John Oliver unforgettably previews Mexico's election and its Trumpean, Bernie Sanders–like frontrunner

(Image credit: Screenshot/YouTube/Last Week Tonight)

published 25 June 2018

Mexico shares with the U.S. "a 1,900-mile border, and they're our third-largest trading partner — and something massive is about to take place there," John Oliver said on Sunday's Last Week Tonight, previewing next Sunday's landmark national elections. Sure, "the biggest election in Mexico's history" may not "mean much to most Americans — it's like saying the biggest mattress sale in Dutch history," he said. But Oliver, being Oliver, made his rundown entertaining, informative, and a little disturbing.

Mexicans are sick of the status quo and their current president, Enrique Peña Nieto — Oliver repeated the NSFW chant Mexicans have for him, in English and Spanish — and they are expected to go in a radically different direction, electing populist firebrand Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, commonly known by his initials, AMLO.

Oliver explained why Peña Nieto and his PRI party are so unpopular — endemic corruption, murder, crime — and walked through some candidates who won't win, most entertainingly the Santa Claus–hating independent Jaime "El Bronco" Rodriguez. "Center-right policy wonk" Ricardo Anaya is No. 2 in the polls, but AMLO is expected to win. "And you can kind of see the appeal," Oliver said. "AMLO is kind of like Bernie Sanders, but with a better haircut and significantly better Spanish." The details of AMLO's policies are "pretty sketchy," though, he said, and in some ways "he's actually more reminiscent of a Mexican Donald Trump — which I know is a weird image to conjure up, like Orthodox Hitler or jacked Gandhi."

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Peter has worked as a news and culture writer and editor at The Week since the site's launch in 2008. He covers politics, world affairs, religion and cultural currents. His journalism career began as a copy editor at a financial newswire and has included editorial positions at The New York Times Magazine, Facts on File, and Oregon State University.