The Mexican government has invented a new ideology

Its foibles and policies are incomprehensible without it.

The Mexican government’s new ideology of State returns Mexico to its roots. This isn’t because this new ethos sets the country down a ‘natural’ path on the left or the right on the political spectrum; it’s because it embarks it on a daring—and dangerous—course of political, social, and economic experimentation. 

Mexico has always been a testing ground for new political ideas from all ideologies. Sometimes it has done so to inspiring effect, like with its strong and isolated stance in favour of Republican Spain and an independent Ethiopia against Fascism. Other times it has had disastrous outcomes; consider the land policies that deprived indigenous and smallholder farmers to the benefit of large landowners, triggering inequality, revolt, and revolution.

Today, the government has taken this historical vision of Mexico to new climes. They call this new ideology “Mexican Humanism.” The administration of president Claudia Sheinbaum is still coming to terms with what it actually means, but that has not stopped it from drafting and enforcing policy in its image.