While New Mexico is stuck in quicksand

Sun Setting on New Mexico Photograph by Mick Rich 12.06.2022
I told Marion this past week that I feel the world is passing me by. While Donald Trump and Generation Z are in Washington, D.C., lifting the nation, I am in Albuquerque with New Mexico stuck at the bottom and Generation Z locked out.

America
The accomplishments of the Greatest Generation cannot be overstated. They won WW II by creating an industrial complex that provided ships, airplanes, and tanks to free countries across the globe while providing the men necessary to win battles on the seas, the air, and land. They ushered in the nuclear and space ages, culminating in mankind's landing on the moon. However, their successes left an environmental crisis.

The Baby Boomers focused on healing the wounds of the environment and society, which were the unintended consequences of the Greatest Generation's accomplishments. They replaced God with science and technology, believing they had the power to create man or woman and control the weather. Their successes left an economy for future generations burdened with regulations, debt, and people who believed they were gods.

Today, Donald Trump (of the Baby Boomer generation) is teaming up with Generation Z to rebalance the Nation and lift the burden of regulations and debt from the backs of the younger generations. Completing what our Founding Fathers and the Authors of the Civil Rights Act started: "All Men are Created Equal." Once again acknowledging there is a power greater than man, and  that is God. Lastly, transitioning from the older generation to the younger generation.

New Mexico
When I moved to New Mexico in 1980, I found a state with great promise: wide open spaces where people could breathe, an energy industry that provided a low cost of living for New Mexicans and fueled a wide range of sectors, a center of creativity from the arts to technology, and a multi-culture that was the envy of the country.

Today, New Mexico is far different. The open spaces are behind locked gates by modern-day land barons (wealthy coastal elites and environmental NGO (Non-Government Organizations)); NM's energy policy is schizophrenic; it punishes the oil and gas production that supports NM's government while supporting solar and wind electrical generation that punishes New Mexicans with high electrical rates. New Mexico is now the center of the misery industries with its breweries and liquor establishments, cannabis shops, gambling, and the sex trade. New Mexicans are stuck at the bottom, climbing over the next to get ahead. No wonder New Mexico's reputation for corruption has grown.

New Mexico Political Landscape

Democrats
NM Democrats used to control the state with the old patron system of handing out the few jobs to those loyal to the democratic machine. Today, the democrats control the state by handing out billions of dollars (New Mexico is a Petro-Economy) to support government jobs and industries dependent on state government. For now, there are enough jobs and money for voters to forget about crime, illiteracy, and homelessness on election day.

Republicans
As long as the Republican Party of New Mexico ignores Donald Trump's lead, they will be relegated to the sidelines.

We Live in a World with God and Hope
There is hope that Donald Trump's Equal Justice Under the Law will extend to New Mexico and that the Trump DOJ will end New Mexico's legacy of corruption.

It has already started with the Federal DOJ filing charges in the decades-long DWI scandal (where defendants paid not guilty) and charging the NM House Speaker with bribery and money laundering. These millions are only the tip of the iceberg. The billions in oil and gas tax revenues (Landman) and the transnational cartels (Breaking Bad) have far-reaching tentacles.

A Federal DOJ investigation into New Mexico's legacy of corruption can give all New Mexicans hope for a bright future.

As I was finishing my article, the Trump Department of Justice was firing the top federal prosecutor in New Mexico, Alexander Uballez. The New Mexico newspapers have presented the firing as nothing more than politically motivated. Politically motivated, yes, but there is more. Federal agents raided the home of New Mexico's third most powerful political leader in New Mexico. Sheryl Williams Stapleton, NM House Majority Leader, in March of 2021. In March of 2024, Williams Stapleton was indicted on federal charges of defrauding the federal government. After three years, Uballez has done nothing on Williams Stapleton's indictments.

New Mexicans have seen this for years: the low-level useful idiots are prosecuted, and the politically powerful democrats walk free. Those politically powerful democrats are soon going to realize there is a new Sheriff in town, Donald Trump. Trump's DOJ is ready for them this time.