“Americans spend a lot of time discussing, and being angry, about the situation at our border with Mexico,” notes National Review’s Jim Geraghty, “but comparably little time discussing what’s going on in Mexico.” Indeed, the border has been a major crisis for the last three years, and without big changes here, that’s unlikely to change. Geraghty explores the issue south of the border.

My guess is you haven’t heard much about Mexico’s new president, Claudia Sheinbaum, and to the extent you have seen U.S. coverage of Mexico’s election results, it has been “yas queen!” cheerleading for Mexico’s first female, and Jewish, president. But life for the average Mexican has gotten worse in the past six years or so under President Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO). Maybe the economy has done okay and trade has picked up, but the violence of the cartels is as bad as ever, and AMLO has been steadily picking away at the checks and balances within the Mexican government and expanding the power of the presidency. Right now, it looks like Sheinbaum will keep moving in the same direction, perhaps becoming a de facto puppet of AMLO. American socialists are thrilled at the landslide victory of a leftist populist scientist — and the happier the self-professed socialists are, the worse the road ahead appears. …

Earlier this year, new evidence emerged contending that AMLO had been cozy with the notorious Sinaloa Cartel for a long time, while the record of the cartel’s extensive and lucrative ties to China — in production of fentanyl and methamphetamine — grew clearer and clearer. That discovery barely made a ripple in the U.S. news cycle.

Nor did many Americans notice in April when Mexico’s national police agencies contradicted AMLO’s spectacularly implausible claim that no fentanyl is produced in Mexico.

Geraghty quotes an Associated Press report detailing that assertion before concluding, “You cannot solve a problem if you refuse to acknowledge it exists.”

Perhaps it’s just bad luck for Mexico that the presidential election occurred two days after the first conviction of a former U.S. president, an event destined to dominate the U.S. news cycle for at least a week. To the extent that the U.S. media has noticed Mexico’s next president, former Mexico City mayor Claudia Sheinbaum, it has mostly offered shallow assessments and “yas queen!” cheerleading for Mexico’s first female, and Jewish, president.

Don’t be fooled, though. Sheinbaum is Jewish in name only and certainly isn’t going “to become an outspoken advocate for Israel on the world stage.”

How far to the left is Sheinbaum? Far enough for the Associated Press to feel comfortable labeling her “a leftist.” (For perspective, the AP calls Bernie Sanders a “liberal icon.”)

Sheinbaum is AMLO’s protégé; there’s little reason to think she’ll represent a significantly different philosophy in governing.

Geraghty cites several others to prove his point, including The Economist, David Frum, Bloomberg, Jacobin magazine, the Financial Times, and the Los Angeles Times. He concludes:

I want you to imagine a country suffering more than 560 violent attacks against candidates for public office, with 34 candidates or aspiring candidates getting assassinated, and the winning candidate not putting the issue of violence front and center in her campaign.

I’d say the results of the Mexican election are bad news, but the Mexican people have made their decision, and the U.S. government has no choice but to try to work with Sheinbaum’s administration for the next six years.

Read the whole thing here.