Throughout his five years in office, Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador has used his ubiquitous persona, sustained popularity and high approval ratings to dominate the country’s political landscape. But in that time, he has also dramatically altered that landscape. In particular, Lopez Obrador, or AMLO, has skillfully used these qualities to craft and maintain a narrative that often contradicts reality, from minimizing Mexico’s protracted and alarming security crisis to inflating the benefits of his landmark infrastructure projects.
AMLO is by no means a pioneer in these tactics. Populist politicians around the world have used them before him and will continue to do so in the future. However, with AMLO’s term approaching its end, the question arises whether Mexico’s “post-truth politics” will end with it.
The primary enabler of AMLO’s post-truth politics is his use of an “us versus them” narrative. The “us” side of that equation has remained relatively static. It includes the president himself, his closest aides, the most dogmatic members of his Cabinet and what AMLO refers to as “the people,” by which he means his core base of supporters.