Anger on the Left

In a column about how a constant stream of bitterness undermines AMLO's political prospects, René Avilés closes with the following paragraph:

Without a doubt AMLO will run, and although Ebrard has won some support among the party leadership, it's impossible to hide the support the activists have for Obrador. At some point the work he has methodically put in every municipality will manifest itself. Then there will be another modification: the PRD will cede political space and it will be take by the PT, that strange creature of the Salinas de Gortari brothers. We will then have a new left further left and more violent than the old one. Above all because it will be the "armed" wing for López Obrador. Despite these underhanded maneuvers, it will be defeated in the coming presidential cycle.

I foresee something pretty similar. The only question mark for this election is if Ebrard can actually catch up to AMLO in the polls and build a claim to being the candidate, but even if he does, AMLO is still going to run. The long-term question is if and when if Ortega and the like can definitively marginalize AMLO and his ilk.

Unfortunately, Avilés also compares the former DF mayor to Adolfo López Mateos, Gustavo Díaz Ordaz (about here he lost me), and Hitler. That is an authoritarian too far for me, as Nazis tend to be with any comparison not involving a genocidal regime. But the point about the political anger of the Mexican left is still a good one, despite the ridiculous analogy. This week's prime example came from Gerardo Fernández Noroña (H/T), whose diatribes are reliably insane, when he accused Calderón of being a drunk and a murderer. It's hard to win over the 300,000 votes AMLO was lacking in 2006, much less the support of the several million necessary to build a durable coalition, if major figures from the Mexican left are tossing around that kind of nonsense.