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[TEASER] Mexico Pt. 2: Morena and The Fourth Transformation w/ Stephanie Weatherbee Brito

Upstream

Upstream

News, Politics, Society & Culture

4.9 • 1.8K Ratings

🗓️ 9 December 2025

⏱️ 24 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

This is a free preview of the episode "[TEASER] Mexico Pt. 2: Morena and The Fourth Transformation w/ Stephanie Weatherbee Brito." You can listen to the full episode by subscribing to our Patreon here: https://www.patreon.com/upstreampodcast

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In Part 2 of this new series, we're joined by Stephanie Weatherbee Brito to discuss the rise of Morena and Mexico's Fourth Transformation. Stephanie Weatherbee is a 

popular educator and coordinator for the secretariat of the International Peoples' Assembly. Stephanie is also an occasional researcher with Tricontinental, where she recently co-authored the excellent Tricontinental dossier "Mexico and the Fourth Transformation."

We begin the conversation with a brief overview of the history and conditions which led to the rise of Morena and its leaders Andrés Manuel López Obrador and Claudia Sheinbaum. We talk about neoliberalism as a counterrevolution and how Morena is fighting against it both as an economic policy and as an ideology. We discuss Morena's attempts at social reforms and some of the policies it has been implementing, its attempts to contend with the United States, and some of the internal challenges it faces. Finally, we discuss the path forward and what the future of Mexico might look like under Morena's leadership. 

Further resources:

Related episodes:

The cover art for this episode comes from the Tricontinental Dossier, where they write that "The artworks in this dossier are from the mural series Los Nadies (The Nobodies), created by Colectivo Subterráneos in Oaxaca, Mexico. Founded in 2021 to democratise art as a tool for social transformation, the collective draws on Mexico's graphic tradition – from the Taller de Gráfica Popular (People's Graphic Workshop) to Mexican muralism – as well as the 2006 Popular Teachers' Movement of Oaxaca. Inspired by Eduardo Galeano's poem of the same name, the series includes prints and murals that highlight indigenous and mestizo peoples forgotten under colonial rule and modern capitalism, confronting the historical debt to the marginalised and amplifying voices that demand justice in a Mexico under transformation."

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Transcript

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0:00.0

A quick note before we jump into this Patreon episode, thank you to all of our Patreon

0:05.0

subscribers for making upstream possible. We genuinely couldn't do this without you. Your support

0:11.2

allows us to create bonus content like this and provide most of our content for free so we can

0:16.8

continue to offer political education media to the public and help to build our movement.

0:22.3

Thank you, comrades. We hope you enjoyed this conversation. Morena is not trying to pick any fights with the elite that it cannot win.

0:53.5

So it is not about to propose something like,

0:57.5

you know, socializing production or nationalization of certain resources if it doesn't think that

1:05.1

it has the political juice to be able to win that conflict. And I think that that's really important to keep in mind

1:12.1

because even mild reforms that left governments in Latin America pursue are met with intervention

1:19.0

as plots by the U.S., support by the U.S. to opposition figures, coups, or like the invasion

1:25.2

that is being discussed against Venezuela right now.

1:28.2

So Mexico is trying really hard, Morena, through the presidency of Andres Manuel and

1:32.7

Claudia, to avoid any kind of fight with the elite that it can't win today.

1:39.0

It's leaving those fights for another moment.

1:41.7

You're listening to Upstream.

1:43.8

Upstream. Upstream. Upstream. Upstream.

1:44.9

Upstream.

1:45.8

Upstream.

1:46.7

A show about political economy and society that invites you to unlearn everything you thought

1:52.2

you knew about the world around you.

1:54.5

I'm Della Duncan.

1:55.9

And I'm Robert Raymond.

...

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