexico would carry the debt for generations.
“It’s like I told you, Mexico is not in a position to refuse the United States.”
‘Se sabe que no va a ganar’
Brillyl Sanchez sat in a Quaker-run hostel and community center in central Mexico City, where he sometimes practices English with ex-pats and hostel guests. Sanchez, who is gay, admitted that the current groundswell of global reactionary conservativism, including Trump’s overwhelming popularity, feels not only regressive but also dangerous. “I hope that he doesn’t win,” he said with the utmost sincerity.
“It’s the first time that I’ve heard a candidate who talks like this, so openly, about problems … without making a sound judgment about the causes,” Sanchez said.
He brought up the “taco bowl” episode: On Cinco de Mayo this year, Trump tweeted a picture of himself at his desk with a sad-looking tortilla shell — a classic example of Americanized “Mexican” food — and the caption “I love Hispanics!”
“It’s very weird,” Sanchez lamented. “It’s a comedy.”
Sanchez thinks the motive for Trump’s slapdash campaign is obvious: “I think that Donald Trump only wants to draw attention.”
He sees Trump’s extremism as a sideshow. “Se sabe que no va a ganar,” or in English, It’s known that he is not going to win.
Sanchez speculated that instead, the entire campaign is about creating a high profile to earn more cash: “His finances aren’t so good right now and he needs more publicity.”
But Sanchez said that, as a gay man, Trump’s responses to incidents such as the Orlando shooting have been wildly irresponsible and disrespectful. “I think that was, like, very misguided,” he told me. “Who’s he helping, really?”
Sanchez believes that Clinton would be a better leader for the gay community and the country in general.
He also dismissed Trump’s statements referring to immigrants as criminals or drug-smugglers: “It’s like saying all Colombians are narcotraficantes. Of course not. It’s absurd.”
