a happy man
I must confess my fascination with Alejandro Moreno Cárdenas. The Serie The Last of Us It has made the Fungi kingdom fashionable and I am highly impressionable, so I have imagined it as a candida albicans, a fungus that can coexist with other microbes on the skin or inside a human; that develops resistance to antifungals and that accompanies us practically throughout existence.
An acceptable definition of this fungus is as follows: “An opportunistic pathogen that behaves as a commensal organism as it is part of the normal microbiota of the respiratory, gastrointestinal, and genitourinal tracts, but a disruption makes it a pathogen. It is so clever that it can change its yeast form to filamentous hyphae.
I recently read an interview with Dr. María Jesús Sevilla, a renowned professor of Microbiology, who explained: “We discovered a fungus that causes a disease and immediately looked for a substance that would allow us to combat it; but as soon as we start to use it systematically, we are selecting mutants that escape its action and therefore survive and proliferate [como ‘Alito’ Moreno], while the sensitive ones are eliminated. This forces us to continue the search for new antifungals, knowing that it is a fight that has no end”.
I also imagine Moreno Cárdenas in other times. Like a false agent – “godmother”, they call them – at the service of a formal agent, in one of the intelligence offices or the political police of the PRI regime; a braggart in tight polyester pants and an open shirt, wearing a fake tray and wearing a shiny gold chain he stole from some victim, sometime between the 1940s and 1980s. Or I imagine him in a shiny suit, carrying the briefcase of any charro leader of any charra union organization of the PRI. Or as a specialized manager in public offices, who fills out official paperwork formats by hand with poor handwriting and worse spelling, who takes pesos and cents from naive families seeking to regularize land or apply for a loan. I imagine him as the one who gains the trust of the entire office, convinces them to take a trip and happens to be left as the one who raises the money, and then disappears.
In the times we live in, however, that character is the national president of the PRI and is also a member of the PAN, the PRD and the intellectual, media and business elites. They need each other, strategies are shared, objectives are set. In the times we live in, that one-eyed man is king within the opposition. And it doesn’t matter if the mascara runs or the roots of the dyed hair can be seen; it doesn’t matter that you can see the gold tooth of the crooks and it doesn’t matter that it is what it is because it is what there is and there is no more, there are no others. That’s his rooster. They need it, desperately.
In 2023, in fact, the opposition depends on him, on Alejandro Moreno. No one can aspire to anything at all: neither PAN, nor PRD, nor MC, nor the intellectual, media or business elites. Edomex and Coahuila belong to the PRI and all the others depend on the result of the PRI members.
And if “Alito” fails – as is highly likely to happen – they all fail with him because they are all the same thing. And if the Electoral Tribunal leaves him in charge of the PRI until the end of this year, he will decide a large part of 2024 and not even complain, because it is what there is and there is no more, there are no others.
What a picturesque character and for the same reason, predictable: if it was a spot on a finger, if it was a dot on a nail, it was obvious that it would end up controlling the host organism. It is the skill of people like him. If he was a “godmother” or carried portfolios or was a manager of procedures, it is not because he could not do more: it is because from there he did more.
Anyway. I confess my fascination with Alejandro Moreno. Look at his photos: his presidency has been devastating for the PRI, they persecute him for vulgar (and inexplicable, of course) enrichment and he is so happy. Look at the photos of him, for real: he is a happy man hugging a tree while the hurricane takes his house, his car, everything else.
Something tells me that his adventure will not end well, but his fate, whatever it may be, is key for the opposition today and will be key to the forthcoming presidential succession.
Zas, you didn’t even realize
We are all, to a lesser or greater degree, colorful and predictable. But some of us go too far. It is Alejandro Moreno and it is, let’s say, Javier Lozano; it is Diego Fernández de Cevallos or Humberto Moreira. They are colorful people and somehow you know which way they will lean at any given moment. There are many like that. It doesn’t make them good or bad: it makes them stand out. They attract attention. Irma Serrano was as picturesque as Elba Esther Gordillo or Xóchitl Gálvez. They are just examples.
There are other personalities that I call “Gila monster”. I have already defined them before. These are very calm, calm, and suddenly they open their jaws and wham, goodbye a goat, a child, a calf or a boa, no matter how long it is. The Gila monster is apparently slow, but it has a spring in its body that makes it easy for it to bite big. These personalities are predictable once you discover them, although it is not always easy to discover them. They are the dead flies or kill them shutting up. Whoosh! You didn’t even notice and whoosh! Someone loses something. There I place Emilio Gamboa Patrón, for example; or Manlio Fabio Beltrones or Ricardo Monreal.
By the way, someone told me:
–Monreal and Gamboa agreed on the positions of the Senate shortly before the transition took place.
-As?
-Yes, Monreal placed all his close ones, according to his interests, before any Senator from Morena asked him for accounts or quotas.
-As?
–Yes, as with the INAI: You didn’t even notice and wham!, I had already agreed with the PAN.
another monster
The report contains 103 pages. It indicates that three Facebook accounts were detected that attack the morenistas Claudia Sheinbaum, Marcelo Ebrard, Ricardo Monreal, Layda Sansores and Delfina Gómez.
“The total investment of the ads to the people mentioned above as of February 19 is 164 thousand 486 pesos in 172 ads,” the report adds. Next it details:
• 72 thousand 074 pesos in favor of Adán Augusto
• 75 thousand 945 against Claudia Sheinbaum
• 8 thousand 781 against Marcelo Ebrard
• 4 thousand 191 against Ricardo Monreal
• 2 thousand 599 against Delfina Gómez
• 896 pesos against Layda Sansores.
The amounts are small but it must be remembered that it is, according to the document, the analysis of spending for a single day.
It adds: “Fifty ads promote or favor Adán Augusto while there are 57 against Claudia Sheinbaum, 25 against Marcelo Ebrard, 13 against Ricardo Monreal, 5 against Layda Sansores and two against Delfina Gómez.”
“The Facebook profiles bear the names of Hagámoslo Viral, Los Círculos Rojos and Tendiendo Puentes. They were created on the same day (January 24, 2019) and began running ads two days apart, May 5, 7, and 9, 2022 respectively,” the report says.
“They have taken simultaneous actions such as posting the same notes, memes or changing their profile image on the same day. These pages have also advertised against PAN and PRI politicians. This means that the three pages are systematized and are part of the same strategy of hitting Sheinbaum and Ebrard, Monreal, Layda and Delfina and positioning Adán Augusto ”, he sums up.
In a section, the report details the distribution of the expense of 164 thousand 486 pesos for that day. I respect almost the entire wording of each module.
The campaign FOR Adam Augustus began on October 26, 2022 and was based on the following agenda:
50 ads
• AMLO support to AA.
• Growth in surveys.
• AA against Lorenzo Cordova.
• Meeting with Nacho Mier.
The campaign AGAINST Claudia Sheinbaum began on October 23, 2022 and was based on the following agenda:
57 ads
• Metro CDMX problems
• Early Campaign
• Martha Debayle meeting
• CS and Florence Mountain
The campaign AGAINST Marcelo Ebrard began on October 19, 2022 and was based on the following agenda:
25 ads
• World trip
• Relationship with Salinas Pliego
• ME and Pedro Castillo
The campaign AGAINST Ricardo Monreal began on October 27, 2022 and was based on the following agenda:
13 ads
• Conflict with Layda Sansores
• They make fun of being excluded as “corcholata”
The campaign AGAINST Layda Sansores began on November 1, 2022 and was based on the following agenda:
5 ads
• They call her “Queen of Cash”
• They talk about their conflict with RM
The campaign AGAINST Delfina Gomez began on February 14, 2022 and was based on the following agenda:
2 ads
• The election of Edomex is in danger
The report also adds a significant number of frankly vulgar and very rude ads. In some, an athletic Secretary of the Interior appears playing soccer like a champion; several where he smiles with President López Obrador and others where our brave character launches against Lorenzo Córdova.
And in other ads you can see, for example, a Ricardo Monreal in Juan Gabriel attire; a fat Marcelo Ebrard and his taste stands out –so he says– for Rolex watches. To attack Sheinbaum, he reproduces horrible cartoons that are published mainly in The financial and photos of Alex Lora passing them off – all seen – as if they were her. There is a photo of the Head of Government with wrinkles; paid campaign says: “Don’t stain Layla [sic]Give him the number of your surgeon, don’t be a downer.”
And there are even attacks against the wife of President Andrés Manuel López Obrador.
The black campaign was still active in 2023. A rancher calculation warns of expenses for millions of pesos. Where does the money come from? I think there’s another Gila monster on the loose there.
Alejandro Paez Varela
Journalist, writer. He is the author of the novels Corazón de Kalashnikov (Alfaguara 2014, Planeta 2008), Música para Perros (Alfaguara 2013), El Reino de las Moscas (Alfaguara 2012) and Oriundo Laredo (Alfaguara 2017). He is also from the story books Does Not Include Batteries (Cal y Arena 2009) and Parachute that does not open (2007). He wrote President in Waiting (Planeta 2011) and is co-author of other journalism books such as La Guerra por Juárez (Planeta, 2008), Los Suspirantes 2006 (Planeta 2005), Los Suspirantes 2012 (Planeta 2011), Los Amos de México (2007), The Untouchables (2008) and The Suspirantes 2018 (Planet 2017). He was deputy editorial director of El Universal, deputy director of the magazine Día Siete and editor at Reforma and El Economista. He is currently the CEO of SinEmbargo.mx
