For much of his life, President Enrique Peña Nieto dismissed Mexico’s destructive blight, corruption, as “a  cultural phenomenon.”   An unfortunate one, but so commonplace that Mexican business people – those citizens that evidently count – are blasé about it.  The less well-off tend to be angry about having to silently endure being robbed.

A young Huichol girl, gripping a costal with a machete sticking out, sat at the far end of the cattle truck.  Forward, against the cab sat four mestizo workers.  All the Mestizos – driver and workers – called her “La India” and tried to talk to her.  Alma Rosa Molinas said nothing.  She pulled her poncho tight against the cold.  Only her eyes showed.

“What’s happening in Jalisco is ... a readjustment by a criminal organization that has enjoyed great complacency from the state government, which has let it grow, ” said an opposition congressional candidate for the June elections.  When repeated later, there seemed to be a slight hesitation, mid-sentence, cultivating the impression that the author of this increasingly widely held observation wished to add a greater embrace of tricky, corrosive behavior.  A new scuff marring the presidency. “The real estate scandal” of course is  survivable:  What are they going to do, impeach him?

Quieta Zepeda, the Huichol girl, told me this when Jilotitlan was barely a pueblo, ornamented with milpas scattered near the center.  

“Achieving the rule of law,” declared Luis Rubio, “requires a conscious decision: first, to construct government capacity and, second, for the government itself, the president, to accept submission to the resulting institutions.” 

International financial analysts saw the key market movement that convinced them. There was no doubt about it.  Mexico was economically in deep trouble, they agreed.  The evidence was clear. It was indisputable.