Alamo Alliance

A group of Argentine statesmen in the 19th century sought to populate their country with immigrants from certain parts of Europe, believing that they were more politically mature and more propitious for a stable state than the criollo and mestizo populations in their country at the time. One of those statesmen, President Domingo Faustino Sarmiento, had a slogan: “To govern is to populate,” perhaps because Argentina traditionally has been both under-populated and ungovernable.

What could be motivating U.S. legislators to do the opposite, that is, to see their constituents?already politically mature and proven as responsible and civic-minded?as an obstacle needing replacement? In other words, why would they want to replace a nation that works remarkably well (that Sarmiento was hoping to emulate), with another that has trouble forming stable, normal countries?

Mexicans are kind and hardworking, with a legendary hospitality, and unlike some European nations, harbor little popular ambitions to impose models or ideologies on others. However, Mexicans are seemingly unable to produce anything but corrupt and tyrannical rulers, oftentimes even accepting them as the norm, unaffected by allegations of graft or abuse.8 Mexico, and Latin American societies in general, seem to suffer from what an observer called “moral relativism,” accepting the “natural progress” of the political class rather than challenging it, and also appearing more susceptible to “miracle solutions” and demagogic political appeals. Mexican intellectuals speak of the corrosive effects of Mexican culture on the institutions needed to make democracy work, and surveys reveal that most of the population accepts and expects corruption from the political class.9 A sociological study conducted throughout the region found that Latin Americans are indeed highly susceptible to clientelismo, or partaking in patron-client relations, and that Mexico was high even by regional standards.10

In a Latin environment, there are fewer costs to behaving “like a knave,” which explains the relative failure of most Spanish-speaking countries in the Hemisphere: Pauperized populations with rich and entrenched knaves. Montesquieu?s separation-of-powers model breaks down in Latin America (though essentially all constitutions are based on it) since elites do not take their responsibilities seriously and easily reach extra-legal “understandings” with their colleagues across the branches of government, oftentimes willingly making the judicial and legislative powers subservient to a generous executive, and giving the population little recourse and little choice but to challenge the system in its entirety.

These pathologies are already evident across the border. For example, at the height of the Monica Lewinsky scandal, when even President Clinton?s strongest backers such as Rep. Richard Gephardt were distancing themselves from him and calling on the president to “tell the truth,” the Hispanic Caucus in the U.S. Congress lent its support to the president. Rep. Esteban Torres stated “We?re going to stand by him to the end ? no matter what!”11 The case of the “unconditional support” by the Hispanics in Congress to their patron demonstrated why the Montesquieu-Madisonian model had difficulty functioning in the Latin American context. This type of unconditional support seems to be what professional politicians of both parties expect from their Hispanic constituents and allies.