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What can the global left learn from Mexico – where far-right politics hasn’t taken off?
(www.theguardian.com)
this post was submitted on 08 May 2025
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As of 2024 Mexico had a count of 1.7 million of naturalized foreign born citizens. Which exceeds 1% of the population by itself. After the establishment of Mexico as a "third safe country" during the first trump administration, the influx of undocumented immigration has increased considerately. But there is no exact census by the INEGI of what percentage of migrants stay in Mexico or just travel across.
In essence Mexico has always been very multicultural and multiracial. Issues that involve ethnicities and indigenous people Exist in Mexico and they are very worrisome, but racist policy hasn't been part of governmental policy in the last decade or two. Even in the most right wing, catholic areas of the country like el Bajío, the general population tends to be very inclusive. Class being the major cause for discrimination.
So foreign born population doesn't help as much in this topic as it is irrelevant. So take your propaganda elsewhere gringo.
Naturalized citizens? You sure about that? Because the numbers I found (which to be fair are from 2020) list 1.2 million foreign-born residents, not citizens.
Even if we assume as many undocumented immigrants as documented immigrants, that's less than 3% foreign born residents. Compare that to Germany's 20% or France's 13%.
I mean so is America and... uh... yeah. These days nationality, rather than race, is the main form of xenophobia.
My point is that Mexico's example doesn't teach us much about how to counter the far right because the single biggest predictor and cause of far-right politics in the 21st century, foreign-born population, is too low in Mexico. I mean if you told me that only 3% of Mexico's population was foreign-born I'd guess based on that alone that Mexico doesn't have a strong far right.
The far-right doesn't require foreign-born population to function. Yes at the moment this is the lowest hanging fruit that fulfils the function of an other however the lack of it doesn't change the mechanisms that give rise and prominence of the far-right. If there is no foreign-born population, an other can be found within society, as it has in the past and present. Also, when an other has been "dealt with," a far-right regime has to pick another in order to sustain its power. So even if you start with immigrants, natural born citizens of some kind are next. Leftists, Jews, LGBTQ people are historically common targets.
True, but far-right movements in the 21st century have generally formed around a core of anti-immigrant sentiment and failed to materialize without a large immigrant population.
True, but it seems that without a sufficiently low-hanging fruit the modern far right can't gain enough steam to then go after less vulnerable segments of society, such as LGBT people or Jews. This is as opposed to early 20th century fascism, because then these groups were vulnerable enough to be the core targets of a fascist movement. Either way it's a fact that foreign born population (the more foreign the better) and the strength of the far right are highly correlated.