Mediaboss Marketing

An adapted excerpt from"Demagoguery and Democracy"by Patricia Roberts-Miller. Reprinted with permission of The Experiment. Available wherever books are sold.

Demagoguery is about identity. It says that complicated policy issues can be reduced to a binary ofus(good) versusthem(bad). It says that good people recognize there is a bad situation, and bad people dont; therefore, to determine what policy agenda is the best, it says we should think entirely in terms of who is like us and who isnt. In American politics, it becomes Republican versus Democrat or conservative versus liberal. That polarized and factionalized way of approaching public discourse virtually guarantees demagogues, on all sorts of issues, and in all sorts of directions. Demagoguery is a serious problem, as it undermines the ability of a community to come to reasonable policy decisions and tends to promote or justify violence, but its rarely the consequence of an individual who magically transports a culture into a different world. Demagoguery isnt about what politicians do; its about how we, as citizens, argue, reason, and vote. Therefore, reducing how much our culture relies on demagoguery is our problem, and up to us to solve.

Thats a complicatedand uncomfortableargument, and its one that needs to start with an argument about what public discourse in a democracy should be, how we should (and shouldnt) define demagoguery, how demagoguery works, what a culture of demagoguery looks like, and what we can do about it.

* * *

Demagoguery depoliticizes politics, in that it says we dont have to argue policies, and can just rouse ourselves to new levels of commitment tousand purify our community or nation ofthem. It says that we are in such a desperate situation that we can no longer affordthemthe same treatment we want forus. But demagoguery rarelystartsby calling for the literal extermination of the out-group.

Demagoguery isnt a disease or infection; its more like algae in a pond. Algae can be benignin small amounts, even helpful. But if the conditions of the pond are such that the algae begins to crowd out other kinds of pond life and ecological processes, then it creates an environment in which nothing but algae can thrive, and so more algae leads to yet more. Thats what demagoguery can do, create an environment of more and more demagoguery. Then, for people competing for media markets, consumers, voters, and so on, demagoguery is likely to be the more effective rhetorical strategy, and more rhetors will choose it. And rhetors have to out-demagogue each other to get attention, buyers, voters.

Weimar Germany (the world in which the Nazis rose) had a lot of problemsintermittently high inflation, high unemployment, a highly factionalized media (much of which promoted racist conspiracy theories), and a government hamstrung by political parties that, making a virtue of fanatical commitment to purity, demonized the normal politics of compromise, deliberation, and argumentation. Those were serious problems, and none of them were going to go away on their own. Its generally argued that World War I was a consequence of nationalism, militarism, and wishful thinking. There were, therefore, multiple causes of Germanys woesbut Hitler never talked about those causes. Instead of trying to reduce factionalism, nationalism, militarism, and wishful thinking, or come up with economic solutions, Hitler argued that all of Germanys problems, especially its having lost the war, but including its current economic ones, could be traced to two real problems: a weakness of will and the presence of alien bodies. Germany needed, he said,morefanatical factionalism, nationalism, militarism, and wishful thinking, which it could achieve by purifying itself ofthem.

He wasnt the only one to blame Germanys problems onthem, although there was some disagreement as to whotheywere. For the Bolsheviks it was capitalists and liberals; for fascists it was Bolsheviks (who were mysteriously interchangeable with Jews) and liberals; for many Christians the problem was the Jews; for others it was union leaders; and the Sinti and Roma were commonly characterized as degraded and criminal. There wasnt much agreement in Weimar political discourse, but there was nearly perfect agreement that the problem was the presence of a bad sort of person. The ill part of the policy argument was truncated tothem. Hitler may be the most famous example of a German rhetor who engaged in this kind of demagoguery, but he didnt invent it.

This kind of rhetoric is the first step on what the sociologist Michael Mann has identified as a journey that can end in genocide, classicide, or politicidethat is, mass murder on the basis of race, class, or ideology. I envision this journey more as a ladder, because each step to a higher rung raises the risk of harm (not just to democracy but physical harm, too). But its important to remember that communities that reach that final rung rarely start out with an explicitly exterminationist political agenda. Instead, they start out with a world in which the ill is reduced to the presence of some infecting group, and this reduction doesnt happen as the consequence of one rhetorical magician waving a word-wand. It happens because a lot of people are making that kind of argument. Hitler couldnt have come to power, let alone tame the Reichstag, hogtie the dissenting press, and hamstring the judiciary, if Weimar Germany hadnt been a culture of demagoguery.

The lowest rung on the ladder is simply a lot of us versus them rhetoric, and multiple groups might be engaged in it with each other. After all, in Weimar Germany, Nazis werent the only anti-Semitic, Aryanist nationalist group. Soviet-supported communist groups (not all communist groups were Soviet-supported) similarly said it was an absolutely stark choice between them and everyone else, and they famously refused to compromise with liberal or moderate groups. During segregation in the United States, numerous states had laws grounded in what whites versus coloreds could do, not just Southern states. In the 1960s, while the radical rightwing group the John Birch Society called everyone to its left communist, the radical left-wing group the Weathermen called everyone to its right fascist. Right now, the GOP is engulfed in an argument about who is or is not a RINO (Republican in Name Only), and the Dems seem poised to engage in exactly the kind of purity war that has never served them well.

If everyone agrees that demagoguery is bad, and if there is good evidence that it pushes communities in a direction that can end in genocide, why does anyone engage in it? Why do we climb that ladder?

* * *

Good disagreements are the bedrock of communities. Good disagreements happen when people with different kinds of expertise and points of view talk and listen to one another, and when we try, honestly and pragmatically, to determine the best course of action for our whole community. Our differences make our decisions stronger. Democracy presumes that we can behave as one community, caring together for our common life, and disagreeing productively and honestly with one another. Demagoguery rejects that pragmatic acceptance and even valuing of disagreement in favor of a world of certainty, purity, and silencing of dissent.

Demagoguery is about sayingweare never wrong;theyare. If we made a mistake,theyare to blame;weare always in touch with what is true and right. There is no such thing as a complicated problem; there are just people trying to complicate things. Even listening tothemis a kind of betrayal. Allweneed to do is whatweall know to be the right thing. And its very, very pleasurable. It tells us were good, and theyre bad, that we were right all along, and that we dont need to think about things carefully or admit were uncertain. It provides clarity.

Democracy is about disagreement, uncertainty, complexity, and making mistakes. Its about having to listen to arguments you think are obviously completely wrong; its about being angry with other people, and their being angry with you. Democracy is about having to listen, and compromise, and its about being wrong (and admitting it). Its about guessingbecause the world is complicatedthe best course of action, and trying to look at things from various perspectives, and letting people with those various perspectives participate in the conversation.

Democracy is hard; demagoguery is easy.

Read more here:
Demagoguery vs. democracy: How us vs. them can lead to state-led violence - Salon

"All peoples have the right of self-determination. By virtue of that right they freely determine their political status and freely pursue their economic, social and cultural development."

Article 1 in the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR)

This Sunday, Puerto Ricans will cast their votes in a political-status referendum, exercising their democratic right to decide the islands future. Self-determination is central to the rights of all Americans citizens, including Puerto Ricans, and it is arguably the defining principle of our democracy.

Unfortunately, even after 100 years of U.S. citizenship, and after hundreds of thousands of Puerto Ricans have served in the U.S. Armed Forces during wartime and peacetime, the more than 3.4 million residents of Puerto Rico lack rights equal to those of American citizens living in U.S. states. As an unincorporated U.S. territory, we cannot vote for the U.S. president, nor do we have voting representation in Congress. Yet, we are subject to federal laws which treat us unequally.

The passage of the Puerto Rico Oversight, Management, and Economic Stability Act (PROMESA) last year further limits our local self-governance. More importantly, Puerto Rico's current territory status has led to a multitude of unequal, inconsistent, and disjointed federal laws and policies that have severely limited the islands development, and contributed greatly to the current fiscal, economic and demographic crisis that is the worst in our history.

This includes the Medicaid Cliff, a disaster averted in the short-term, that may yet cost as many as 600,000 American citizens and at least 93,000 family members of veterans access to healthcare benefits they would receive as residents of any U.S. state. The crisis has also led to a staggering exodus of young Americans from Puerto Rico, over 400,000 in the last decade alone, which robs our communities of innovation and inspiration, and increases costs for states at the receiving end of this migration as well as for the federal government.

To truly address Puerto Ricos immediate and long-term prospects for economic growth and prosperity, it is essential to resolve the current unequal and undemocratic territory status that has persisted for over 100 years. After the 2012 plebiscite on Puerto Rico's political status where a clear majority (54 percent) opposed continuing the current territory status and among those that voted for a non-territorial option 61 percent supported statehood Congress asked the Government of Puerto Rico to carry out a voter education campaign and a new plebiscite on, "options that would resolve Puerto Rico's future political status."

Accordingly, on June 11, 2017, millions of Puerto Ricans will participate in a plebiscite to definitively answer this question, by choosing between statehood, free association/independence, or current territorial status.

The inclusion of the last option retaining the status quo is directly tied to Governor Ricardo Rossells commitment to ensure the plebiscites legitimacy and in correspondence with the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) April 13th letter after their review of the original plebiscite ballot. There should not be any doubt that after the polls close on Sunday, the results must be considered to be the freely expressed will of the Puerto Rican people and a genuine act of self-determination. To further assure the transparency of the democratic process, the Puerto Rico Department of State has invited an independent-bipartisan group of respected political leaders to the island as electoral observers to oversee the process.

Importantly, the plebiscite also represents an important step in relation to the current reform process happening in Puerto Rico under PROMESA, and is representative of a demand to definitively define the future status of an island and people that need certainty in a time of incredible turmoil. I urge Congress to recognize the results of the upcoming plebiscite as what they are a legitimate, defining expression of self-determination, keeping in mind that resolving the status is not merely an important issue, it is the central issue for Puerto Rico.

If nothing changes and our failed territory status continues, overcoming this economic crisis will take far longer and require far more investment than ever needed before. It will only delay the islands economic, social and cultural recovery. Without the opportunity for self-determination, residents of Puerto Rico will be denied the opportunity to develop and contribute to the great American mosaic.

Congress must resolve Puerto Ricos status to unleash its full potential.

Carlos Mercader is the Executive Director of the Puerto Rico Federal Affairs Administration.

Continued here:
Puerto Rico - The time for democracy is now - Fox News

Leftist faction lecturing Republicans about decency, national security, rule of laws, punches political opponents in the face, creates back channels to Islamic terrorists, smuggles billions to fund their terror, sends the IRS after their enemies

Heres the good news.

Its 2017 and Republicans control the White House, the Senate, the House and more statewide offices than you can shake a big bundle of fake news papers at. And, potentially soon, a Supreme Court that takes its guidelines from the Constitution not Das Kapital and the National Social Justice Party.

Heres the bad news, Republicans are still Republicans.

The media throws some chum in the water and sits back and watches the bloody fun as Republicans go after Republicans for the entertainment of their enemies. Scandals are manufactured and then strategically aimed to divide and conquer Republicans. But the real target is the conservative agenda.

At the heart of the controversy over all these manufactured fake news scandals are two vital questions.

The left has answered No to both questions. The first question was answered in the negative because the second answer was Never.

Republicans have varied reactions to Trump. Leftists have only one reaction to anyone to the right of them. Its the same reaction you get if you send an ISIS member into Temple Beth Shalom. If President Kasich were in the White House, you would be reading in the Washington Post how he singlehandedly brought back the Klan, causes Bursitis and is secretly doing the bidding of the Brazilians.

Its a swamp of innuendo based on anonymous sources, investigations fed by illegal eavesdropping, scandals in which the outrage comes before the evidence whose purpose is to overturn an election. These arent investigations. Theyre a coup by the losing side that refuses to admit it lost a presidential election. The coup isnt just aimed at President Trump or any single member of his administration.

Its aimed at America, at democracy and at any policy to the right of free entitlements and no freedoms.

If you believe in free speech, the right to keep what you earn, freedom of conscience, free elections, a free press, rule of the people by the people, Plymouth Rock, a little piece of paper out of Independence Hall, emancipation, reason, art, literature, history and civil rights, the coup is aimed at you.

The three things that Republicans dont get, in order of descending importance, are that the left hates anyone to the right, that it wants absolute power and that it will do anything to destroy its enemies.

Yes, the left really hates you. It doesnt care that youre socially liberal and fiscally conservative or the other way around. It doesnt care if you agree with it on 99.9% of the issues. It will still hang you from a lamppost in Portland or Berkeley because of that 0.1%. If you doubt that, look at how many Communists survived Stalin and Mao. Or how Joe Lieberman went from the vice presidential nominee to a right-wing extremist because he believed that terrorism was a bad thing or how Joe Manchin is an honorary Republican because he does controversial things like vote to approve a presidents cabinet nominees.

Theres no room in the Democrat Party for democrats. There sure as hell isnt any for Republicans.

The left is obsessed with political purity. It wants absolute power. There is no room in there for compromise. Either you are with them or you are the enemy. And fair game for anything.

There are two things at stake here. A conservative political agenda and free elections. Any complicity with the coup undermines both. If the results of a presidential election can be retroactively annulled by powerful political interests in the establishment and the media, we lose free elections. People stop voting. Many of those people will be conservatives, independents or otherwise to the right of the left.

No conservative agenda will ever be passed without conservative solidarity. Until the left gets the message that it will never overturn the results of this last election, it will keep trying. Conservatives can squash this fascist fantasy only by making it clear that there will never be an impeachment and that they will respond to investigations the way that Rep. Elijah Cummings did to the investigation of Benghazi.The leftist faction lecturing Republicans about decency, national security and the rule of laws punches political opponents in the face, creates back channels to Islamic terrorists in Iran, smuggles billions to fund their terror, and sends the IRS after political opponents. Is their moral authority worth anything?

Republicans can follow the rules and eat their own. And then maybe when theyve hung each other to show what noble souls they are, the media will recognize their goodness. Its never worked before. But theres always a last time. Just ask the last man through the gulag gates.

Daniel Greenfield is a New York City writer and columnist. He is a Shillman Journalism Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center and his articles appears at its Front Page Magazine site.

Daniel can be reached at: .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)

Please adhere to our commenting policy to avoid being banned. As a privately owned website, we reserve the right to remove any comment and ban any user at any time.

Comments that contain spam, advertising, vulgarity, threats of violence, racism, anti-Semitism, or personal or abusive attacks on other users may be removed and result in a ban. -- Follow these instructions on registering:

Continued here:
The Plot Against Democracy - Canada Free Press

This post is part of Polyarchy, an independent blog produced by the political reform program at New America, a Washington think tank devoted to developing new ideas and new voices.

American democracy is in a downward spiral. Well, really two downward spirals.

The first is the downward spiral of bipolar partisanship, in which both sides increasingly demonize each other as the enemy, and refuse to compromise and cooperate an escalating arms race that is now going beyond mere gridlock and threatening basic democratic norms.

The second is the downward spiral of distrust between citizens and elites, in which citizens treat corrupt and establishment as interchangeable terms. The public consensus is that politicians are self-serving, not to be trusted. In this logic, only more public participation can make politicians serve the people.

These two downward spirals are related. The less we trust politicians, the more we try to hold them accountable. But the more we try to hold them accountable the more we get intractable partisanship, because the we who are trying to hold politicians accountable are the same we who always do the most participating. The most engaged citizens, political scientists have known for years, are almost always the most partisan citizens, and/or those who have the most narrow and high-stakes interests in policy outcomes.

But to say we should participate less, and give politicians more freedom to operate without constant public input, seems off. It cuts against our well-developed, pro-democracy reflexes.

It also cuts against the conventional wisdom narrative weve heard for years: The reason that politics has gone batty is because the average citizen has no say. The average citizen is moderate, reasonable, civic-minded. The average citizen wants politicians to stop fighting with each other, and stop serving the interests of wealthy elites, and do whats right. If only the average citizen got better informed, participated more, and had more power, politicians would stop fighting, and start serving the people instead of the interests. Therefore, we need to find more ways to empower this average citizen.

Weve been waiting for this mythical average citizen to show up and claim her rightful place in our politics for quite a long time now. But like Godot, she never seems to arrive. As our politics drowns in a flood of bipolar partisan passion, it makes us all look like the proverbial statistician who drowned in a river that was, on average, 3 feet deep.

Slowly though, a new understanding is starting to emerge, that no matter how much we put our faith in public participation, this average citizen will not save us, and worse, that all our attempts to give power to the people may have distracted us from doing the things that might have made our democracy function better paying attention to the rules of our institutions and the role of political leadership.

The latest salvo in this reckoning is a new Brookings Institution paper from Jonathan Rauch and Benjamin Wittes, More professionalism, less populism: How voting makes us stupid, and what to do about it.

Rauch and Wittes bemoan that, for decades, the overwhelming trend has been disintermediation reducing the role of parties, professionals, and experts. For the authors, the movement to push aside intermediaries, such as the smoke-filled rooms where party elders brokered nominations and the closed committee meetings where members of Congress dickered, has not produced greater public confidence in the governments effectiveness or representativeness. Instead, it has made it harder for government institutions to function.

Efforts to open up the political process may come from a good place. But those who take advantage are almost always the wealthier, better organized, and most partisan not exactly the mythical average citizen reformers always envision taking advantage. As voters, we all make irrational, emotional choices (based on the groups which we belong to). We are myopic. We dont do trade-off well. We are all flawed humans.

Rauch and Wittes are building on some important recent political science work. Most prominently, they draw on Christopher Achen and Larry Bartelss widely discussed 2016 book Democracy for Realists, which marshaled impressive and almost irrefutable evidence that the folk theory of democracy that citizens hold politicians accountable through elections was based on a set of feel-good fantasies about citizen competence that just dont hold up under extensive scrutiny.

They also build on Bruce Cains equally important but less widely discussed 2015 book, Democracy More or Less, which thinks harder about what to do about the fact that average citizens are not and never will be either motivated or equipped to do all the things we expect of them. So whereas Achen and Bartelss concluding point is mostly to shrug their shoulders and say well, maybe we just need to accept that all politics is identity and group politics and build new normative theories of democracy, Cain moves much closer toward actual framework for doing just that what he calls the pluralist approach.

In Cains telling, this pluralist approach accepts the reality that there are empirical limits to citizen interest and knowledge and that interested individuals and organizations must inevitably carry out some representation. It prioritizes aggregation, consensus, and fluid coalitions as means of good democratic governance. It recognizes that good political design incorporates the informal patterns of governance as well as the formal processes of government. Moreover, it relies on democratic contestation between interest groups and political parties to foster accountability. (I advocate a similar approach in my 2016 paper, Political Dynamism.)

Rauch and Wittes also lean in this direction. They do not want to cut citizens out entirely. Participation, they write is a vital good to the political system that is not replaceable by other means: It provides the consent of the governed and the renewal of that consent on a regular basis Voters are not policymakers, but they are the force that gives authority to policymakers. Persistently low rates of voter turnout erode that authority.

Id also call forth here an important and related 2016 Brookings Institution paper from Philip Wallach, The administrative states legitimacy crisis. It makes eloquent points about the need to balance public legitimacy with institutional expertise, advocating a middle ground that is neither populist nor technocratic.

Like Wallach, Rauch and Wittes also are also not willing to put complete faith in an insulated technocracy or political expert class. They note that better decisions come when specialist and professional judgment occurs in combination with public judgment (their italics).

This leads to the following conclusion: Who, then, should be in charge: the voters, or the professionals? The answer, of course, is both. In a hybrid system, they are forced to consult each other, providing distinct but complimentary screens.

But this poses an obvious problem: How can both be in charge? Rauch and Wittes, along with Cain and Wallach, point us toward the right direction: better intermediaries. But where are the models of better intermediaries?

In theory, better intermediaries (politicians, parties, interest groups) are capable of helping citizens collectively realize their interests in ways that they wouldnt be able to do individually.

But in practice, intermediaries may be just as likely to manipulate individuals for their own power, without necessarily helping them to realize their interests any better. In particular, Rauch and Wittess assertion that the leaders of political parties and congressional committees worry about the long-term health of their institutions, and so they often take a longer view seems at odds with considerable recent evidence. Certainly, in an ideal world, they would. But they havent for a long time.

Would the Republican Party be more moderate and problem-solving if only Mitch McConnell and Paul Ryan had more freedom to wheel and deal behind the scenes, and more money to lord over more extreme members of their party, and more earmarks to win their complicity? I have a hard time imagining this. All I see is them pushing an extreme agenda themselves, while finding new and creative ways to defend a president who is blatantly unfit for office, and then attacking Democrats.

Perhaps we have a particularly pusillanimous and cynical set of leaders now because politics became too participatory and too transparent. But Id challenge Rauch and Wittes to offer a counter-factual political history, in which the parties dont polarize to their current extremes because there were fewer opportunities for citizen participation (while also accounting for the same underlying demographics and economic conditions, and the same campaign finance laws). Moreover, given the rise of post-materialist values that put a premium on self-expression everywhere in advanced industrial democracies West, I wonder if this would have even been possible.

Perhaps parties should take greater control of their nominating processes (a common argument these days). But keep in mind that in 1964, it was Republican delegates, not Republican primary voters, who chose Barry Goldwater, an extremist candidate. That was before parties made their public primaries binding, starting in 1972. Had Republican delegates, not primary voters, been in charge in 2016, its not clear who they would have chosen, since the party itself was quite internally split.

Most of the major American democratizing reforms happened in the early 20th century, not the late 20th century. Yet it wasnt until recent decades, when polarization and inequality both started to increase, that American politics went steadily downhill. And the past several decades have not exactly been a time of civic flourishing in America.

In short, while I agree that expanding citizen participation will not save American democracy, for many of the reasons Rauch and Wittes (and others) discuss, Im equally skeptical that previous efforts to expand citizen participation somehow caused American politics to go insane, as Rauch argued in a widely discussed Atlantic article.

Where do we go from here? Especially at a time when a new wave of citizen energy and participation are getting many excited.

First, its important to acknowledge the new citizen engagement for what it is: the familiar response of out-party partisans feeling threatened after losing an election. As left-leaning opponents of Trump, we might welcome this because finally, our side is getting energized. But lets not pretend this is the solution to our democracy in decline. This is still not the long-awaited coming of independent, rational, average citizens exercising independent, rational, judgment to save our democracy, nor will it ever be.

Second, lets come to terms with what political science has known for decades, some of which my colleague Chayenne Polimdio has written about here. Citizens as individuals have limited capacity. For democracy to work, they need intermediaries politicians, parties, interest groups to help them achieve power and representation. All politics is group politics, because we are all by nature group animals. It would be weird and unnatural if politics were otherwise. The idea of the individual, rational citizen is a myth.

Third, and this is the key point: We need to think harder about what good intermediation looks like. What are the conditions under which intermediaries help citizens collectively achieve meaningful representation? And what are the conditions under which intermediaries just exploit citizens for their own power? What are the conditions under which intermediaries work together to achieve compromise and consensus and legitimacy? And what are the conditions under which intermediaries tear each other apart and take down institutions with them? History is replete with examples across these spectra.

Absent good answers to the intermediation dilemma, the current downward spiral will continue. Politicians are not going to get along with each other and do the right thing when everything in the political system pushes them into zero-sum, bipolar competition for power. And making it easier for citizens to participate in their democracy as an end in itself is not going to do any good without more thought given to the all-important question of How?

My current view is that nature of the two-party system, which is quite unique to America among advanced industrial democracies, deserves much more blame than it has received. American parties have always been institutionally weak by comparative standards, because the two-party system forces parties to be large big-tent coalitions.

In our current politics, party leaders have compensated for this by turning up the negative partisanship, tearing down the other side to just be the lesser of two evils. Multi-party systems generally produce stronger parties, because parties are freer to more directly represent different groups in society. In a multi-party system, parties cant survive simply by being the lesser of two evils.

But heres the bottom line: Weve collectively spent decades trying to call forth this mythical average citizen and empower her to save our democracy. Weve made no Plan B for the possibility that she is indeed a myth. Were now realizing she is indeed a myth. Its now time to come up with that Plan B, and fast.

Visit link:
What if more public participation can't save American democracy? - Vox

Mexican President Enrique Pea Nieto called for the defense of free trade, democracy and environmental protections during an appearance Friday with German Chancellor Angela Merkel.

Though neither Pea Nieto nor Merkel mentioned President Trump by name during their joint news conference in Mexico City, his pugnacious relationship with both countries was the backdrop for much of what they had to say.

Pea Nieto said Merkels two-day state visit comes at a crucial time for the world.

It is extremely important to defend the values we share, he said.

Those values include free trade, a principle at the core of Mexicos relationship with the United States, and one Trump has threatened in an attempt to erase a trade gap of roughly $60 billion in Mexicos favor.

They also include combating climate change, Pea Nieto said. After Trump this month announced he will be withdrawing the U.S. from the Paris climate agreement, Mexico and Germany both announced they would stay in the accord and press forward.

In her remarks, Merkel emphasized the importance of nations having relationships with a wide range of countries instead of relying on alliances with just a few.

In recent weeks, as Trump has attacked Germany for its trade surplus with the U.S. and for not spending enough on defense to meet its commitment to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, Merkel has said that Europe can no longer rely on its longtime ally, the United States. Europeans, she said at a recent campaign rally in Munich, must take our fate into our own hands.

Some political scientists viewed Merkels visit to Mexico as an attempt to forge a global leadership role amid what some see as a possible rearrangement of international alliances in the Trump era. Before the trip, Germanys ambassador to Mexico called Merkels visit a sign of solidarity with the Latin American nation, which has been one of Trumps favorite targets since he launched his campaign for president in 2015.

If that was her goal, Merkel did not obviously embrace it Friday night. She side-stepped questions from journalists that would have offered her the chance to criticize Trump, and she declined to address a question about whether she is taking on a new global leadership role.

Rather, Merkel focused on the importance of the upcoming Group of 20 summit and emphasized the importance of her countrys trade relationship with Mexico, which is valued at $18 billion. Merkel traveled to Mexico with a large delegation of German business leaders looking to broaden an existing trade agreement with the European Union by the end of the year.

Though Merkel repeatedly praised Mexico, she also took the opportunity to gently scold Pea Nieto on his nations human rights record. She spoke of the importance of protecting journalists, who are killed in Mexico at an alarmingly high rate, and about bringing to justice those behind Mexicos high number of forced disappearances.

"It is important to punish and find the culprits; it is vitally important," Merkel said.

The two leaders have a series of events and more talks scheduled for Saturday.

kate.linthicum@latimes.com

Twitter: @katelinthicum

The rest is here:
Meeting with Merkel, Mexican president calls for defense of democracy 'at a crucial time for the world' - Los Angeles Times