Famous son of the Rio Grande Valley, Joshua Trevino, the Chief Transformation Officer at the Texas Public Policy Institute, made a startling admission on the Hard Country podcast about Mexican Presidenta Claudia Sheinbaum. Joshua admitted he was wrong about the la presidenta, who is not a placeholder for the Morena party but a talented executive. She has better managed Mexico’s relationship with the United States than any Mexican president. Joshua observed that the Mexican government cannot guarantee public safety or clean water, but it is an expert at dealing with the United States Government.
My non-expert opinion is that Claudia Sheinbaum is a Brujas Negras (Black Witch) Curandera. Sheinbaum is a non-religious Jew and a lifelong leftist who reads every policy paper she is handed and is preternaturally alert for every second of hours-long policy meetings. She’s a disciplined, sober female version of Bill Clinton without the sex addiction or lazy disinterest in detail. The true face of evil can be found in any human who enjoys multiple, hours-long, policy meetings. It’s not natural.
Last week, I thought the Brujas Negras had struck again when I saw Grubhub had declared McAllen the most overweight and obese city in America. How had the Rio Grande Valley (RGV) suddenly become populated by food blisters? I detected the hand of bad voodoo, only to remember that polite people here never mention obesity or its downstream effects. We’ve been the fattest city in America for years, but nothing is done about it, and nobody talks about it, so it’s easy to forget.
The RGV has been shrouded in a miasma of black magic fog, the fog of woe, that allows people to ignore the obvious. The average resident should stay the hell out of Starbucks, donut shops, and double-fried taco stands. But every day, a new Starbucks, donut shop, or taco stand opens to serve people a few years away from needing daily dialysis. The Catholic Church should be battling this obvious demonic assault on the faithful. But they’re focused on illegal migrant rights because that’s where the money is. . . Or was it before DOGE uncovered the billions of dollars flowing to the dioceses from USAID to facilitate human trafficking via dozens of ‘NGOs’.
This obesity epidemic in the Rio Grande Valley has disrupted the retirement plan I established in 1985, following my first reading of Lonesome Dove. After retiring, I wanted to be an old, tricky, tough bastard living on the Rio Grande River. But there are no cattle rustlers to fight, and I wasn’t sure my plan made sense until the Narco wars started and President Trump declared them terrorists. There was no doubt that all sorts of miscreants had invaded us. I saw it with my own lying eyes for four years running. Suddenly, my dream of replicating Gus and Captain Call seemed to be answered until I researched Narco sicarios.
What happened to the tough, self-reliant Mexican peasant? Where is the self-sacrificing ethos of the Mexican soldiers who overthrew the Spanish, defeated the French, and fought with courage against the Americans?
I live close enough to the Rio Grande River to see the border wall lights at night. During the evening, I sit on my back porch, scanning the river bottoms, just like Augustus McCrae or Captain Call, but without a rifle or jug of whiskey, because I don’t want my neighbors to think I’m antisocial. This is Texas, where many people still carry a pistol, but who needs a gun to deal with pudgy nitwits? Having a charged AED at the ready, along with IV fluids, is more practical given the lack of desperados swimming the Rio Grande and the physical condition of the local population.
Who carries around an automated external defibrillator and IV kits? Sheepdogs – I know quite a few of them and we are all much happier to bring a cardiac arrest victim back to life than shooting a scumbag trying to take a life. The savings in legal fees alone make that a winning proposition. I still carry a concealed pistol in honor of Gus and Captain Call. Reality may have crushed my retirement plan, but a man can still dream.
Narcos are not a problem for the law-abiding citizens of the RGV. Many have vacation properties in the Valley and send their children to school here. Lots of Mexicans send their kids to school here, a constant source of aggravation for property tax-paying Winter Texans. This is another topic rarely discussed in polite company because it raises the ugly specter of racism, even though skin color has nothing to do with being Hispanic. Fluency in the Spanish language determines who is and is not Hispanic in the RGV.
The Narcos are a problem for local politicians, lawyers, and law enforcement. They have too much money, and finding a lawyer, politician, or police chief who would not sell their soul to the devil (or a Bruja Negra) for a few million dollars is as rare. The only defense against multi-million-dollar bribes is strong religious faith. A man alone cannot reject that level of illicit wealth; he needs a strong angel riding shotgun. I have St Michael, who I found guarding my six in Afghanistan. Hopefully vulnerable RGV titans have a similar guardian to with which to battle Santa Muerte.
The appearance of tranquil, law-abiding prosperity is another consequence of the invisible black magic fog that infects the RGV. Everything appears normal, which is abnormal given the corrosive effects of abundant Narco money. Lifting that fog falls in the realm of spiritual warfare, the province of curanderas, now that the Catholic Church has abandoned normal Americans.
Aztecs are all the rage in Mexico, given the popularity of Santa Muerte, a cross between the Grim Reaper and the Virgin of Guadeloupe, Mexico’s patron saint. But the Aztecs weren’t Mexican Amerindians; they were colonizers from the North. Their Náhuatl language is unrelated to Central Mexican Mesoamerican native languages but closely related to the Ute and Comanche languages. History has become a profound, dark mystery because it is actively subverted in the name of diversity, equity, and inclusion. Understanding legitimate, verifiable history is a superpower that allows you to instantly cut through the bullshit inflicted on us by the elite managerial class.
If a culture that mocks tradition and devalues sacrifice fails to renew itself, what happens to a culture that calls for holy war against the catholic church while conducting human sacrifice? Mexican Narcos can’t grasp the concept of aspirational sacrifice because they are low-testosterone and low-IQ psychopaths. The Stoics tell us that rudeness, meanness, and cruelty are a mask for deep-seated weakness. You can add man boobs, the physical manifestation of low T, to that list.
Which brings up another crushing disappointment. Old retired guys can’t hang out in smoky bars dispensing the distilled wisdom of an aged International Man of Action. If they do, they risk looking like everyone else around here. Who wants to see another old fool with a beer gut thinking he’s a badass? Not looking like a dangerous man is no way to honor the memory of the best two fictional Texas Rangers in the Western canon, or the canon of Westerns. I’m not sure how to make that point. It is a vivid reminder not to base your aspirations on fictional characters created by the same author who wrote Brokeback Mountain.
