How have AMLO’s class background and life experiences defined his political formation?

I’ve not heard AMLO use a class label for himself. But his parents were modest, hardworking, and successful shopkeepers. His famous personal austerity probably owes much to his parents’ example.

AMLO comes from Tabasco, a hot, humid, and watery state unlike most of the rest of México and also — discounting for oil revenue — relatively poor. Imagine coastal Louisiana without New Orleans. Tabasco has an important indigenous heritage, a state-dependent economy, a highly submissive press, and a large Protestant minority. All these traits have influenced AMLO.

Tabasco also has an impressive literary tradition. The titan of that tradition, the poet and politician Carlos Pellicer, mentored AMLO in the 1970s. Pellicer used to lead tertulias, literary gatherings, at his home, discussing Tabasco’s history and culture, and that background helps explain AMLO’s hobby as an amateur historian. He’s written five books of history. In 1976 AMLO worked on Pellicer’s successful Senate campaign. Pellicer advocated for indigenous peoples’ rights, and AMLO has as well.

What influenced AMLO ideologically? His orientation seems to line up most with liberation theology’s “preferential option for the poor.”

AMLO does use religious language from time to time, quoting the Bible. He’s been seen reading the Bible on plane trips — he usually flies coach — and he named his youngest son Ernesto Jesús, as in Ernesto “Che” Guevara and Jesus Christ. During AMLO’s last campaign, Jorge Ramos of Univision asked him about his faith point blank. AMLO replied: “I’m a Christian in the broad sense of the word.”

In secular terms, AMLO takes inspiration from three former presidents. The first: Benito Juárez, the key liberal leader of the mid-19th century and an indigenous Mexican, followed by Francisco Madero, the “apostle” of the Revolution of 1910, and then Lázaro Cárdenas, who did more than anyone to bring that revolution to fruition in the 1930s. Cárdenas nationalized the oil industry and seized extensive private estates to parcel out to the poor. He sided with labor during an era of strikes and stood up to business elites.

In México, this makes for a potent trope, and I’ve written a paper explaining its persuasiveness. Second, money in people’s pockets. The AMLO years have seen large annual increases in the minimum wage. His new national person plan both supports the elderly and enables their children to better their own lot. And, third, the intangible work AMLO has done affirming the poor, through his rhetoric and his weekend trips to every part of México.

The poor feel they have an advocate in AMLO. I think a lot of analysts miss this point because dignity cannot be quantified. So they attribute his popularity to old-school clientelism.

AMLO inherited a nation with a long history of corrupt and undemocratic rule by the PRI and PAN parties, and political and business elites are strenuously organizing against his reforms. And he also has to deal with the colossus to the North! What’s he doing to counter these internal and external threats?

Many say AMLO has no strategy, that he improvises and tries to lead by example, but he is being strategic! Let’s look at one concrete thing he’s done: place a great deal of México’s public works and public services in the hands of the military. The reason? He deems the military as less corrupt and more obedient than the existing government bureaucracy. When you consider the embedded corruption in so many of México’s 31 states, he may well be right.

As for AMLO’s relationship with the United States, his policy toward Central American migrants — letting México act as a barrier and shelter — appears designed to appease the US. Politically, this comes at a low cost, because we see, unfortunately, little solidarity between average Mexicans and average Central American. AMLO has recently limited the activities of the US Drug Enforcement Administration. That plays well at home and probably doesn’t upset the Biden administration quite as much as it would have upset Trump.

Many on the western left appear confused by AMLO’s political contradictions. They can’t decide if he’s a progressive to be supported or a conservative to be opposed.

AMLO’s most cited contradiction concerns his self-projection as a leftist and his evident social conservatism. But that only rates as a contradiction if you conflate leftism with social liberalism. Foreign observers and many local Mexican commentators educated abroad often disqualify AMLO as a leftist because he’s not a social liberal. But leftism and liberalism flow out of distinct traditions, and more so in México than in the United States. México shares the depth of this distinction with my own country, the UK.

The debate ought not be over whether or not AMLO ranks as a socialist — a label curiously absent from discussions about him, despite his interest in state-led development — but over whether we should see him more broadly as a leftist. To my mind, AMLO resembles what we used to call in England a “cloth-cap socialist”: a social conservative and environmental skeptic, but a believer in big government, strong unions, a generous welfare state, and solidarity with left governments abroad.

This helps explain why AMLO’s best friend in Europe has been Jeremy Corbyn, the former Labour Party leader, who’s from the left wing of that party.

What lessons can we learn from AMLO’s success?

At this stage, I think our answers must be tentative.

AMLO’s 2018 inauguration/Getty Images

One lesson seems to be that most Mexicans — like Brazilians with respect to Lula — put a lot of stock in politicians who’ve been activists, especially politicians who’ve had to compete for high office several times before getting elected. In a country heavily scarred by local political dynasties and “plurinominal” lawmakers who get their seats through exchanges of favor rather than via the ballot box, this makes AMLO still more distinctive.

AMLO’s personal austerity also comes across as an asset. So does his ability to dominate the daily news cycle through his morning press conferences, mañaneras, where his somewhat folksy, us-and-them rhetoric seems to play well with the majority of Mexicans.