Washington and New York, February 15.—For federal legislators and presidential candidates in the U.S. election campaign that culminates in November, threatening to invade or use military force in Mexico continues to work—especially if the media cooperates—to demonstrate "firmness" in the face of the crisis and the lack of capacity to respond to the opioid epidemic or to promote a comprehensive policy to address the challenge of international migration flows.
In the absence of real responses to the crises at home, nothing is easier than to blame the neighbors and announce initiatives whose sole purpose is political and electoral impact. There is much theater and few facts in the legislative political work.
During the entire past year, Congress passed only 27 legislative bills that were signed into law, the lowest number since the 1930s. But tens of thousands of initiatives have been introduced in Congress, the vast majority without any expectation of becoming law. Many are forms of political expression, and too many are designed to capture media attention to give them even more momentum even though they won't get anywhere. Therefore, sometimes the most extreme or crazy things work with the help of the media.
One expert in this tactic is Alabama Republican Representative Tom Cotton, who last week introduced a bill that, if enacted, would require the Pentagon to submit a report every 90 days on its efforts to "eliminate" the leadership of the Jalisco New Generation Cartel. The Jalisco Cartel Elimination bill failed to attract attention in the US media, although some foreign representatives chose to highlight it. The initiative continues to be discussed on the websites of Cotton and his Texas colleague Morgan Luttrell, who said that the cartel "needs to be dismantled to safeguard the American people" and emphasized that the "United States military must be prepared to confront and eliminate it."
