'Cállate, imbécil': the best Mexican responses to Donald Trump's visit

Those furious with President Enrique Peña Nieto’s decision to invite the Republican candidate to Mexico mocked both men during the last-minute visit

Donald Trump cartoons in Mexico — Mexican Cartoonist Arthur Kemchs shows his book of cartoons of Donald Trump outside the official presidential residence in Mexico City on Wednesday. Photograph: Marco Ugarte/AP

Amber Jamieson

@ambiej

Mexicans furious that Donald Trump came to their country to meet with President Enrique Peña Nieto mercilessly mocked both their leader and the Republican presidential nominee on Wednesday.

As former presidents, well-known politicians and activists railed against Trump’s attitudes and policies, a flurry of memes appeared online insulting the meeting and the complicated history between the US and Mexico.

Author Antonio Ortuño compared Wednesday’s event to Spanish conquistador Hernán Cortés – who led the fall of the Aztec empire – meeting with the Aztec emperor Montezuma.

— Antonio Ortuño (@AntonioOrtugno) August 31, 2016
Moctezuma invitó a almorzar a Hernán Cortés y le fue súper bien. Eso le dijeron sus asesores a Peña Nieto. Y allá vamos.

Translation: “Montezuma invited Hernán Cortés to lunch and it went really well. That’s what Peña Nieto’s advisors told him. And here we go.”

Shortly after the meeting, Ortuño tweeted a drawing of Montezuma, along with the text: “Peña Nieto explains to his compatriots the result of the meeting with Trump.”

Both the #NoEresBienviendoTrump (You are not welcome Trump) and the #SrTrumpConTodoRespeto (Mr Trump, with all due respect) hashtags trended on Twitter during Trump’s visit.

For months Trump has promised that Mexico will pay for his plan to build a wall to keep undocumented immigrants from entering the United States – but at the meeting on Wednesday he didn’t push for Mexico to cough up the dough. “We did discuss the wall, we didn’t discuss payment of the wall,” said Trump .

But several on Twitter offered to pay for a wall based on Mexico’s former border from the mid 1800s, which cuts through about half of the US, including the west coast and most of the south.

Mexican rock band Molotov – who sing in a combination of English and Spanish – tweeted a lyric from their 2003 song Frijolero along with a photoshopped poster of the 1994 film Dumb and Dumber starring Trump and Peña Nieto.

“Pinche gringo puñetero” translates loosely to “fucking gringo pain in the neck”.

Dumb and Dumber memes were popular, a reflection of Peña Nieto’s own lack of popularity, which sits at just 23%.

Denise Dresser, a political science professor at the Instituto Tecnológico Autónomo de México in Mexico City, asked why Peña Nieto invited the Republican candidate.

— Denise Dresser (@DeniseDresserG) August 31, 2016
Peña Nieto invita.a Trump para:

Translation: Peña Nieto invited Trump because:

For Higa [a Mexican construction company] to build the wall
To speak about hairstyles
To tell him the good things
To present his thesis

At press time, getting Higa to build the wall had 49% of the more than 8,000 Twitter votes.

Also popular was a drawing by Mexican cartoonist Paco Calderón Cartones where Trump – barely hanging on to a branch – reaches his hand out to Peña Nieto, who is also falling.

Like all memes on the internet, many were rude and crude, such as jokes of the pair having a sexual relationship, of Trump teaching Peña Nieto the racist “heil Hitler” sign and lots of photos of people holding guns in an apparent violent threat and unprintable language. Another tweeted a meme of The Hulk punching Trump, saying “Hey @epn [President Peña Nieto] I hope you pass along our message to @realDonaldTrump.”

Others kept it simple.

Several tweeted a picture of Paquita La Del Barrio, a beloved Mexican singer, meeting the president, pretending the coiffed blonde haired artist was the US billionaire.

Trump has been fodder for Mexican memes for more than a year, ever since in his speech announcing his run for president he declared that undocumented Mexican immigrants included “rapists” and “criminals”. His plans to build the now infamous wall also increased his unpopularity among Latinos.

In one meme, Trump is declaring: “We don’t do deals with Mexico, they rip off the United States” when Birdman, the hero from Mexican film director Alejandro González Iñárritu’s Oscar winning film, slaps him in the face declaring “shut up, imbecile”.

Anti-Trump meme from Mexico — An anti-Trump meme from Mexico. Photograph: Twitter

This article was amended on 1 September 2016 to clarify that the Birdman character in a Donald Trump cartoon is slapping the Republican nominee in the face, not slicing him in the head with a sword.

More blogposts

Topics

Reuse this content

View all comments >

comments

This discussion is closed for comments.

We’re doing some maintenance right now. You can still read comments, but please come back later to add your own.

Commenting has been disabled for this account (why?)

Loading comments… Trouble loading?

change edition:

Topics

View all comments >

comments

popular