As a kid in a Spanish-speaking household, I remember all of those folk stories about “el coco.” He is like the Spanish version of the Boogeyman, or the monster you are afraid of when you are a kid.

Down in Mexico, “el coco” is President Trump.  The left is going crazy and preparing for an invasion of Mexico.  The right doesn’t know what to make of him, but its members do share some of his concerns about the cartels.

Senator Rubio’s confirmation hearings for secretary of state are the latest in the “el coco” episodes, especially all of the talk about cartels controlling territory south of the border.  This is from Pulse News Mexico:

On Thursday, Jan. 16, Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum Pardo (CSP) responded to U.S. Secretary of State nominee Marco Rubio’s statements that Mexico and the United States should work together on combating organized crime, saying in her daily morning press conference that “Mexico is ready to collaborate.”

During his U.S. Senate confirmation hearing on Wednesday, Jan.15, Rubio publicly said he would prefer to work hand-in-hand with Mexico against drug cartels rather than use military force to combat the organized crime groups.

“These sophisticated transnational terrorist organizations have operational and functional control over huge swaths of areas that border the United States of America,” Rubio said at the time. “It is important for us not just to go after these groups but to identify them and call them for what they are, which is terroristic in their nature.”

“I think there’s a lot we can and we’ll continue to do in close partnership with our allies in Mexico,” continued the nominee. “I think there’s more they can do as well to confront this challenge, and my preference would be, from the Department of State’s perspective, my preference would be that we can work with the Mexicans on this issue cooperatively because it is impacting their nation as much as ours.”

However, Rubio did not rule out the possibility of the incoming administration of U.S. President-elect Donald Trump designating Mexican drug trafficking organizations as terrorist groups while noting the potential complications that would come with said action.

Well, it’s the “not ruling out” part that got them excited.

It’s a complicated issue because most Mexicans actually agree that there are too many cartels, or too much “crimen organizado,” as they call them.  They live down there and see the violence with their own eyes.  They don’t need to read in the U.S. press that their country is violent.  It’s what everyone is talking about in social circles.

Just this week, President Sheinbaum sent more troops to Tabasco.  In Culiacán, in the super-violent state of Sinaloa, there was a massive explosion of a casino.  According to some local media, it was a “hub for a sophisticated money laundering network used to funnel illicit proceeds from the sale of fentanyl and other narcotics.”  There is no official explanation, but most locals think it was one cartel attacking another.

So Mexicans know that the violence is out of control and privately tell you that Trump is right in calling out their government.  At the same time, no one wants to come out and publicly give Trump the credit.

So Trump is “el coco,” whom everyone fears.  Well, they fear “el coco” but know that there is a bigger monster making their lives miserable.

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Image: Gage Skidmore via Flickr, CC BY-SA 2.0.