What would the United States look like right now if 113 political figures had been gunned down since last September?

Well, that is precisely what has happened in Mexico. Once upon a time, Mexico had a thriving economy and a very stable government, but now the nation is devolving into a Mad Max society in which the drug cartels gun down any politicians that they do not like. As you will see below, the murder rate has surged to the highest level ever recorded, and no end to the violence is in sight. In fact, the drug cartels seem to just get more brutal with each passing day. When the Mexican government has cracked down on one of the big cartels in the past, it has just seemed to cause four or five smaller ones to emerge to replace it. At this point, none of the major politicians are speaking very specifically about going after the cartels, because they have seen what happens to political figures that do. On July 1st, the Mexican people are expected to elect a radical leftist known as “AMLO” as their next president, and many anticipate that this will accelerate Mexico’s downward spiral. And everyone in the United States needs to pay close attention to what is happening in Mexico right now, because the exact same societal pressures that are causing Mexico to implode are percolating here as well.

Those that follow my work on a regular basis know that I like to carefully document everything that I write, and so let me begin by showing you that I did not make up the number of Mexican political figures that have been assassinated in recent months.

According to Axios, 113 Mexican politicians really have been murdered since last September…

Since September, 113 candidates, pre-candidates, and current and former politicians in Mexico have been killed ahead of its elections, according to Etellekt, a policy consultancy in the country — and there are still about two weeks to go.

When I first heard that figure I could hardly believe it, and the carnage has intensified the closer that we have gotten to election day.

Earlier in June, within the span of 24 hours three female political candidates were shot dead.

Shortly after that, a prominent candidate for Congress was shot in the back of the head while taking a selfie with a supporter.

Nobody can possibly argue that Mexico is a stable society at this point, and this all comes at a time when Mexico’s overall homicide rate has surged to the highest level ever recorded…

The steady increase in deadly violence that Mexico has experienced over the past three years continued in May, when 2,890 people were killed — an average of 93 a day, or almost four victims an hour. The total number of victims surpasses the 2,746 recorded in March to make May the deadliest month this year, and it topped the 2,750 victims registered in October, making May the deadliest month in two decades, the period for which the government has released homicide data.

And the numbers are not just going up a little bit.

According to the Mexican government, the homicide rate so far this year is up 75 percent over the same period in 2015…

The homicide rate between January and May this year was 9.17 cases per 100,000 people, a 75% increase over the 5.25 cases during the same period in 2015, according to Mexican news site Animal Politico. “We are nearing a level of 100 homicides a day in the country, and with an upward trend, we still don’t see a break,” Mexican security analyst Alejandro Hope said on Thursday on radio show Atando Cabos.

For those of us in the United States, it should be deeply alarming that some of the most violent areas are right near our border.

For instance, the homicide rate in Baja is completely off the charts…

Baja California, which borders the US in northwest Mexico, was also the most violent among Mexico’s 32 states, with a homicide rate of 29.47 per 100,000 people. Much of that bloodshed has taken place in Tijuana, which borders San Diego. Tijuana had 975 of the state’s 1,218 homicide victims during the first five months of the year; the head of the rapid reaction police force in Rosarito, a town near Tijuana, was found slain in Tijuana on the morning of June 20.

The reason why there is so much violence in areas along the U.S. border is because the drug cartels are extremely active there.

The Mexican drug cartels make enormous mountains of money getting drugs across the border and selling them in our cities, and they will literally kill anyone that dares to threaten that business.

My wife and I have a good friend that recently went down to Mexico for a vacation, and after a couple of days she couldn’t wait to get back home. At one time Mexican resorts did a booming business with American tourists, but now that is changing in a major way.

These days, if you go down to Mexico you are literally putting your life on the line, and just about every form of crime that you could possibly imagine is absolutely skyrocketing.

And now Mexico is going to get a new radical leftist president at the exact same time that Donald Trump is starting a trade war with them.

If that sounds like a recipe for economic disaster to you, that is because it is.

Let us hope for the best for Mexico. There are still many areas of Mexico that are incredibly lovely, and it is a nation that is teeming with natural resources.

But at this point the drug cartels and the radical leftists are completely taking over the country, and relations with the United States are almost certainly going to continue to deteriorate.

Mexico has begun the process of a complete and total societal meltdown, and Americans should not gloat, because so many of the exact same things that are happening across the border are going to be happening here too.

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