AMLO and Trump — the odd couple that could oddly narrow the U.S.-Mexico gap

More disturbing is the gang violence raging in Mexico and threatening the U.S. Drug cartels have murdered some 113 election candidates since September, and have taken over previously uncorrupted governments in running up toward the U.S. border. Even northern Mexican cities like Guanajuato and Queretaro, whose modern infrastructure and clean local government attracted much post-NAFTA foreign investment, have suffered murder waves.

You might argue this is no more dangerous than the organized crime and violence in heavy-immigration zones in the U.S. a century ago — unnerving for some years but eventually a manageable problem.

And there’s endemic corruption in government and law enforcement — mostly invisible for years, the distinguished Mexican historian Enrique Krauze argues in the New York Times, but now out in the open.