PC: Strong Mexico?

You haven't removed the deadly Columbian exchange though.


Why do they always overlook that part?

The Columbian Exchange wasn't some one time event either. The diseases involved were still wiping out native groups in the 1800s. It wasn't as if Amerind societies could survive the first pass and everything would be fine afterward.

I'll second the previous suggestions of a short war of independence followed by a fairly stable, fairly competent, somewhat authoritarian monarchy/empire followed by a general liberalization. Our preoccupation with representative governments is nothing more than our 21st Century Western liberal democracy cultural blinders at work.

The American Revolution only succeeded in eventually setting up a republic, albeit it one with voting restrictions that seem drastic in our eyes, because the peoples involved had already been governing themselves for the better part of a century and had mostly immigrated from a culture which had operated under a constitutional monarchy before that.

The idea that Mexico could jump from an authoritarian colony directly to a stable, working, representative form of governance without first developing the necessary cultural foundations is nonsense. France wasn't able to do it in 1789, so why would Mexico be able to do it in the 1820s?
 
One may note I for one never specified that Mexico be governed by any sort of representative system, however restricted. I never called it a "republic" for instance. I admit I did avoid specifying what sort of government it would have, frankly because it almost certainly could not be a republic, except in the very general sense that quite autocratic regimes can claim to be such. I didn't and don't have a lot of stomach for mentally designing autocracies.

Obviously to get a concrete POD and develop from there one would have to get pretty dirty working under the hood on Mexico's engine, as it were!

Frankly I also doubt Mexico can advance very far under even the most visionary and incisive leader, without also advancing the status of at least a sizable minority of the common Mexicans and in general paving the way for a truly popular government. But the fruition of that could be centuries down the line; a strong man--whose strengths are based in part on accomplishing major social and industrial development and whose worthiness is measured in part on how well such concrete progress is sustained--ruling would surely be the norm for generations. If they don't raise up an infrastructure of a rather enterprising capitalist class around them and solidify the foundations of the structure by raising the general level of culture of the working classes, perhaps slowly but surely, then Mexico under any rule will falter and stagnate and people like Santa Anna have every opportunity to come forward and make asses of themselves.
 
One may note I for one never specified that Mexico be governed by any sort of representative system, however restricted.


One may note that I never said you did. ;)

I was simply pointing out the simplistic assumptions held by too many of those who respond to these kinds of threads.

Frankly I also doubt Mexico can advance very far under even the most visionary and incisive leader, without also advancing the status of at least a sizable minority of the common Mexicans and in general paving the way for a truly popular government.

I share those doubts too.

But the fruition of that could be centuries down the line; a strong man--whose strengths are based in part on accomplishing major social and industrial development and whose worthiness is measured in part on how well such concrete progress is sustained--ruling would surely be the norm for generations.

And that's the kicker.

The "cultural ground" must be prepared at first and there's nothing suggesting that Mexico was somehow inherently unable to accomplish that.
 
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