ALAN ORTEGA/REUTERS

Presidential candidate Andrés Manuel López Obrador addresses supporters during a rally in Pátzcuaro, Mexico, ahead of the July 1 election.

The sun has been beating down on the crowd for nearly 3-1/2 hours before Mexico’s three-time presidential candidate, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, takes the stage, calmly talking over the chants of “presidente, presidente.”

“There have only been three true transformations in Mexico,” he bellows, straight-faced, to wildly cheering supporters at a recent rally. He ticks off red-letter moments in Mexico’s past: gaining independence from Spain; the presidency of Benito Juárez, an indigenous leader sometimes referred to as Mexico’s Abraham Lincoln; and the 1910 revolution that ousted a dictator. “Very soon we’ll see the fourth transformation of this country,” Mr. López Obrador says, referring to his projected win.

With more than 3,400 officials and a president to choose, Mexico’s July 1 election is one of its largest ever. But what sets this vote apart is front-runner López Obrador, commonly referred to by his initials, AMLO. His unlikely rise after two failed presidential bids underscores a deep-seated desire for radical change in a nation plagued by drug violence, corruption, and inequality.

Polls through mid-June show his lead has been increasing all year, and that he’d have twice as many votes as the closest challenger. But there’s uncertainty around which version of AMLO will show up if he indeed wins.

That has to do with the pendulum-like swings of his career, a political identity built upon religious and historical “savior” references that conjure up comparisons to leaders like Venezuela’s former President Hugo Chávez, and a reputation as someone who is baited easily by criticism and provocation. The implications of the “wrong” AMLO taking office depend on where one stands in the debate: It could mean more of the same problems, or the crumbling of Mexican institutions entirely. That vast difference underscores the polarization around his candidacy.  

Voters look beyond parties in power 

Early on, AMLO proved to be a fervent defender of the poor, living in a home with a dirt floor while he oversaw construction in indigenous villages. Two decades later, he was the picture of a pragmatic leader when he was mayor of Mexico City, as a leftist teaming up with one of the nation’s wealthiest businesspeople to revitalize the city's historic center. His mayorship is his only experience in elected office.

Then in 2006, after losing his first presidential bid by a razor-thin margin, he seemed to fulfill the negative prophecies that he would act egotistically and irrationally and would drive a nascent democracy into the ground. He blocked traffic for more than a month in the capital and held a parallel inauguration, naming himself the “legitimate president.”

But nearly a decade and a half after that first presidential bid, Mexico has changed. Democratic institutions have strengthened, although corruption and deadly violence are on the rise. The election also comes at a time when Mexico’s stable relationship with the United States has devolved, leaving many tired of the country being the punching bag of its northern neighbor. 

INE/AP

Presidential hopefuls (l. to r.) Jaime Rodríguez Calderón, Ricardo Anaya, José Anto- nio Meade, and Andrés Manuel López Obrador attend a debate in Tijuana, Mexico, in May.

After the presidency of the historically unpopular Enrique Peña Nieto, damaged early on by corruption scandals and an inability to quash violence, Mexicans are actively searching for something new, observers say, even if there’s a large element of the unknown. 

“I am sympathetic with colleagues and friends who say they will vote for López Obrador because ‘we’ve tried everything else and let’s try someone who hasn’t been in power,’ ” says Andrew Selee, president of the Migration Policy Institute in Washington. “There is some reason to worry [about an AMLO victory], but there’s some reason to at least give someone else a shot.” 

 Austerity vows 

Born in the southern Mexican state of Tabasco, López Obrador was the oldest of eight children in a lower-middle-class family that ran a small store. His family nicknamed him “the rock” for his headstrong personality and the way he bristled at perceived criticism. That modest upbringing and determined character are evident in how he’s functioned as a politician. It’s also at the base of his approach to tackling corruption, a scourge he estimates costs Mexico about $25 billion annually. His central proposal is to lead by example: He won’t be corrupt, and thus the politicians beneath him won’t take bribes or skim off the top, either, his logic goes.

López Obrador says he won’t live in the presidential palace, a space he labels as corrupted by bad spirits of former leaders and chupacabras, creatures in Latin American folklore that suck blood. He’ll sell the president’s fleet of aircraft and cut presidential pensions and salary to fund proposed social programs. “We’ll offer the [presidential] plane to Trump,” he says at the rally, a jab at the US president whom AMLO promises to stand up to as the top Mexican leader. 

“I do think it’s important for leaders to make an example, leading with austerity and honesty,” says José Luis Chicoma, executive director of Ethos Public Policy Lab, a think tank that works on a number of anti-corruption initiatives here. But “it worries me that he doesn’t have a plan beyond this,” he says, adding that many in the anti-corruption world worry he could do significant damage – for example, by dismantling out of spite or ego the national anti-corruption system, whose implementation has faltered after being created under President Peña Nieto. Mr. Chicoma notes that only Ricardo Anaya, who’s polling a distant second to AMLO, has anything close to a concrete anti-corruption plan.

 Eye on the presidency

In 2000, as Vicente Fox’s election halted the 71-year hold on the presidency by the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), López Obrador was mayor of Mexico City, living in a modest apartment. He launched monthly subsidies for elderly residents and focused on the first infrastructure projects in nearly two decades, like bus rapid transit and elevated highways. His popularity shot through the roof. 

By 2006, López Obrador looked like a shoo-in for president. But a series of blunders, combined with a campaign likening his leftist policies to those of Mr. Chávez, Venezuela’s socialist leader, compromised his lead. After his loss, he cursed Mexico’s governing institutions, seemingly confirming the fears of critics who believed his plans would drive a burgeoning democracy and economy into the ground. 

Now, ahead of the July 1 election, part of AMLO’s popularity stems from his ability to paint himself as a man of the people. During his first presidential campaign, he visited every municipality in Mexico at least once. This year he’s held as many as four rallies a day, often in multiple states. And despite more than 100 politicians at all levels and from all parties being killed so far this election season – one of the deadliest on record – he has no visible security detail. 

Moreover, López Obrador is emerging as much more pragmatic, reaching out to prominent businesspeople to join his cabinet and politicians to come into his camp. In 2012, says Chicoma, “he had the message, but you didn’t actually see it in practice. He seemed still really [angry] with people,” he says. “AMLO Version 2018 seems to finally be putting that idea of inclusion into action.”

 More mature or just the same?

But not everyone is convinced. “Sadly, I think he is exactly the same man,” says leading Mexican historian Enrique Krauze, who coined the term “Tropical Messiah” during the 2006 campaign. 

“He genuinely believes, and many millions of people believe, [AMLO] is going to save Mexico from all its many illnesses and problems,” Mr. Krauze says. “Mexicans are very drawn to mythology and history.... He taps into it and speaks the language of the people.”

Although he agrees with a lot of AMLO’s social policies, Krauze is concerned his cult-of-personality approach could pull Mexico back into the 20th century. It’s an opinion many share: that he’ll undercut democratic institutions to save the country and put it back on a “moral” path, disband programs launched by opposition politicians before him out of spite, or come up with nationalistic, populist policies that make it impossible to do business here.

There’s also concern that AMLO is too inward looking, when global economies are so deeply intertwined. “What worries me ... is that we’re going into this period where neither the US or Mexican governments will particularly care about their relationship with each other,” says Dr. Selee of the Migration Policy Institute, who recently published “Vanishing Frontiers,” a book about US-Mexico relations and their close-knit history and culture. 

But after Peña Nieto came into office pledging to put Mexico on the global map – only to get it there for scandals like the disappearance and murder of 43 students from a teachers college – focusing on Mexico from the inside could be a welcome approach. 

When it comes to US-Mexico relations – particularly around hot-button topics like migration – AMLO has promised to drastically change his approach from that of Peña Nieto. Although Peña Nieto has scoffed at Trump’s promises of a border wall, his administration has taken big steps, like a 2014 security reform on Mexico’s southern border with Guatemala, to lend the US a hand in halting mostly Central American migration to the United States. AMLO said in the final presidential debate that he’ll stop doing the US’s “dirty work” on its southern border, and move it’s immigration headquarters to Tijuana on the northern border, the first stop for most Mexicans deported from the US.

Standing up for would-be Mexican emigrants is also key to the changes he’s hinted at making as president, suggesting a bilateral plan similar to the 1960s-era Alliance for Progress that would help make it possible for more Mexicans to stay put in their homeland instead of migrating to the US for economic opportunities in the first place. 

 Concerned business elites

In a leaked letter earlier this spring, businessman Germán Larrea pleaded for employees and shareholders to “vote with intelligence and not with the anger we all share.” The president of Grupo Mexico, the country’s largest mining company, voiced the concerns of many economic elites without naming López Obrador. He warned that proposals such as “nationalizing companies and the repeal of energy and education reforms” could put Mexico on track to become the next Venezuela, Cuba, or Soviet Union. 

“Everyone says AMLO is a socialist who is going to turn our country into the next Venezuela,” says José Martinez Pelaéz, a young volunteer at a recent rally. “Why does it have to be Venezuela?” he asks. “Maybe he will turn Mexico into the next France.” 

Part of the worry stems from AMLO’s potential mandate: winning the presidency as well as a majority in Congress. He’s increasingly focusing time on encouraging votes for the entire National Regeneration Movement (MORENA) alliance ticket. Aside from the president, this election includes nearly 130 senators, 500 deputies, and 8 governors across the country. 

But Selee is adamant there’s no going back to pre-democracy Mexico. “I think he may run into some of the same problems that Peña Nieto did in thinking that you can restore an imperial presidency. The difference is that AMLO has many more feelers out to society at large,” Selee says, referring to the shoe leather he’s put into talking to constituents across the country. “López Obrador has a more granular understanding of how Mexicans think. He may think it’s possible to be, if not imperial, then [to] restore a centralized government again, but he will realize that that’s hard to do in modern Mexico.”

At the rally, vendors hawking straw hats and sugary churros weave their way through the crowd, focused more on profits than on political promises. Noemi Gomez, a lawyer, and her son, Eli, who just graduated from college, linger in a shaded corner. “I know he won’t be able to achieve all of his promises,” says Ms. Gomez, ticking off his pledges, such as undertaking education reform, raising wages, ending violence by concentrating on youth employment and education, and canceling a $14 billion airport project. “He can’t complete all his plans, but his victory will be a start. To me, he’ll do something just by getting elected.”  

Alfredo Sosa/Staff

A view of the manufacturing floor at Wausau Coated on June 7 in Wausau, Wis. The company makes adhesive labels for food and other containers for US and foreign markets, which makes it vulnerable to a potential slowdown in trade.

Over the rolling whir of paper and plastic pressed together to make food labels, Ben Reif makes no bones about his dislike for President Trump’s trade policies.

“It’s nuts,” says the president of Wausau Coated, a manufacturing firm here in north central Wisconsin. “I think what Trump is up to is completely unnecessary risk. To run a good business, you want to eliminate all the risk you can.”

Five miles outside of town, on Wausau's County Road W, Will Hsu struggles a lot more.

“From my viewpoint as a farmer, it’s hard,” says the vice president for the family ginseng firm, which exports to China. China has already slapped an extra 15 percent tariff on American ginseng imports in retaliation for Mr. Trump’s tariff actions. “As a Republican and talking about issues with regulation, I think … governments should find other ways [to protect their economies] than import tariffs.”

In this patch of Trump country, that’s about as far as company executives are willing to go in criticizing the president’s actions. Much of the threatened tariffs have not yet taken effect. And even in industries where they have, such as steel and aluminum, the pinch is only starting to be felt.

It’s as if a large swath of industry is holding its collective breath, waiting to figure out whether Trump is really using tariffs as a negotiating tool to open up foreign markets or as a big iron door to shut out foreign goods. Wanting maximum leverage in simultaneous negotiations with China, the European Union, Canada, and Mexico, the administration – understandably – has not revealed its true intentions. 

The challenge is that the longer the tit-for-tat tariffs go on, the closer the US and its major trading partners slide toward a full-blown trade war that slows economic growth for everyone. And if companies don’t know what the president’s true aims are, it’s difficult for them to figure out whether to wait for a negotiated peace or replace their foreign production with US plants.

“If companies are going to invest in new production capacity in the United States, there's going to have to be a calculation that tariffs are not going away soon,” says Edward Alden, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York. “I don’t think any of us knows the answer to that.”

Perhaps even Trump has not decided. His economics team includes those who want free trade (Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and economic adviser Larry Kudlow), tariffs as negotiating tool (US Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer), and tariffs to boost domestic production (trade adviser Peter Navarro).

The challenge of politics

The administration appears to be operating from a simple premise: A trade war would hurt our partners worse than it would hurt the United States. Thus, they will blink first.

Lately, the stock markets in key nations have tended to support that premise. The S&P 500, a bellwether for US stocks, is up 1.7 percent this year, while the bourses in Toronto and Paris are barely positive and Mexico City and Frankfurt are down 3.5 and 4.7 percent, respectively. China’s stock market has plunged 14 percent for the year.

The complicating factor is that politics, not just economics, drives nations’ trade policies, and no one wants to be seen caving to US pressure. So nations have retaliated with their own tariffs.

"We don't want this to escalate, but we're the ones being attacked," French Economy Minister Bruno Le Maire told a group of foreign journalists this week in Paris. “If the US hits us again with a 20 percent tariff on automobiles, we will respond again."

That tough image is helpful politically. Canadian Premier Justin Trudeau’s approval ratings have jumped six percentage points since March as he’s talked tough on trade, even though Canada’s economy is particularly dependent on the US.

China and other trading partners are using political pressure of their own, targeting farm and other products that come from Trump’s political base. “If the penalties hit Republican states, and if that can make Republicans understand that this policy is unacceptable, so much the better," Mr. Le Maire said.

Some firms cut workers in US

If the domestic political pressure on Trump is negligible today, it’s likely to ratchet up as the tariffs take hold. By adding a surcharge on imported goods, tariffs raise prices. Already, washing machines and school lockers are more expensive. More economic trouble is in store as the current tariffs take hold, especially if the administration follows through with new ones. On July 6, a 25 percent tariff is scheduled to be applied to 800 goods from China.

Companies can point to lost business and even layoffs because of tariffs. Customers have canceled some $2.5 billion in solar installation projects. Steel tariffs have caused the nation’s largest nail manufacturer to let go of 60 workers. On Monday, Harley-Davidson filed papers saying it would move some production to the European Union so it could sell motorcycles there without having to pay an EU retaliatory tariff.

Trump’s threatened 20 percent tariff on imported cars would dramatically raise the ante. A trade war could shave as much as 0.6 percentage points off US economic growth in the second year, according to Bank of America Merrill Lynch. And the costs would be long-term. In March, the Penn Wharton Budget Model forecast a cut in gross domestic product of 0.9 percent by 2027 and by 5.3 percent by 2040.

A steel plant reopens

The administration will be able to point to successes. Steel tariffs on foreign steel have convinced US Steel to reopen a shuttered blast furnace employing 500 workers in Granite City, Ill. On Thursday, the president attended a groundbreaking ceremony for a $10 billion Foxconn factory in Wisconsin (planned before the tariffs) that could employ up to 13,000 workers.

Those successes won’t make up for the losses from slower trade, many economists agree, unless America’s trading partners capitulate. If that doesn’t happen soon, Trump will have to make a political calculation.

“The Chinese are targeting, the Europeans are targeting. They’re going after Trump supporters,” says Mr. Alden of the Council on Foreign Relations. “He’s going to have to ask all his supporters in these places that are getting hit: ‘Trust me. I’m standing tough and it’s going to rebound to your benefit.’ I don't know how long they’re going to believe that.”

• Staff writer Sara Miller Llana contributed to this story from Paris.

Daniel Lin/AP

Passersby gather to take photos in front of the Red Hen, June 23, in Lexington, Va. White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said Saturday in a tweet that she was booted from the restaurant because she works for President Trump. Ms. Sanders said she was told by the owner of the Red Hen that she had to 'leave because I work for @POTUS and I politely left.'

Until about a week ago, a visit to the Blue Phoenix Cafe and Market’s Facebook and Yelp pages left a fine impression. Patrons raved about the tasty food, the vegetarian options, and the welcoming staff. The place had a nearly five-star grade.

Then, sometime last Saturday, bad reviews – punctuated by one-star ratings and angry memes – began to pour in. 

“Bigots,” one commenter writes.

“Smells like an outhouse,” according to another.

“They are ridiculous hate-filled people. Do not go to this establishment,” warns a third.  

The reason for the hostility sits a few blocks away on West Washington Street. The Red Hen and its owner, Stephanie Wilkinson, made national headlines after Ms. Wilkinson asked White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders to leave her restaurant Friday night. Ms. Wilkinson’s staff – a number of whom are gay – had urged her to do so, saying they were uncomfortable serving the official spokesperson for an administration that has, in their view, enacted unconscionable policies toward the LGBTQ community, immigrants, and other minority groups.

The resulting blowback has rocked the city of Lexington, Va., population about 7,000.

The Red Hen has not opened for business since the event. Earlier in the week, protesters arrived from out of town, some bearing Confederate battle flags and anti-gay posters reading “Let God Burn Them.” One man was arrested for dumping chicken dung in front of the restaurant.

Amenie Hopkins – co-owner and head chef at Blue Phoenix – expected she would take a hit, having publicly voiced support for Wilkinson almost as soon as the news broke.

Other businesses in town have also been left reeling. Shop owners, if they could, unplugged their phones after receiving a barrage of harassing calls. Others shunned social media, where nasty comments came unabated. Local leaders have had to check in on folks to see how they’re holding up.

It was guilt by association to a degree that no one – including Ms. Hopkins – saw coming. “This town is not a stranger to conflict,” she says. “But this is a new level. And certainly the level of attention it's garnered is new, as well.”

The onslaught, she and others say, has fractured the community. Residents have fallen onto one side or another of a familiar dividing line, turning the city into a parable of our time: an example of what happens when the din and discord of national politics comes home to roost.

“Lexington is symbolic,” says Chris Devine, a professor who studies political psychology at the University of Dayton in Ohio. “It isn’t about one issue. It’s about the nature of political divisions in the country right now. … Suddenly what is going on at the national level feels very local.”

Jessica Mendoza/The Christian Science Monitor

Locals leave signs and flowers to show their support outside the Red Hen restaurant on June 27 in Lexington. Va. The restaurant's owner asked White House press secretary Sarah Sanders to leave at the urging of her staff. The resulting blowback has rocked the college town of about 7,000.

A town divided

Hopkins, wearing a bright red dress and a colorful bandanna over her dark hair, smiled a lot when she spoke. But it was a tired smile. It was late afternoon on Wednesday, and by then Hopkins and her staff had been fielding angry and sometimes vulgar phone calls and online posts for five days.

Some callers would yell, she says. Others would demand to know whether she would serve a Republican or someone in a “MAGA” hat – shorthand for President Trump’s campaign slogan, “Make America Great Again” – at her establishment. “I’m like, ‘Of course we would,’ ” she says.

Still, Hopkins won’t budge on her decision to stick with Wilkinson, who has reportedly received death threats and did not respond to requests for an interview. Hopkins says she posted a supportive comment on the Red Hen’s Facebook page almost as soon as she’d heard about what happened. The bad reviews began materializing “literally two minutes later,” she says.

On Monday, Hopkins published a post on the Blue Phoenix’s page reiterating her support for the right of every small business “to protect their staff, customers, and the values that define those relationships.”

It’s not an unpopular stance. Lexington is home to Washington and Lee University, a private liberal arts school. Like most college towns, it leans Democrat: The city went to Hillary Clinton in the 2016 elections, while surrounding Rockbridge County voted overwhelmingly for Mr. Trump.

“This is definitely kind of a blue dot in a red state,” says Jake Sirota, a rising senior at Washington and Lee and editor-in-chief of The Vigil, a progressive student-run paper not associated with the university. He and another student, Dannick Kenon, say they were happy to hear about the exchange at the Red Hen.

“It was definitely a feeling of pride at the town ... that it actually stood up to an administration I’m not a fan of,” Mr. Kenon says.

Others were more cautious. One shop owner praised Wilkinson – “she’s just a wonderful person who’s helped this town so much,” he says – but asked that his name not be used because he wants to avoid further harassment.

As the surge of bad reviews continued, however, some business owners quickly took to Facebook to do damage control. Sweet Treats Bakery, also on West Washington Street, published a post on Monday dissociating itself from the Red Hen and its owner’s actions: “Sweet Treats Bakery DID NOT refuse to serve or turn any one away for any reason and will not be doing so in the future.” The Southern Inn and the Lexington Carriage Company, both Main Street institutions, posted similar disclaimers on their social media sites.

Mare Scott – who runs a skincare service, Skin Is In, just down the street from the Red Hen – doesn’t blame them. “Personally I think the owner of the Red Hen made a big mistake,” she says. Ms. Scott, who grew up in Washington, D.C., set up shop in Lexington about 17 years ago. She loves her business, is ambivalent about politics, and doesn’t think the two should mix.

“She has the right to refuse anybody … but to kind of think of it in the long term, you know, of how it might affect the rest of us,” Scott says.

To Hopkins at the Blue Phoenix, her fellow proprietors’ reactions are disheartening but understandable. In times of turmoil, she says, people tend to close ranks and protect their own. “It was like, ‘All right, hold on to what we have, and we’re going to be OK if we just hunker down.’ ”

Her own response just happened to go a different direction.

“My personal opinion is that if you don’t stand up to persecution, if you don’t stand next to your neighbor when they are being persecuted, you end up losing more than just business,” Hopkins says, her voice soft but firm. “You end up losing a part of yourself. And that’s irretrievable.”

Battle lines

Jennifer Brown is a slim, sharp woman with a dark bob and bright blue eyes. She speaks fast, with a big smile, but her sentences come out at rapid-fire pace when she’s on the subject she’s most passionate about: the conservative perspective.

“I don’t condone death threats at all. That’s just ridiculous,” Ms. Brown says of the treatment Wilkinson’s received since the Red Hen incident. “It’s shutting down the channels of communication and I would not say to anybody to do that.”

But, she says, she understands why so many people got so fired up after hearing that Ms. Sanders had been asked to leave the restaurant. Conservatives have been treated like outcasts since Trump’s election, “told to shut up, sit down, do nothing,” she says. “We’re frustrated. We’re the ones constantly being harassed.” She’s especially upset with California Rep. Maxine Waters (D), who this week publicly called on her supporters to heckle members of Trump’s Cabinet wherever they find them. (Other Democratic officials have since disagreed with Representative Waters.)

“That’s incredibly reckless,” says Brown, a staunch Trump supporter who chairs the Republican Committee of Virginia’s 6th District, which includes Rockbridge County.

So while she doesn’t approve of some of the tactics being used against the Red Hen, and certainly against other Lexington businesses, Brown says she’s hardly surprised. And folks do have a right to express their displeasure, as long as they keep it decent and legal – like with the Red Hen boycott that the state GOP has called for.

Does she see an end to all this?

“Either it’s going to come to a head, or we’re going to have to start saying, ‘OK, let’s sit down and talk again,’ ” Brown says between careful bites of her seared salmon sandwich. “All sides are going to have to be willing to have the conversation.

“But I think at this point, because everything is so heated, that people are going to draw the battle lines even deeper,” she says.

City folks, country neighbors

Lexington’s liberal-conservative divide neither begins nor ends with the incident at the Red Hen. Like in many former Confederate states, Civil War history comes alive in Virginia, and places like Lexington – blue islands in red seas – regularly become flashpoints for conflict. In 2011, protesters rallied at a park downtown against an ordinance that prohibited the official flying of the Confederate battle flag alongside the US, state, and city flags.

In January last year, tensions again boiled over when a local advocacy group organized a march to honor the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., on his birthday. The Community Anti-Racism Education, or CARE, initiative, held the march on a Saturday – the same day that the town traditionally holds a celebration for Confederate generals Stonewall Jackson and Robert E. Lee.

“There are these touchstone days throughout the year where something always happens and you’re kind of expecting it,” says Mr. Sirota, the university student.

Despite that, city folks have managed, for the most part, to keep peace with their county neighbors. “We row the same direction for economic prosperity,” says city councilman David Sigler. “The jobs need to be filled, people need to shop, we work together, our kids all go to school together.”

But there’s a sense about town that the community isn’t going to emerge unscathed from this incident, that what’s been unearthed can’t be reburied.

“I think it will certainly leave a scar,” says Michelle Watkins, chair of the Rockbridge County Democratic Committee. “Once the wound heals a bit, I think people will be willing to put most of that behind them and say, ‘OK, let's move forward now.’ But that’s a lesson learned, and the goal will be to not repeat it.”

There’s also some bitterness. No one likes to be made an example of, residents say. And while the next big headline can’t come soon enough – everyone’s sure that it’s only a matter of time before America moves on to a new scandal – some are unhappy with the D.C. political and media machines.

“There’s this kind of constant stream of things coming out of Washington that lasts maybe a day or so that are creating the storms, but that have much more lasting effects in the places where the events actually happen,” Sirota says. “There's just a lack of regard for consequences in general.”

“When they say ‘boycott Lexington businesses,’ they’re not realizing who they’re hurting,” says Scott, who runs the skincare service.

Hopkins, for whom Lexington has always been home, views the days ahead with a blend of fear and hope. She worries that a rumored gathering of Bikers for Trump in Lexington on Saturday could turn violent, and is bracing for the long battle to reclaim the Blue Phoenix’s online presence.

At the same time, she’s heartened by the locals who are posting five-star reviews on the cafe’s pages in hopes of combating the slew of spiteful comments. And she recalls three instances – two on the phone and one online – where an exchange that started out hostile “ended up incredibly beautiful,” Hopkins says. “Those are the ones that I’m kind of holding on to, ’cause that’s what keeps me from completely losing all faith and hope in humanity.”

“I hope that this serves as an opportunity for all of us to reflect on what our first reactions were, what our solutions were, how we dealt with all of this,” she adds. “I have so much faith in this community and the people in it. We’re going to be fine.”

Staff writer Patrik Jonsson contributed to this report from Savannah, Ga.

Hans-Maximo Musielik/AP

A migrant who traveled with the annual caravan of Central American migrants juggles a soccer ball where the group set up camp to wait for access to request asylum in the US, outside the El Chaparral port of entry building at the US-Mexican border in Tijuana, Mexico, May 1.

Late Saturday morning, a trickle of people wearing green and white Mexico jerseys trickled into the TKO Sports Bar & Grill, seven minutes from the Texas-Mexico border, its doors and windows shuttered to keep out the steadily climbing heat.

Just inside the door, a life-size cardboard cut-out of four Mexican players greeted fans, one with a hole instead of a face, and some supporters stopped to briefly fill the vacancy next to the smiling likeness of star striker Javier “Chicharito” Hernández. Some finished up breakfast as the national anthems played, while others headed straight across the freshly mopped floor to join the crowd watching El Tri take on South Korea. The whistle for kick-off triggered muted clapping and cheers.

When a World Cup rolls around, it has in recent years meant a complex and emotional decision for most soccer fans in Laredo. The city is 95 percent Hispanic, the largest percentage of any large metro area in the country, and fans are often torn over their allegiance to the country of their birth and the country of their heritage. Daily life on the border, meanwhile, is relatively calm, with residents used to being surrounded by border agents and daily shoppers from Mexico, and used to heated border-security rhetoric from Washington.

This time around, though, World Cup allegiance has been made simpler here by the United States team’s absence from the quadrennial soccer showpiece. But the Trump administration’s zero-tolerance border policy – the decision to prosecute everyone caught crossing the border illegally, including asylum-seekers – and now-ended separation of migrant families, has disrupted and complicated routines on the border. Border residents, who had grown used to the post-9/11 ramp up in security infrastructure and rhetoric, say they are getting caught up in the emotion and confusion of this new crisis.

It’s half-time, and Mexico is leading thanks to a penalty kick by striker Carlos Vela. Vanessa Salinas, a lifelong Laredoan, mentions that there are “a lot of cops in Laredo right now.”

“I don’t mind,” she adds, but “they’re keeping people away who they don’t have a reason to.”

“I just think it’s really mean,” she continues about the now-discontinued policy of separating children from their parents. “Mexican, American, or whatever, you should be able to stay with your family.”

A week of confusion

Living on the border means living with things most other Americans don’t, and to live with those things without batting an eye. Shopping downtown means rubbing elbows with the thousands of people who cross from Mexico daily to work and shop. US Border Patrol vans roll by with the regularity of mail trucks. Watching the news means watching politicians who don’t live here talk about how dangerous your town is.

In recent weeks, however, those aspects of border life feel like they’ve been dialed to 11. Even the weather has been amplified, with McAllen experiencing a 100-year rainfall event and a 250-year rainfall event in the space of a few days last week, prompting a state of emergency wholly unrelated to the border crisis.

“The rain’s coming down, the airport’s saying, ‘We don’t know how long we’re going to stay open, and by the way the first lady is coming,’ ” recounts Jim Darling, the mayor of McAllen. “That was an interesting morning.”

That visit occurred shortly after President Trump signed an executive order June 20 stopping the separation of migrant families who cross the border. A week later there have been more developments, but confusion persists. Nationwide, 130 events are planned in protest of the border policy Saturday.

• The executive order said nothing about the more than 2,300 migrant children who had already been separated from their parents. Last weekend the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) released a statement describing how the government “is working to reunite [children] with their families.”
• On Monday, Mr. Trump announced via Twitter that he wanted to strip due-process rights from migrants, which legal experts say would be a violation of the US Consitution.
• A federal judge in California ordered the government to reunite all of the families within 30 days. The deadline is within two weeks for children under 5.
• Reports emerged that the Pentagon is making preparations to house 20,000 unaccompanied minors in tent camps on two military bases in Texas.

Amid all those orders, the week has been full of conflicting reports about how officials on the border are responding. Border Patrol agents temporarily stopped referring immigration cases to federal prosecutors, while another agency stated at one point that prosecutions of immigrants with families had been suspended, The New York Times reported. Meanwhile, the increase in immigration cases being brought to federal court has seen other border crimes like drug smuggling being prosecuted in state courts – California being one example where drug cases have “skyrocketed” in state courts in recent months.

Most recently, it emerged that 19 investigators for US Immigration and Customs Enforcement sent a letter to DHS Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen last week saying the Trump administration’s crackdown on illegal immigration has limited their ability to perform other duties, such as investigating drug and human trafficking and cyber crimes, and calling on her to separate their duties from immigration enforcement.

A ‘much more emotional’ border

In McAllen the confusion has even got to the locals, with some contacting Mayor Darling on social media or by email blaming the city government for separating migrant families.

“I don’t read them too closely,” he says. “I try not to get into an argument with people.”

The city was also at the epicenter of the 2014 surge in unaccompanied minors from Central America in 2014, but this current crisis is “much more emotional,” he says.

“The criticism we got [in 2014] was anti-immigrant criticism, ‘Why are you helping these people?’ ” he adds. “This time we’ve got criticized for being part of the separations, and neither are necessarily true or pleasant.”

A concrete impact Darling says he has noticed, more a result of the Trump administration’s immigration policy generally than the zero-tolerance policy specifically, is a negative economic one. Sales tax revenues have been down for 24 months, he says, starting before Trump took office – a big deal given sales tax contributes more to the city’s general fund than any other revenue source. Actions like requesting the National Guard be sent to protect the border, along with the consistent messaging from Trump and his supporters about how dangerous the border is, have been giving potential investors pause. Violence on the Mexican side of the border has also been a factor.

“When they’re sending troops down to protect the border, and President Trump is saying the border isn’t safe,” Darling says, “we’re trying to attract businesses and … those things have a direct [negative] impact.”

Back in Laredo, Ms. Salinas also thinks about the economy when she thinks about the thousands of families seeking asylum at the border, most fleeing gang violence in Honduras, Guatemala, and El Salvador.

She works three jobs – as an accountant, an announcer, and a D.J. – and says the American dream “is not what they think it is.”

“It’s more expensive, it’s hard, it’s another language,” she adds. “If I was a mom, I wouldn’t come to this country for a better life.”

Mexico went on to beat South Korea, the bar erupting into cheers when Hernández steered in a second goal in the 66th minute. After the final whistle, when most of the fans had filtered back out into the boiling midday sun, Gerard Juarez stayed in his seat.

Visiting from Portland, Texas, and watching the game with his girlfriend’s nephew, he says in Spanish that the family separations were “immoral.”

“We need more [border] security, but not this way,” he adds. “There’s violence in their countries.... They’re not criminals.”

Right now, he continues, “this is another vision of the United States.”

Reuters

Migrants arrive at a naval base after being rescued by Libyan coast guards in Tripoli, Libya June 29.

A good sign of a community’s bonds of affection is its ability to come together to deal with a massive influx of migrants – and a challenge to its identity. Three years after its migrant crisis began, the European Union reached an agreement Friday that shows, at the least, that it won’t allow migrant issues to split it apart.

“We have succeeded in obtaining a European solution,” said Emmanuel Macron, France’s president, adding that cooperation “has won the day.”

At a two-day summit in Brussels, EU leaders were under the gun to reach a deal. Germany’s fragile government coalition faced a threat from its interior minister that he would close German borders after July 1 if the EU did not agree to curb the flow of asylum-seekers. And Italy refused to talk about any EU business until other members stepped up to help it with a wave of migrants reaching its shores.

“Migration could end up determining Europe’s destiny,” warned German Chancellor Angela Merkel before the meeting, in an echo of similar political divisions in the United States over migration across its southern border.

In the end, EU leaders found solidarity around a range of temporary solutions, especially in relieving pressure on member states along the Mediterranean Sea that bear the brunt of migrants sailing from Africa and the Middle East – an estimated 54,000 so far this year.

“Italy is no longer alone,” said Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte after the summit. Or as Spanish Premier Pedro Sánchez put it, the deal continues “a European perspective to face this European challenge.”

The agreement calls for sending migrants rescued at sea to asylum processing centers (“disembarkation platforms”) that are outside the EU, preferably in North African nations, and that would be monitored to meet international standards of care. Migrants already in the EU, which include 160,000 in Greece and Italy, will be sent to secure “hotspot” processing centers in other EU countries, but “only on a voluntary basis.” In addition, the EU will invest more money in African nations that are the main sources of migration.

This summit plan is broad in ideas and still short on details. “We still have a lot of work to do to bridge the different views,” Ms. Merkel said.

With a rise of anti-immigrant parties in Europe, the EU has been forced to search even harder for a consensus on the core principles of the bloc. Or as English philosopher Roger Scruton states in a new book about conserving traditions, it is impossible to respond to a challenge from outsiders without first reestablishing a community’s values and identity.

“This means [regaining] confidence not in our political institutions only, but in the spiritual inheritance on which they ultimately rest,” writes Mr. Scruton. He calls this a “rediscovery of ourselves” and a way to learn what it takes to trust one’s neighbors.

The EU plan is only a small step in that direction, but one that may save the bloc’s unity and its larger purpose as a peaceful, integrated Continent.