Jew-hatred reared its ugly head during Nov. 15 demonstrations in Mexico City charging the government of President Claudia Sheinbaum with corruption and ties to organized crime. During clashes between police and protesters, the doors of the Supreme Court building in the capital was smeared with antisemitic graffiti as a group of hooded thugs tried to break in.
The graffiti said “puta judía” — “Jewish whore” — directed at Sheinbaum. A crossed-out Star of David was also painted there. News and photos of the graffiti were run in the media worldwide.
“For those responsible, even though her faith was irrelevant to the political message, they chose to attack her based on her Jewish identity,” the European Jewish Association said in a statement Nov. 19. “We condemn this antisemitic graffiti and the use of sexist slurs. Political protest is, of course, every citizen’s right, but this graffiti is not about politics, it is antisemitism.”
Government officials in Mexico criticized the violent protests, but said nothing about the antisemitic graffiti.
This is not the first time Jew-hatred has been directed at Sheinbaum, even though she doesn’t identify herself as Jewish, saying repeatedly that she does not practice any religion. In the eyes of the Jew-haters that makes no difference. As the capitalist crisis deepens, politicians will increasingly resort to antisemitic demagogy to try to distract working people from the real source of the problems they face: capitalism.
The protest followed the assassination of Carlos Manzo, mayor of Uruapan, allegedly at the behest of the Jalisco New Generation Cartel. Manzo took a hard-line stance against crime and government corruption. He accused the Sheinbaum government of allowing drug cartels to run the state of Michoacán, and challenged its policy of refusing to wage war against the traffickers.
Sheinbaum was elected in 2024, succeeding Andrés Manuel López Obrador, founding leader of the Morena party. AMLO, as he is known, enjoyed broad support due to his populist rhetoric for allocating state resources to social programs and for promising to root out corruption and bring down crime.
Sheinbaum has also commanded relatively high approval ratings, but she inherited a deepening social and political polarization, a slow-growing economy, debt and unabated violent crime. Big-business drug gangs continue to wreak havoc in the country. And the alliance Morena built with Mexico’s capitalist rulers is fraying.
‘War on narco-trafficking’
During his six-year term, AMLO promoted a “hugs not bullets” policy toward drug-related violence. Instead of an all-out effort to bring down the cartels, his government said it would focus on addressing the “causes” of violence. They set up more education and sports centers, and promoted “poverty reduction” programs.
The drug lords and their capitalist associates who profit from the multibillion dollar trafficking business in Mexico, however, don’t need “poverty reduction.”
There were as many homicides under AMLO’s administration, if not more, as under his predecessors. The opposition to Morena — by the same bourgeois parties that presided over similar devastating conditions in previous decades — now demagogically exploits the widespread insecurity among working people. All too often workers’ lives are torn up by the kidnappings, extortion and other criminal violence as the cartels battle for control over drug routes and profitable immigrant smuggling operations.
Threats to Mexico’s sovereignty
Blaming the Canadian and Mexican governments for failing to stop the flow of fentanyl into the U.S, the Donald Trump administration has used a combination of economic and trade pressures to demand policy changes from them.
The Morena government, while safeguarding the interests of Mexico’s ruling capitalist families, has maintained compliance with the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement. This trade deal went into effect in 2020, replacing the North American Free Trade Agreement. It strengthens the ability of the U.S. bosses to plunder Mexico’s natural resources and the labor of its working people.
Sheinbaum has bowed to Washington’s pressures to step up use of Mexico’s military to act as a border patrol, and for greater military collaboration with U.S. federal agencies and the Pentagon. This increased militarization has led to a number of abuses, including soldiers killing six migrants traveling in a pickup truck in October 2024.
The U.S. administration blames illegal migration for fueling the opioid epidemic, which has killed hundreds of thousands of people. However, cocaine and fentanyl smuggled by drug cartels in Mexico primarily come to the U.S. disguised as regular goods through legal ports of entry.
As the U.S. government has built an armada in the Caribbean, threatening to bring down the Nicolás Maduro government in Venezuela for “narco-terrorism,” it has also threatened to take unilateral action against cartels in Mexico.
Through a previously undisclosed covert program, originally begun under the Joseph Biden administration, the CIA has been flying drones well into sovereign Mexico to gather intelligence on drug-smuggling operations, the New York Times reported.
The Trump administration says that if cooperation and intelligence sharing with the Mexican government does not lead to the dismantling of fentanyl labs there, the U.S. War Department does not rule out cross-border raids.