It was a night of hopeful anticipation as some 150 members of the Democrats Abroad Lake Chapala Chapter gathered at Ajijic’s Club Exotica Tuesday to follow the mid-term election returns, eyes glued to CNN coverage showing on a half-dozen flat screen monitors spread around the upstairs bar.
Spirits rose as figures showed Democrats heading steadily towards a majority takeover in the House of Representatives, contrasting sharply with the group’s gloomy mood two years ago when Donald Trump pulled off a surprise victory in the 2016 presidential race.
Folks in this year’s crowd still have no stomach for the feisty real estate tycoon who now occupies the White House.
“The man can’t tell the truth,” snapped one staunch Dem. “He’s following in the fascist steps of Mussolini, Hitler and Franco,” another growled.
Expressing the viewpoint of expats residing in Mexico, many of those present slammed the president’s anti-immigrant policies and inflammatory rhetoric.
“If immigration is stopped today, the country will go backwards,” remarked Leo Guttman, noting that many business innovators, such as the Silicon Valley founders, are immigrants or second generation descendants. “And most crimes in the States are committed by white male Americans,” he added, railing against Trump followers who are “too insulated to understand the rest of the world.”
At the gathering as a Moms Demand Action activist, Eileen Collard was looking out for the election of “gun sense” candidates. “Ninety percent of Americans support universal background checks. That’s a good place to start,” she said.
The Democrats cheered wildly with every favorable projection for their party, while rooting to the bitter end for high profile candidates such as Beto O’Rourke, Stacey Yvonne Abrams and Andrew Gillum, who didn´t fare so well.
In the end there was satisfaction expressed that the United States has come under the influence of a blue ripple, if not a wave, rising from sea to shining sea.