Author: Gordon Mott

I was born in Lafayette, Indiana, and graduated from high school in Gainesville, Florida. I graduated from Harvard College in 1975, class of '74. I have worked at the Associated Press, Knight-Ridder Newspapers and Newsweek. I joined M. Shanken Communications in 1990, where I worked for Market Watch, Wine Spectator and I was the original managing editor of Cigar Aficionado magazine, which I helped start. Since 2014, I have been living in Mexico, working as a contributor to Cigar Aficionado and Wine Spectator, and writing fiction.

Over the Wall

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By Gordon Mott

Oct. 31, 2026

Living and Dying

This weekend is the Day of the Dead holiday in Mexico, where I live. Death is not a taboo subject in Mexican culture. While Day of the Dead has become inextricably linked to Halloween, the focus remains the same: the celebration of loved ones who have died.

The holiday highlights how death is part of life here. Small, colorful altars adorned with cempasúchils color the cemeteries where families and friends hold all-night vigils, their faces shimmering in the light of hundreds of candles. The altars usually commemorate more than one dead person (or even beloved pets), and for each loved one, the altars include relics from their life: a bottle of their favorite tequila, a favorite book, a piece of jewelry, anything precious that belonged to them or symbolized who they were. One would never describe the atmosphere as morbid or festive, but rather respectful of a life lived by someone now dead.

I contrast my experience in Mexico with how I grew up. Both my grandfathers died before I was 10. I was not allowed to attend either funeral, and my clearest memory is of the whispers between my mother and father, apparently trying not to upset me with any details of my grandfathers’ deaths. There was essentially no discussion of what had happened.

As I reached young adulthood, there was no hiding from death. My older brothers and sister, my parents, and friends had a common lament: friends and acquaintances start dying around you. My mother’s experience was as poignant as any; she lived to be 104, the last 10 years in assisted living in Florida; of her initial group of friends – at least 10 older women like her – she was the penultimate survivor.

My own experience delivered frequent reminders of the fragility of life. In my 30s, friends and colleagues were killed in action or died from sudden and catastrophic illnesses. There were two photographers in Central America and the wife of one of my colleagues. In retrospect, the weight of the horrific deaths around me in countries where I worked deeply scarred me, in part due to the code of silence around the subject of death. Those events and how I dealt with them caused decades of mild PTSD, which sometimes flared up, as in the days following 9/11 when I was living in New York. I have lost three close friends from college, all too young and so random that their deaths seemed terrifyingly unfair. In recent years, I’ve lost two friends and peers from my journalism life. Even closer to home, my oldest brother died at 58 when I was 45 years old. And this week, my friend and mentor for 37 years, Marvin R. Shanken is gone.

In most situations, I prefer definitive, unambiguous words: “death,”“dead,” or “dying.” I find euphemisms to be ambiguous, an attempt to hide the reality of someone’s death. Out of curiosity, I investigated the origins of one of those expressions, “passing.” It comes from 15th or 16th century England, where it suggested people’s souls were in passage to another place, still existing, just not on earth.

If you are a Christian, “passing” may hold those meanings for you, that your immortal soul is en route to one of two places—heaven or hell. Most religions — Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Buddhism and Hinduism — share a belief in an immortal soul, and in some cases an afterlife, but the specifics differ. Judaism: a world to come. Islam: Paradise or Hell. Buddhism: cycles of reincarnation until Nirvana is reached. Hinduism: reincarnation based on karma and the hope of ending the cycle.

There are a host of other euphemisms in English for dying: kicked the bucket, passed through the veil, gave up the ghost, crossed to the other side, bought the farm, joined the ancestors, departed, in a better place, called home, left this life.

I understand that euphemisms are important linguistic tools, making it easier to discuss and cope with difficult topics. They acknowledge people’s feelings at the moment of a loss are complicated and emotions intense. Sanitizing the emotions can make it easier to recover some sense of invulnerability, without which the threat of death is terrifying. But euphemisms can also gloss over the finality of life. Even if you believe in an afterlife, you are no longer on planet Earth.

I do find solace in the memories I hold dear about my friends and loved ones who are dead. Tangible things like photographs, letters and gifts, can help to keep the nature of human existence from overwhelming us. We are born. We live. And we die. Despite the best efforts of humans over the millennia, no one has found a way around the inevitability of that cycle. I do believe that confronting this truth, and not burying or hiding from it, leads to a healthier day-to-day existence. It reminds us to make the most of the time we live.

My musings are animated by being in my 70s, having turned 74 this past week. Death is ever more present in my thoughts, not to the point of paralyzing me, but there are constant reminders that the time I have left is finite. My youthful illusions of invulnerability, and certainly of immortality, have been long forgotten.

Death. It’s part of living. We should all live every day with that in mind. As a friend of mine says, the bombs are falling closer and closer, or I might say, there are more of them than ever before. I will keep celebrating the living until they are dead. Then, I will hold their memories dear. And I will cherish my own precious life until the day I die.

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Over the Wall

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by Gordon Mott

Oct. 23, 2026

One man, One vote

I’m pissed. Everyone should be pissed. For more than 15 years, since the Supreme Court’s ruling in the Citizens United vs. Federal Election Commission case in 2010, money — big money, dark money, unlimited money of all kinds — has been flooding the electoral process in the United States. Without diving too deep into legalese, the Court’s bottom line was that money is speech, and a protected right for individuals and corporations.

Believe it or not, there are still annual limits on what any person or any company or business or organization can donate to individual politicians. That limit is $3500, for each primary and general election cycle, i.e., $7000 a year. The recipient must be a candidate. In addition, contributions can be made of $44,000 to a national party committee and $10,000 to state, district or local party committees. Sounds relatively reasonable, doesn’t it? While out of the reach of most private citizens in America struggling to pay rent, buy groceries and fill their cars with gas, the limits don’t automatically create an exclusive class of super-wealthy campaign contributors, even though it’s a lot of money for an average American.

If only the reality reflected the law. In this mid-term election cycle through the end of September, between candidates ($1.8 billion) and Super PACsof ($2 billion), nearly $4 billion has been spent on re-election campaigns. Some estimates push the total by Nov. 3 to over $10 billion. We may have become inurred to the reality because of the flood (at least in my case) of the daily emails from candidates and Super PACS (from both sides) begging for more money.

It’s not the way it should be, and it’s not right

I’ll give only two examples.

  1. Elon Musk. As of this week, Musk has contributed approximately $440 million to Republican Super PACs, according to Federal Election Commission statistics. You read that correctly. $440 million. That may be a conservative number because Super-Pacs do not have to publish their donor list and their donor’s contributions, and Musk may have given more legal contributions to candidates and party organizations.

How is that possible? Super PACs have been exempted from the campaign contribution limits that remain on the books, the ones I detailed above. Why? The courts have ruled that Super PACs do not directly coordinating with political candidates; therefore, they are not constrained by the contribution limits. As many commentators have observed, the assumption they are not coordinating with candidates is a fiction, a lie that obscures how candidates are financing their campaigns..

  1. In Texas, the GOP Senate Leadership Fund and its Texas satellite, the Texas PAC spent $22 million in September to air an ad touting Senate candidate Ken Paxton’s performance as Texas Attorney General 15,000 times. In total, the Texas PAC, formed this past summer, has given over $54 million to Paxton’s campaign; that’s the official Federal Election Commission data. Guess how much Paxton’s own election campaign fund had raised from Jan. 2025 to June 30th 2026, as reported to the Federal Election Commission: $16.8 million of which he only had $6.9 million remaining in cash. The point should be obvious. Texans are being influenced by outside money that doesn’t care about the future of Texas, just the reliable vote of a Senator from that state. His local support from individuals is feeble.

Get it yet? The bottom line is there are no campaign donation restrictions. Individuals with money don’t even have to bother with personal donations to a candidate. Just give it to a PAC, knowing that money will end up in the right place. If you believe these Super PACs (and let’s be clear, both the Democrats and the Republicans have partisan Super PACs) are not coordinating with specific campaigns, you should wake up. The idea that coordination isn’t taking place is complete fiction.

I’m not naive. Money has always played an exaggerated role in American politics. I remember sitting with a Senate candidate in the mid-1990s, and he said, “I have to raise, on average, $11,000 a day to finance my next campaign.” He still had four years left in his term. Every day when he was in his home district, he was meeting with constituents, often screened for their ability to give money. Rest assured, when he was in Washington, parts of every day were dedicated to dialing for dollars.

Neither the historical role of money in politics nor the current situation is right. It is an inherently corrupt landscape when wealthy people try to influence those in power, and those in power need that money to stay in power. Quid pro quo isn’t just a vague concept; it is the nature of the political game.

Here’s my take: if money equals speech and speech equals influence, logic suggests that people with more money have more influence, completely subverting the notion of one man, one vote. My vote means less because it is backed by a pittance, compared to, say, Elon Musk, whose vote for a candidate is multiplied by the millions of dollars in donations he directs to people he believes will support his goals. One man. Millions of dollars. It diminishes the influence of the single voter.

The tragedy is that money is undermining the very foundations of American Democracy. Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan said as much just this week.

There is a short list of resolutions to the problem: federal funding of elections, strict donation limits to campaigns, a reversal of Citizens United. Any of those solutions would help us turn back the clock to a time when money wasn’t the biggest factor in how campaigns are conducted.

In the meantime, one man, one vote should be the battle cry of every angry, disenfranchised American voter.

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OVER THE WALL

MY ABSENTEE BALLOT

OCT. 15, 2026

My wife and I have been stressing for months over our absentee ballot for the midterm elections on Nov. 3 in the United States. We requested our ballot form in August from Westchester County, N.Y., which remains our legal voting residence for federal elections, registered as our last domicile before we moved to Mexico in 2014.

The Board of Elections confirmed our request and notified us when they sent out the ballots to our email address. The ballots arrived. We filled them out, voting for Cait Conley, our candidate of choice for the House of Representatives, in hopes of unseating Mike Lawler, one of the Trump Administration’s most loyal congressmen.

Then our doubts began. We knew we couldn’t rely on the Mexican postal service; we have gotten Christmas cards mailed from the United States in late February or early March. Without any trips planned to the United States, we couldn’t personally mail the ballots. When one friend with an upcoming trip offered to put them in the U.S. Mail, we initially thought, ‘Okay, that might work.’ But we immediately began to have doubts about that choice, partly because of the confusion over the U.S. Postal Service’s handling of absentee ballots and the Trump administration’s unending attempts to meddle in the postal service’s processes. We have opted to use DHL, which is allowed by the Board of Elections. It’s not cheap, a nearly $60 charge for a basic envelope between Mexico and the United States, but it eliminates our worries that the ballots might not get there in time to be counted. That we even have to worry whether or not the U.S. Post Office can be trusted to deliver our mail begs a question: what has happened to our country?

And that question fuels our determination to vote, and underpins the efforts we are using to be sure our vote gets counted. No matter the cost.

It’s pretty simple.

I believe the foundation of American Democracy is under attack—the creed enshrined in the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence that all men are created equal and are afforded the opportunity for “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” It is the creed that established the United States of America, the greatest political experiment in human history. That creed was defended in a bloody Civil War, and it has evolved with great struggle and sacrifice over the last 250 years to mean that every American citizen, regardless of the color of your skin, the gender with which you identify, the religion that you practice, or the country of your birth, is afforded the same protections under the law.

I could list the reasons for my belief that American Democracy is in jeopardy in this election. The list is long. Corruption, disregard for the truth, a wink and a nod toward the most racist elements in American society, and an almost daily violation of constitutional guarantees against warrantless arrest and detention are just a few of the issues on the list. But the two most important are the violent attempt to overturn the 2020 election and the meddling in the 2026 midterm elections scheduled for Nov. 3.

Nov. 3 is when American voters have a vital role in ensuring this upcoming election reflects the desires of the majority of Americans. The bigger the margin, the more difficult it is to screw around with the results. It is the most consequential election in the last 100 years.

There are critical moments in history, crossroads when serious, well-meaning people have a choice. You can look away to rationalize inaction: that choice preserves and empowers repugnant status quos. Or you can choose to speak out, to shout with your vote that there are rights and wrongs in this world. A vibrant, successful democracy requires its citizens to take a stand.   

Say it loud and clear: American Democracy is built on the creed that all people are created equal. Democracy is what this election is about, and what we are fighting for. And why I am making sure my vote is counted.

Over The Wall

~ Gordon Mott ~ 1 Comment

OVER THE WALL

The Ties that Bind

Oct. 8, 2026

In my first column last week, after a long hiatus, I offered a mea culpa and a promise to myself and to you to persevere and keep writing; I titled my Substack, Over The Wall. The title refers to my expat life here in Mexico, and the vantage I believe it gives me at a remove to see and comment on issues that may be obscured by the daily deluge of Trump Administration follies. Immigration and Mexico are among those issues.

Early in this presidential term, agents from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Protection (CBP) detained without warrant both citizens and legal residents, and shot and killed protesters objecting to their draconian tactics. However, immigration has left the frontline of the midterm debate, overshadowed by the war in Iran, the persistent attempts to meddle in the midterm elections, and pronouncements of the president’s unlimited power “to do whatever he wants.”

Despite the smokescreens thrown up by those distractions, immigration still occupies a key place in the MAGA movement’s drive to alter the fundamental principles of American Democracy. We should never forget what Donald Trump said in launching his presidential bid in 2015: “When Mexico sends their people, they are not sending their best.” By demonizing those of Mexican heritage and cultural origin, that comment laid the foundation for ostracizing anyone deemed to be Not American, and creating a political landscape where all “others” were enemies of the government.

Mexico remains at the center of the debate.

I want to revisit things I have written before about Mexico, and the relationship of its people with the United States. Let’s be clear. Mexico and the United States are two different cultures, with different languages, colonial heritages, and religions. They share the 10th longest border between two nations on the planet. There is no mistaking the border —the contrasts are starkly visible whether you step across the border in San Diego-Tijuana, Ciudad Juarez-El Paso, Laredo-Nuevo Laredo or Brownsville-Matamoros. As Alan Riding described in Distant Neighbors, his seminal work in 1985 about the U.S.-Mexican relationship, it is truly a case of so near and yet so far.

Since Riding’s book, those differences have narrowed. The 1992 North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) turned Mexico upside down, and along with privatization of key industries, transformed the country. Today, in every major city, you can find U.S. chain outlets from Costco to Walmart, to Kentucky Fried Chicken to McDonald’s to Office Max and Home Depot. The statistics highlight the intertwining of the two economies and cultures: as of 2025, Mexico is the United States’ largest trading partner at $971 billion (per Economic Insider); the United States is Mexico’s largest trading partner, accounting for nearly 82 percent of the country’s exports.

The numbers don’t tell the whole story.

In my travels around rural Mexico in the last 12 years, I have passed cars with license plates from California, Texas, North Carolina, Illinois, and Florida enough times that I remember those states but I’ve seen other states too—not driven by tourists but by locals. If I stop for gas, often the attendant, guessing that I’m American, will start speaking in broken English telling me they have worked the agricultural fields in _____ (fill in the blank) California, North Carolina, New York, Florida, Texas. In small villages, you’ll see a brand new brick two-story house that, if you ask, the answer is, “That’s the Perez family; the son lives in California and sends money so they can build a house.”

Those are concrete examples of the cross-border links. Sometimes ordinary signs also reveal the commingling of our cultures; walking down the street in my hometown of Queretaro, I pass men and women wearing baseball-style caps with logos of the New York Yankees, the Boston Red Sox, the Los Angeles Dodgers, or the NFL’s Dallas Cowboys or Pittsburgh Steelers or the New England Patriots. Sky satellite TV here carries daily games from Major League Baseball, the National Football League, and the National Basketball Association during their seasons. On the flip side, attend a Mexico-USA soccer game in the United States and the Mexican jerseys in the stands outnumber the USA shirts. The commingling has tied the two countries closer together than ever before.

Which brings me to my point. How idiotic is it that we have an immigration policy that vilifies a neighbor who actually loves the United States and its culture, and vice-versa; Americans love Mexican food and even celebrate holidays that they believe are observed in Mexico like Cinco de Mayo. For that matter, more than one-third of the United States used to be part of Mexico, and was ceded to the United States in the Mexican-American war of 1848. Why don’t we have a system in place that allows travel back and forth for Mexicans to work in the back-breaking jobs that American companies find hard to fill without them? Every serious study of Mexican immigration over the past 50 years shows that Mexicans would gladly return home to their native towns and villages if they didn’t have to suffer the fear of being detained and arrested by the Border Patrol. Moreover, what Mexican bring with them is a belief still in the American Dream, that the USA offers them an opportunity to better themselves.

Donald Trump has twice effectively killed immigration reform bills, once in 2015 when he campaigned against the bipartisan Gang of Eight Senate bill — promoted on the Republican side by Sen. Lindsey Graham and Sen. Marco Rubio — that was languishing in the House of Representatives, and again in 2024 during the presidential campaign when another bipartisan effort was derailed in Congress, in part because of pressure from Trump, who didn’t want any progress toward immigration reform. Instead of a reformed immigration policy that would have provided roadmaps for citizenship as well as stricter border enforcement, Trump focused on a more punitive policy with strict enforcement without any other reforms and the promise of building a wall between the two nations.

That’s why I urge everyone voting in the 2026 midterms to consider the importance of changing our immigration policy. We need leaders who want to solve the problem in a mutually beneficial and constructive manner, instead of arresting and deporting people. We will never be one nation in North America. But together, with a sane immigration policy, the people of Mexico and the United States can build on our existing cultural and commercial bonds. As partners and good neighbors, we will all be stronger.

To read my original Mexico Part 1 and Part 2, here are the links:

— https://gordonmottauthor.com/2025/02/25/the-mexico-i-know-part-1/

— https://gordonmottauthor.com/2025/02/26/the-mexico-i-know-part-2/

OVER THE WALL

~ Gordon Mott ~ 2 Comments

By Gordon Mott

OCT 01, 2026

Deja Vu … All Over Again

Eighteen months of silence have been hard on me. Frustrated. Angry. Despairing. Did my silence begin because I was afraid? Yes. I’m not proud to admit it. But that is the truth. In the immediate aftermath of Inauguration Day 2025 and the cascade of anti-democratic and anti-constitutional rhetoric from the Trump Administration, especially public statements from officials at Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and then Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), I was stopped in my writer’s tracks.

The triggering event explains the origin of my fears.

For context, I live in Mexico. In March 2025, I had been active on social media criticizing the early excesses of the Trump Administration. I was headed to the United States to visit family and friends when I was hit with a frightening realization: my writings could trigger a stop by CBP at Dallas immigration. There were already stories of naturalized citizens, outspoken critics of Trump, being questioned and detained on the streets of Boston or New York by ICE agents. Foreign tourists reported being questioned about their social media posts at immigration entry points. My immediate reaction was to call a lawyer friend in Texas to ask for the phone number of someone who could handle the situation if I was detained at the border. I was explicit. I wanted a number my wife could call if she turned around after passing through Global Entry and I wasn’t there behind her. I was suspicious enough to know that if I were stopped, it might not be given my one phone call. (It’s a terrifying fact inside the portals at CBP, you are without your fundamental legal rights, whether you are a citizen or not.) I got the lawyer’s contact, gave it to my wife, and we set off on our trip. I turned off facial recognition on my phone, and I decided not to travel with my laptop, which has the main copy of my second novel, which has a very political theme, and all my blogs.

Nothing happened at Global Entry. And nothing has happened since, during the 10 times I have crossed through immigration. At the time, however, after passing through immigration unscathed, I was struck immediately by the absurdity of my fears. I am a born and raised American from Lafayette, Ind. I have lived abroad for over a quarter of my life in Brazil, Mexico, France and now Mexico again but all the other 50-plus years in the United States. The thought that I, an American citizen, was worried about being interrogated by U.S. Government officials because of the things I wrote was disturbing and depressing. And frightening. I couldn’t help but ask: what has happened to my country?

I have been silent ever since. I have not blogged. I have delayed the publication of my second novel, 20/20. The most “egregious” criticisms I have posted on social media have been reposts of other commentators. Cowardly? Yes.There is a solution—start writing again and begin posting my opinions and thoughts.

Do the musings of a retired journalist and a one-time novelist who has lived abroad since 2014 matter? I doubt it, but I do believe a single drop in the pond still has ripples. Maybe my ripples will cause one person to question their position. Maybe one person will engage with me in a substantive debate, not one just filled with insults and slander. In the end, that could be important. One drop. One changed point of view. More importantly, I want to go on the record with my beliefs, to take a stand. I am reminded of my internal dialogue: how will I feel in the future if I haven’t spoken out now? What will I tell my new grandson in 20 years about what I did during the struggle to preserve American Democracy?

Honestly, I’m still worried about ending my silence and shedding my temporary cloak of anonymity. I still have to cross the U.S. border to see my loved ones. While I haven’t read disturbing stories about full citizens being harassed at border crossings, there is a daily firehose of insults from the 47th president of the United States attacking journalists and his critics. Bravo to the many courageous journalists and writers and political commentators who stand up to these vicious personal attacks. Thankfully it is a long list and it gives me hope and sustenance and courage.

The title of my new Substack column: Over the Wall. I will promote it here on my website — gordonmottauthor.com — Facebook, Linked In and Substack. For now, these posts are free but I would love to get your email for the future. I like to think the title suggests a perch, a privileged vantage from which I observe the world around me. Not all my posts will be political; many will be personal commentary about life in these times. Feel free to contact me or comment on my blogs through any of those sites. I will do my best to publish at least once a week, and since today is Oct. 1, I will be posting every week as regularly as possible.

The Mexico I Know (Part 2)

~ Gordon Mott ~ 1 Comment

Feb. 26, 2025

Let’s return the focus on Mexico (Part 1 was posted yesterday here)

When I was a correspondent here 40 years ago, immigration was already a hot button. Yet it was a time when guest worker programs allowed people to travel legally for seasonal work and then return home. Many came to the same employer year after year to help pick crops in the agricultural fields of California, Arizona, Texas and Florida. Ask middle-age Mexican men in a rural area today if they know the United States, and invariably the answer is yes, with a quick description in usually broken English, of the cities and states where they worked. But they came and went every year. When the Reagan Administration began to clamp down on this kind of immigration and people had to run the risk of getting caught and deported and their names put on a watch list, they simply stayed and built parallel lives in the United States. I know that’s an oversimplification. But the evidence of a yearning for their homeland still exists in small towns all across Mexico. People will point to a well-built, sometimes new home, and they will say, “Oh yeah, that’s the Perez family’s—Miguel lives in California and sends money home.” In fact, if you study Mexico’s balance of payments, the flow of U.S. dollars from hard-working Mexicans sending money back to their families is one of the major sources of U.S. dollar currency reserves for the Mexican government (Unfortunately, another big chunk of those remittances is drug money being laundered). But the evidence shows an ongoing connection to their homeland, even if they have lived in America for decades.

Why not create a policy that allows Mexican citizens to move more freely back and forth? Mexicans love their country and will find ways to enjoy both their homeland and submit to the back-breaking jobs in the United States that help them build wealth back home. Before you dismiss this idea, there are restaurants in every major city in America that will have to shut down or curtail their offerings, if Mexicans are deported. Agricultural operations from California through Arizona, New Mexico, Texas and Florida that rely on immigrant labor to pick their crops will be harmed. (Recent news reports say that many crops are already not being picked because immigrants are afraid to show up for work out of fear ICE agents may be waiting to arrest them.) Or ask any industrial meat producer how they will cut your steaks if their workers don’t show. The solution is pretty simple, and with Mexico’s economic prowess increasing every day more feasible; give people the mechanism to travel back and forth. Simple.

The cross-border connection also highlights a cultural bond between the two nations. Some of these observations are obviously facile. But sometimes the obvious is the most revealing. I see more baseball-style hats of NFL and MLB teams here than I did in Westchester County, New York. Drive a car past any commercial strip here and you’ll see Walmart, Costco. McDonald’s, Kentucky Fried Chicken, Krispy Kreme, Home Depot, HEB…the list goes on and on. Amazon Mexico, just in the last five years, has gone from being a bit of a curiosity to my being able to order almost any item for delivery within a day or two, down to things like Diamond Crystal Kosher salt. Sky TV Mexico includes at least 8 NFL games every weekend day, plus Thursday, Friday and Monday night games. During the season, there are at least two MLB games broadcast daily and the same for NBA and NHL seasons. Or look at the other side of the border; Cinco de Mayo, guacamole, Corona beer, a boom in Tequila sales and Mexican restaurants on every fast food strip in America. My point? The two nations are intertwined culturally in more ways than Americans grasp. There’s also the obvious links in the western third of the United States where Spanish place names are commonplace. Why? They were part of Mexico until 1848.

There are also commercial links. Ford, which has assembly plants here, imports up to 40 percent of the parts used in final assembly of the cars from the United States, as does every other auto manufacturer.(https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/IF/IF11387.) The U.S. farm belt supplies Mexico with up to 40 percent of its domestic corn (https://www.ncga.com/stay-informed/media/the-corn-economy/article/2023/07/mexico-an-important-trade-destination-for-u-s-corn). The U.S. imports 637 million barrels of Mexican heavy crude oil and exports to Mexico 1.8 billion barrels of refined petroleum products, representing over 70 percent of Mexico’s consumption of gasoline, diesel, natural gas and jet fuel. In 2023 Mexico became the largest trading partner of the United States, nearly approaching $800 billion annually. (https://www.forbes.com/sites/kenroberts/2024/02/07/2023-results-are-in-us-has-new-top-port-trade-partner-export-import/) The United States is the leading importer of Mexican goods, by a factor of 40x compared to #2 Canada. Get the picture? There are companies on both sides of the border that rely on each other to produce their goods.

There’s a more interesting point that is hard to explain, but my perception is based on 40 years of observation. Mexico’s one percent is rich, by standards that compare to America’s new billionaire class. They have properties around the world. Many own private jets. They drive luxury imported automobiles that have triple digit duties added to their price, pushing many luxury cars into six-figure plus territory. They send their children to be educated abroad, not only in America but in Europe, too. They employ dozens of people in just their personal life at home. But they also invest in their own country. They build manufacturing plants. They start new businesses. They construct real estate with an eye toward economic expansion. Of course, they have stern competition from the government, but the new Sheinbaum administration has been reaching out for joint ventures in things like green energy and transportation. All with an eye on economic growth. Mexicans still believe in Mexico.

What happens if the United States disrupts that balance? The Mexican economy will suffer, at the very least for a while during a period of transition where it seeks other markets for its products. The United States will suffer labor shortages in the service and agricultural industries where food will rot on the ground for lack of people to harvest and restaurants in big cities like New York will struggle to find dishwashers and back of the house employees. Factories will suffer layoffs because they won’t be able to acquire the necessary imported parts or labor to manufacture or those parts will cost more money because of tariffs. With tariffs imposed, American consumers will pay more for their consumer products regardless of their origin but from Mexico also. And finally, if misguided U.S. policies destabilize the Mexican economy, the specter of unrest could increase exponentially. Isn’t it obvious that a healthy Mexican economy benefits the United States? Vice-versa is equally important.

There’s an additional irrationality being bandied about by MAGA conservatives: invade Mexico to crush the cartels. It requires an extraordinarily myopic view of Latin American and Mexican history to view that as anything but moronic and counterproductive. Latin Americans have lived for nearly 200 years with the looming presence north of their border that has threatened their national sovereignty. Remember the Monroe Doctrine? To actually authorize and execute any kind of “invasion” of Mexico would have exactly the opposite of any desired effect, would lead to the deaths of American military men on Mexican soil and turn the border into something like Lebanon and Israel, not two neighbors who have co-existed peacefully at least since 1848 since the last U.S. invasion of Mexico. No one should ever underestimate Mexico’s will to defend itself and resist any and all threats.

My point is pretty simple. Mexico and the United States share one of the longest borders in the world. For centuries, the comment also was that it was one of the biggest contrasts between any two borders in the world; books were written like Alan Riding’s, Distant Neighbors, highlighting those differences. And yet today, the cultures are more than ever intertwined. Our similarities have diminished those differences. We are not one nation. And we are not the same culture. But we share a common goal, and a common destiny too, and a cultural amalgam that will only be stronger if we find ways to move closer together, not farther apart. That starts with compromise and cooperation, not insults and invasions.

That’s the Mexico I know. Americans would benefit from learning that it’s not just beach resorts and pyramids. Mexico is a thriving, complex culture with a Jewish woman president searching for a pathway to modernity for all its people. We should help them get there.

One response to “The Mexico I Know (Part 2)”

  1. Over The Wall – GORDON MOTT

    […] — https://gordonmottauthor.com/2025/02/26/the-mexico-i-know-part-2/ […]

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The Mexico I Know (Part 1)

~ Gordon Mott ~ 2 Comments

Feb. 25, 2025

The Mexico I Know (In two Parts)

Part 1

Mexican immigrants and Mexico have become stalking horses for Republican politicians and America First conservatives for years now. They have found a scapegoat for their version of America’s problems that are not the fault of Mexico or Mexicans or Mexican Americans. And now, President Trump has accused the Mexican government of having an alliance with the drug cartels. If you believe in those erroneous accusations about immigration, the murderers and rapists flooding the United States or Mexico stealing jobs from hard-working Americans or that all our drug problems are the result of Mexican government policies, you’ll probably stop reading right now.

But let me tell you about the Mexico I know.

I have lived in Mexico for a total of nearly 20 years of my life, in two distinct eras. The first was from 1978 to 1985; I first arrived in Mexico City as a correspondent for the Associated Press and then I opened a news bureau there for the San Jose Mercury News, part of the now defunct Knight-Ridder newspaper chain. During that stay, my wife and I, college sweethearts, married in Tepoztlan, Morelos and after eight years, we nearly opted to remain in Mexico City. For many reasons, we didn’t stay. The second sojourn began remotely in 2011 when my wife and I purchased an 18th-century colonial house in need of renovation and then transitioned to full-time residency in October 2014 after the renovation was complete. I retired from Cigar Aficionado magazine that month and embarked on a new adventure. We felt we had come home.

My wife and I had decided to leave our comfortable American life to spend more time together and for each of us to pursue dreams and life goals that had languished in that routinized suburban life tethered to demanding 9 to 5 jobs in New York City. For me, it was to write novels, a life-long goal that I was determined not to let slide until it was too late.

In both eras in Mexico, I have enjoyed a privileged vantage point. In the 80s, my role was first as a wire service reporter and then as a newspaper bureau chief charged with explaining Mexico to the world and the United States. In this second time around, which started 10 years ago, we have integrated into a deep and complex culture with mostly Mexican friends. I believe that has happened because of our previous experience here and our fluency in Spanish and the resultant deep affinity for Mexico and its culture and in part due to our socio-economic advantages. Our old perspective from 40 years ago and of the new Mexico we are living in today have melded into a deep understanding of this country.

Let’s address the elephants in the room.

Yes, there is horrific drug cartel violence in this country. The cartels have morphed over the last 50 years into a separate power inside the country and almost certainly have corrupted government officials and law enforcement both in the past and today, not just in Mexico but in the United States too. But there is not a serious drug abuse problem here. Oh, there’s consumption but let’s be clear: the cartel’s principal drug markets are north of the border or across the oceans. Cartel violence receives headlines and causes worry but it is usually limited to areas of the country that they control and usually the violence is among rival cartels or people perceived as undermining or confronting their power. Tragic? Yes. Dangerous? Absolutely. (Is it really credible to believe that a government would support a criminal enterprise that has resulted in over 100,000 disappearances?) One other key issue; the current president of Mexico cited the fact that 70 percent of the arms carried by the cartels come from America. So, is the problem solvable? Not under any current policies on either side of the border.

Secondly, corruption is still endemic here. I live in a state where it is, relatively speaking, not as extreme as some other parts of the country, such as Mexico City. For instance, I have not been stopped once in 10 years by the local municipal or state police looking for a quick bribe to overlook some imagined infraction. Not once. My Mexican business friends speak of kickbacks and payoffs as part of the price of doing business in this country, especially when the government is involved, regardless of the party in power. (Honestly, I’ve concluded that corruption is just more above board here instead of under the table as it is in the United States where everyone turns a blind eye to corruption.) Two wrongs don’t make a right but let’s be clear, corruption is not unique to Mexico.

And thirdly, there are still large, impoverished rural areas of the country. The most indigenous populations there have benefited very little from the country’s progress since the 1970s from a third-world country into something closer to a player in the first world. But Mexico today ranks as the 11th largest economy on the planet and the largest trading partner of the United States. It’s economic and social progress, while not fast enough for all, has been steady, especially since the advent of NAFTA in 1994. But the underclass remains poor and often without opportunities to advance. It is probably safe to say that the more progressive administration of Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador and the current one of President Claudia Shinbaum have been a necessary accommodation to those poverty-stricken regions. The jury is still out on whether or not their policies have substantially impacted the poverty rate inside the country and whether they will avoid future unrest. The flip side of the issue is whether or not those policies and programs antagonize the middle and upper classes to the point where they abandon their own country. The jury is still out on both sides of the debate.

The truth is Mexico today has enjoyed some of the most advanced socio-economic progress in the Western World in the last 50 years. When we lived here in the late 70s, electrification of the rural areas was a project in process…today, there is not only electricity even in the smallest villages but there is cellphone coverage nationwide, better on average than what we experienced in New York. The birthrate was nearly 5 children per child-bearing age woman; today it is 1.98 per woman. (Source: U.N. World Population Trends). According to the World Bank, the number of persons living below the poverty line has dropped from over 10% of the population in 2000 to 1.2% in 2024.

Mexico is a different place today than when we lived here in the 1980s. The socioeconomic transformation is visible and in some categories quantifiable. Mexico’s middle class has become a vibrant, powerful segment of the population, up from about 10 percent of the country in the early 1980s to at least 40 percent of the population today. Homeownership is up. Car ownership is booming. In big metro areas like Mexico City, Guadalajara, Puebla, Monterrey, San Luis Potosi, Oaxaca and Queretaro, the cultural and culinary opportunities match many cities in the United States and Europe. The middle class aspires to advance and improve their lives, and the federal infrastructure — education, health care, government subsidies and even price supports for the basic commodities — is in place to help them make it happen without excessive personal burdens. That’s good for any country. However, in the real world, the kind of progress Mexico has experienced is a generational process, not an overnight phenomenon. No one would argue enough has been done. But without revolution, the economic growth and social accommodations have moved Mexico towards a more modern, equitable society. Slowly, but steadily. That augers well for the future and suggests it is in the U.S. interest to keep economic and social development moving forward. An ill-conceived, fear-mongering U.S policy could screw that up and hurt the U.S. too.

We also should understand the problem of illegal immigration. It is not just poor Mexicans trying to cross the border today. In fact, since the 2008 economic crisis in the United States, the net cross-border flow has been Mexicans repatriating to their own country. Yet people are coming from all over the world. Venezuela’s collapse from a once-wealthy country into a dysfunctional state leads the wave. Central Americans, other South Americans, Africans, Asians, especially Chinese, are all fleeing the growing oppression in their homelands; they are leaving behind dehumanizing poverty and oppression with no prospect of a humane life.

What does that suggest?

The American Dream is alive and well outside the country. People still think we are the planet’s best hope! Imagine yourself making that choice of packing up a nap sack with the belongings you think are necessary for the trip (let’s be clear, this is not a choice between one checked bag or two…it is a living example of the idea “The Things They Carried.). Then, there is a payment to some criminal organization involved in human trafficking; I can’t tell you what the price is today from Africa but from personal experience of people we happen to know, the price can be over $3000 here in Mexico with no guarantee of safe passage. Do you know what the minimum wage is in Mexico? Currently, it’s about $14 a day…so, a ticket north can take over 200 days of work, if all you do is save your money for the journey. Then, you face a long trek over dangerous desert or jammed-packed trailer tractors in blazing heat or bone-numbing cold. Even then, the rate of deportations, or ‘interventions” as the Border Patrol describes, was higher under President Obama and President Biden than Donald Trump;— we are talking millions every year turned back to Mexico or deported to their home nations. So even after saving for years, paying a criminal organization as your guide, traipsing or riding across an unforgiving landscape, you can still get caught and expelled to start from scratch all over again. If you can’t see the desperation behind the decision to head to America, you aren’t thinking clearly.

Part 2 comes tomorrow

2 responses to “The Mexico I Know (Part 1)”

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    tim0668fff15930

    Well done GM! Looking forward to part two. Tim

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  2. Over The Wall – GORDON MOTT

    […] — https://gordonmottauthor.com/2025/02/25/the-mexico-i-know-part-1/ […]

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Project 468

~ Gordon Mott ~ Leave a comment

Jan. 20, 2025 (Reposted Jan. 22, 2025)

Today seems like good day to float some new ideas. The Democratic Party is mired in debates about what’s gone wrong in their message to the American people. Time to turn the page. New ideas. New people. No concessions to the party veterans. This is where the future begins. Everyone must start from the same place, a Ground Zero that leads to the future.

In recent election cycles, Democrats have focused resources on winnable seats in the House and Senate, and on winnable states in presidential contests. The party needs a new approach. The party must build a super PAC with enough money so it can contest every Congressional district and the 33 states where Senate seats are on the ballot in 2026, all 468 contests. Don’t focus just on winnable seats, but on EVERY seat even if there’s no prospect of winning. Find candidates who are courageous and willing to take on the impossible fights. The strategy is simple. Be sure EVERY American hears a Democratic Party message EVERY day of the campaign cycle on their home turf.

The campaign must start now. At the outset, the task is to find candidates in every House district. In some cases, the incumbents will be the easy choice. But no one should get a free pass. The primary process is about honing the message and the public presence of each candidate. In clearly red districts, the hardest work must happen. Candidates with broad appeal need to identified, trained and prepared for a bone-bruising task that often will end in defeat at the polls. But the presence of a candidate who can articulate a consistent Democratic message will go a long way to laying the foundation for 2028 and a presidential election victory.

There also is the need for a new Democratic Manifesto. Not a Project 2025 style right-wing treatise, but a clear, concise statement of what liberal democracy in America means today. Tell the American people what has been accomplished since the economic crash of 2008. There is a great story to tell. One that will stand up to the cascade of lies and disinformation about Democrats being Marxists and Communists, or that we are un-American (as Rudy Giuliani once accused me of being) because we vote Democrat. Absurdities will eventually begin to crumble under the consistent recitation of the truths and facts about the party’s successes, like the Inflation Reduction Act and infrastructure bill or the caps on prescription medicines or the Affordable Care Act. We know, because we welcome diverse points of view, that such an undertaking won’t be easy. But in the formative debates, consensus is possible. Agreement is not only possible but essential for the future.

No reason to be shy about the bottom line either. The plan is about money. The Republicans have had nearly 40 years to build a behind-the-scenes dark money colossus through men like Leonard Leo and more recently, Elon Musk. They have spent billions of dollars since the Reagan era creating partisan state legislatures through gerrymandering, nominating judges who adhere to an ultra-conservative doctrine and finally putting forth candidates whose primary qualification is fealty to the grand scheme of turning America into a one-party state. What was once Conservatism has morphed into a MAGA-led American First movement with designs on absolute power, free of any guardrails. That’s not hyperbole: Read Project 2025 and you see in black and white what the ultimate goal is. Building a financial war chest to counter the movement is legal; it’s the law of the land. Democrats should start using it to further their messages and their goals.

What will it take? Let’s use Elon Musk as a example. He donated at least $130 million dollars to the MAGA campaign and some estimates of his spending top $200 million. But there’s also the $44 billion dollars he paid for Twitter, which he then turned into a slanted propaganda, disinformation machine. Forget the Twitter purchase. If there are 20 super wealthy Americans, each willing to put $100 million into a super PAC set up to implement the 468 strategy, that’s all that’s needed to start. Many people are not interested in donating to previous campaigns that lost but will be on board for building a new nationwide coalition of committed democrats and patriots who want to return America to its founding ideals. We should look at the project as starting from ground zero and then support candidates who can transmit the message.

I am a single voice in the political wilderness and a political neophyte. But if you agree, spread the word. Get the idea out there. Start building the foundation to restore political balance in America. We are living the results of an ultra-conservative campaign that has worked silently for 40 years to seize the reins of power. If you don’t agree with any, or even just some of their policies, now is the time to step up and begin a people’s movement to re-establish sanity in government and restore the founding principles of the Republic and our democracy.

January 10th, 2025

~ Gordon Mott ~ Leave a comment

This is a speech I gave to my 50th Class Reunion at Harvard College in May, 2024.

*******

From Newsman to Novelist

I’m a Watergate journalist. I came to my senior year pretty much adrift, no idea of what I wanted to do with my life. I’m class of ’74 but graduated in 1975 after a year off backpacking through Latin America. In the summer of 1974, I was inspired by the Washington Post investigation that led to Nixon’s resignation. It gave me the first hint of a career I might love where I could satisfy my thirst for adventure and also make a difference. I joined the Crimson my senior year and right after college I scored a full-time job at the Associated Press in New York. My Phd in news writing and reporting was under the gaze of grizzled chain-smoking wire service men…they were not impressed with my Harvard credentials. In July 1978 to my surprise, I was sent to Mexico City as a foreign correspondent. Six weeks after arrival there, I was in Managua, Nicaragua at the outset of the Sandinista revolution with gunfire outside my hotel. It was terrifying. But I was bursting with idealism and the belief that I could change the world.

Where did that idealism go? First it slammed into the ugliness of those violent conflicts in Nicaragua and then El Salvador. It was a rude awakening for a naive Harvard graduate. What had been idealism slipped into cynicism. It was made worse by a moderate case of PTSD, caused by seeing colleagues killed and the horrific violence of Salvadoran death squads. The world became a dark place.

I also confronted the limits of short 600 word news stories, especially when any hint of editorializing would be edited out. Rightfully so, but it highlighted how hard it was to actually change people’s minds. It was a lesson that would later fuel my desires to write fiction.

After Central America, my wife Donna, also class of ’74, and I moved to Paris for her job. I was a freelancer at the time, and I began work on a novel based on El Salvador. I still have my rejection letters…somewhere. I was really discouraged and still depressed. Between unpublished fiction and meager freelance fees, I needed to earn a living. We moved back to New York where I looked for work anywhere in journalism. I became a magazine editor and spent the next 25 years of my career, first at Newsweek, then with Wine Spectator and Cigar Aficionado. Instead of covering wars, I educated myself about wine, food AND cigars, and enlightened people about those pleasures, or vices, if you prefer.

During those years in New York, I also worked with a psychiatrist who helped relieve most of my PTSD. We talked a lot about my frustrated desire to write MY FICTION. One day, now about 20 years ago, he bluntly challenged me, “Do you have anything to say or not?”

I didn’t have an answer.

In the publishing world, there’s a saying: “Everyone has a book inside them … and that’s where it should stay.” With that skepticism toward first time fiction authors and my previous disappointments weighing on me, I asked myself: Did I have something to say? My enthusiasm for my editor’s job had worn thin; the great editor Harold Evans once said you shouldn’t spend more than five years in an editor’s chair or you get stale. I spent 20.

But the urge to write fiction simply wouldn’t go away. In the beginning, I carved out time every day on my train commute between our home and New York City, free of work and interruption for 45 minutes. The plot of my first novel, 10/10, took shape there, a dramatic tale that drew on my struggles with PTSD and my brush with 9/11. The plot explored how trauma changes people’s lives, a story I hoped would touch people, without attention-grabbing headlines.

But I couldn’t finish the book.

In 2014, Donna and I embarked on our next big adventure. We moved to Mexico, in part to get us out of a rut, in part to free me from my 9 to 5. I finished 10/10 after we got there. Why did it take so long to finish my first novel? As long as I still had that demanding editor’s job, fiction writing never topped my priorities. I also kept running up against my previous disappointments and insecurity about my writing. Through multiple drafts and several extensive rewrites, the story kept morphing until it was finally finished in 2018 and published in 2019.

I’m just getting started.

My next novel 20/20 tackles insurrection and the political and social turbulence caused by January 6th, 2021. 20/20 is clear eyed view of segregation and racism. I witnessed those first hand when my high school in north Florida was abruptly desegregated by the Supreme Court my senior year. Today’s extremist ideologies still promote those injustices. Yes, there is a 30/30 outline, an exploration of male friendship and journalism. I admit there’s no 40/40 story yet, but my Harvard experience is a leading contender. 50/50 is a Cain and Abel tale set in Central America, told through the lives of twin brothers on opposite sides of a civil war.

My fiction work illustrates the point of today’s seminar. I do still have something to say. After too many years, and too many hours, fighting pointless Facebook battles over Covid, the former president, and other contentious topics, 20/20 has given me an outlet to counter that frustration.

My voice, these books, are my way to be heard. I also hope that the books, the stories, will outlive me and be read, if only by family members in future generations. They seem more permanent than ephemeral news stories with my byline that would be read without context.

Legacy.

A permanent record.

That’s why I’m writing novels and why I’m not done yet.

January 6th, 2025

~ Gordon Mott ~ 1 Comment

Deja vu, Again

Jan. 6th 2024— the date of my last blog. It seems fitting to post my first blog of 2025 on Jan. 6th, an unforgettable anniversary in American history. Today’s blog contains much the same message posted over a year ago. I committed then to writing more, and more often, about the things I cared about. At the time, I intended to write about whatever interested me, not just politics. My files include unpublished blogs about sneakers (yeah, go figure that one out) and Thomas Paine. But most blogs focused on my feelings about the upcoming presidential election. In those files is also the finished first draft of my second novel, 20/20. But the blogs and the book’s very political themes ran into my anxiety about exposing myself to the virulent, divisive political and social climate in the United States. My writing sat abandoned for most of the year. I don’t want the same outcome in 2025.

My resolutions and goals have foundered in the past, undermined by my lack of confidence, or the vicissitudes of life, or just plain procrastination often fueled by the two other excuses. 2024 was no different. By the post-Nov. 5 shock, my silence slid into isolation, walled off from the public, depressed by the election’s outcome, and puzzled by why people voted the way they did. But in my deep personal angst, I was mostly disappointed in myself that I had remained silent throughout the year; yes, there is hubris in that assessment. After all, who am I and why would my voice matter? Even though my fiction writing is one of the most important things in my life today, I let 20/20 languish too.

My underlying anxiety hasn’t disappeared, but the lingering internal turmoil has slowly morphed into a realization that artists and journalists need to find their voice in times of stress and discord. Now is the time. My internal struggles won’t magically disappear nor will the anxiety over inserting myself into the public debate. I can’t be sure on this morning in early 2025 that I will be able to surmount the obstacles that thwart me.

I’m not going to make any promises either. But I know where to start. Later this week, I will reprint my speech to my Class of ’74 reunion at Harvard College last May. I was one of about 10 people speaking to the theme, “I Still Have Something to Say.” The title of my speech was “From Newsman to Novelist.” After that, I hope to keep a bi-monthly schedule. And, at some point this year, I will publish 20/20.

Now is the time for all good people to speak up. We may each be a voice in the wilderness but a thousand voices might be heard amidst the din of falsehoods and disinformation. I hope my message won’t be shouting and arguing, nor the responses either. But it’s time to restore essential components of a functioning democracy — debate and compromise. I also plan to speak to one of the topics I know well: Mexico, especially its culture.