MEXICO CITY — Thousands of Mexicans took to the streets of their capital and other cities Sunday afternoon to denounce President Donald Trump’s depictions of them as “rapists” and robbers and to demand “the respecting of Mexico.”
But according to much of the pre-protest chatter, many Mexicans planned to protest their own unpopular president and political class rather than Trump — even as the U.S. leader proceeds with plans for building a border wall and continues to target the country’s currency and economy with barbed tweets.
Vibra M?xico (roughly, Mexico Moves), a “nonpartisan” and “respectful” protest organized by more than 70 civic groups, universities and nongovernment organizations, envisaged a protest that would condemn Trump’s treatment of Mexico, but also demand more of Mexican politicians.
The balance was proving difficult to maintain Sunday, however. Even with the perceived Trump threat looming, hashtags criticizing the Vibra M?xico protest were trending on Twitter and march organizers were pleading with protesters to recognize Trump as the primary worry.
“Mexicans are outraged by many things. We’re outraged by poverty, we’re outraged by inequality, we’re outraged by impunity,” said Enrique Graue, rector of the National Autonomous University of Mexico, the country’s largest public university and part of the Vibra M?xico coalition. “The point is: What outrages us most? At this time, we’re most outraged by the treatment Mexico has received from the U.S. president.”
Organizers of a rival march in Mexico City, calling itself M?xico Unido, or Mexico United, agree — although they explicitly called for support for President Enrique Pe?a Nieto, whose approval rating has plunged to 12 percent.
“Dirty laundry is washed at home,” Laura Herrej?n, an advocate for the M?xico Unido march, told broadcaster Televisa.
Polls show a deep dislike of Trump south of the border, but many Mexicans voice more discontent about domestic matters than about disrespect from a foreign leader.
Trump’s election coincided with mass protests over a 20 percent hike in the government-set gasoline price, accusations that governors in eight states were pilfering the public purse and stories of politicians paying themselves inexplicable bonuses — in a country with a minimum wage of $4 per day.
Analysts are skeptical that castigating a foreign villain will change many Mexicans’ minds about their political class, who are being accused of weakness in the face of Trump and his threats.
“Trump is being presented as Mexico’s main problem. The main problem for most Mexicans is Pe?a Nieto,” said Il?n Semo, history professor at the Iberoamerican University. “They won’t back the current regime because there’s a feeling that Pe?a Nieto and his team are going to use the nationalist script to try to rebuild some sort of consensus.”
Vibra M?xico organizers stressed that their march is open to everyone, have called on the president provide “transparency” in his negotiations with Trump and demanded that his government “come to terms with inequality, corruption, impunity and human rights abuses.”
But it’s been a tough sell, and organizers have had to fend off allegations they are not interested in protesting injustices at home. Some supporters have tried scaring and shaming people off the sidelines and into the streets, including historian and public intellectual Enrique Krauze, who tweeted, “Not marching projects passivity, indifference and even cowardice.”
“DON’T FORGET: Mexico lost the war of 1847 and half its territory due to all the internal divisions,” tweeted Krauze, who has called Trump the biggest foreign threat to Mexico since President James K. Polk, instigator of the Mexican-American War.
The admonitions highlight the consensus coalescing among Mexico’s elite on the Trump topic, with media, the business class and religious leaders calling for unity. Billionaire Carlos Slim — who dined with Trump at the president’s Florida retreat, Mar-a-Lago, in December — told the media in a rare news conference: “We have to back (Pe?a Nieto). All of the country has to do so in the face of a special risk in U.S. relations we have not seen in 100 years.”
Pe?a Nieto has often pleaded for unity, although his staid and formal speaking style and staged events featuring elites and politicians pledging support often fail to move the masses. His surrogates seldom do much better.
Many Mexicans seem less alarmed by the Trump threats than by their politicians, although nascent signs of action are emerging. Plans for boycotts have trended on Twitter.
