The Mexican election highlights the power of the "honest socialist" fantasy: there's nothing wrong with true socialism but it's never really been tried, it's just waiting for the right honest and humble leader to purge corruption and shower the people with benefits.
You will absolutely hear versions of this fantasy in American elections to come. All that's needed is an honest, sincere, incorruptible leader to make socialism work at last. Corruption was the only real problem all along.
Of course, it will help the Left that its American voters are remarkably willing to ignore the actual personal greed and wealth of socialist leaders to declare them pure and honest men and women of principle who cannot be corrupted. See: Sanders, Bernie and Warren, Elizabeth.
Anti-corruption is one of the major driving forces in politics around the world right now. For the Left, it means looking for honest leaders who can purify the system. For the Right, it *should* mean relentless and informed criticism of the system as inherently corrupt.
In a similar vein, the Mexican election illustrates the left-wing effort to harness populist revulsion to globalism. Their "solution" is to siphon the wealth of globalists to finance massive social programs and sand the rough edges from income inequality.
This is the left-wing approach to crime as well: it's all the fault of the rich criminal interests who buy off politicians, the only answer is to shower the poor with benefits so fewer of them turn to crime or join organized gangs.
In Mexico, Obrador vaguely promised to pay for huge new social programs with the money saved by eliminating corruption. You hear that all the time in the U.S. as well: we can free up all kinds of $$$ for new spending or debt reduction by eliminating waste, fraud, and abuse.
And of course, the left is sensitive to the danger of dictatorship growing from all the power that must be centrally concentrated to make socialism work. They address this by saying the dreamboat honest, humble socialist leader would never allow authoritarianism to take root.
Young voters very much want to believe in the fantasy of honest socialism. They are eager consumers of the message they are smarter, more sincere, and more willing to embrace revolutionary change than any electorate before them.
The insecurities of young people entering the workforce for the first time are fertile ground for socialists to exploit. Policies that keep people in school for longer produce a larger field of anxious young voters to exploit.
The message hammered into those young people more powerfully than any other is that they will inherit a legacy of injustice and corruption that they can only address by electing honest socialists. No electorate has ever been smarter than them or cared more deeply.
Do not underestimate the appeal of this message, no matter how silly it sounds. Every socialist strongman presiding over hellish poverty today came to power making the exact same promises, posing as a humble man uninterested in personal wealth determined to purify the nation.
The sales pitch ALWAYS works to some degree. Every generation wants to believe it is uniquely capable of making centralized power work and keep its promises without tyranny or corruption. /end
