Kick out politicians, police, and gangsters -- like this town

[Hypoxia]

The indigenous Purépecha town of Cherán [in Michuacan state] threw out all political parties after a popular uprising in 2011 – and it doesn’t want them back.

All across Mexico, political billboards are springing up and candidates are hitting the streets, as campaigning starts for elections to pick a new president, renew the congress and replace hundreds of state and local officials.

Everywhere, that is, except for one small corner of the violent western state of Michoacán, which has found a simple solution to the vote-buying and patronage which plague Mexican democracy.

“The only thing the parties have done is divide us,” said Salvador Ceja, Cherán’s communal lands commissioner. “Not just here – in the entire country.”

Presidential campaigns officially kicked off at the weekend, and polls put the left-leaning populist Andrés Manuel López Obrador – ahead of his closest challenger by double digits.

The elections come amid widespread despair at the country’s worsening security crisis and disgust at political corruption. Antipathy toward political parties runs strong in Mexico: a recent survey found they were the least-trusted institution in the country.

Are Gups and Dums, as parties, the most divisive elements of USA society? Does the Constitution require politics and gov't to be run by two non-profits incorporated in Delaware? Who owns your local political infrastructure?

 

[BotanyBoy]

Are Gups and Dums, as parties, the most divisive elements of USA society?

Yes, and the sooner the people of the US figure that out the less it's going to hurt to undo it.

 

[Veroe]

I agree. Unfortunately we don't get that option. Ultimately they can't have that stick your head in the sand like an ostrich option either in that Mexican town. Even if they don't vote or subject themselves to it in any way. They'll still be subject to whatever corrupt assholes gets elected down there.

So not playing ball isn't the way to win this rigged game.

As for the divisiveness:

We all see it here on the politics board in every thread. Divisive tribalism is the state of politics we can't escape from. All of us are all too eager to believe the most insane and heinous intentions of fellow American citizens just because they're from the other team.

That sort of hyper-partisanship only benefits the most corrupt and the biggest and baddest liars in power on either party stay in power. So you can bet they'll be throwing as much gasoline onto the fire to trigger all of us against eachother while they cash the fat checks from their "donors".