Living in Baja, I’m at least thankful for not having mormon craziness right next door.
Imagine northern Baja during Prohibition in the United States, jam-packed with bars catering to gringos looking to get plastered. That’s how Tijuana grew from a sleepy town to city virtually overnight back then. Many people still see Tijuana as a drinking-spree place, in reputation. Now imagine it was still that way, at that 1920s level of intensity.
Imagine polygamy as part of daily religion and politics in the area. With so much territory equaling political agency, Deseret might have openly maintained their backwater, backwards attitudes towards women to this day. It would have seeped into Mexico. It would be part of the conversation.
As it stands, we are buffered from those crazy mormon bastards by a series of layers with other types of crazy, and currently Baja could not have had better luck than with a neighbor like blue, progressive California.
Thank god we don’t have Texas or Arizona next door. Sorry about that, Sonora, Chihuahua, Coahuila, Tamaulipas. We got lucky there in Baja.