Why should you take Cardenas, Elliott, Reich, and DeMint seriously now?

The US right-wing apparently hates the FMLN's Salvador Sanchez Ceren even more than that famous socialist Kenyan who is advocating Sharia law and implementing death panels while vacationing in Benghazi.

This time it is Jose Cardenas in Foreign Policy.

With street gangs -- and Merino -- involved in the drug trade up to their eyeballs, obviously, the ramifications of such irresponsible policies and associations are alarming, not only for the Salvadoran people but for U.S. security interests in the region. According to the State Department's 2014 International Narcotics Control Strategy Report, El Salvador is "a major transit country for illegal drugs headed to the United States." That a new FMLN government under Sánchez Cerén would be committed to reversing that situation certainly raises doubts. All we can hope for at this point is that come Sunday, the Salvadoran people have their doubts as well.

FMLN relationship with street gangs? Most sane people have already concluded that the leaked audio tapes about the government's negotiations with the MS 13 and 18th Street gangs tell us nothing that we didn't already know and were not explosive revelations. The government traded sex and some prison comfort in return for a de-escalation of the violence which had been causes by many factors, including US gang culture and immigration policy and a weak Salvadoran state that launched mano dura and super mano dura instead of investing in the people of the country.

Merino's management of ALBA funds is not threatening but if there is legitimate evidence that he has been involved in drug and arms trafficking, the US should present that evidence to Salvadoran authorities. We've heard the same rumors for the last six years. If the attorney general clearly will not investigate for political reasons, then the US can reassess its relationship. You don't threaten a country because there is one person related to its president who you don't like. We are talking about 8 million or so people in El Salvador and the US and you want to torpedo our bilateral relationship over Merino?

The gangs coerced peopled into voting for the FMLN? While certainly possible, anything really is I guess, Salvadorans disagree. In February's UCA poll, 98.4% of respondents reported that they had received no pressure to vote/not vote. Fortunately, I guess that means that they were not listening to the Republicans in the US who want to disrupt remittances and deport thousands of their countrymen from the US if they vote their conscience.

While you are in the opposition (Shadow Government anybody?), you are supposed to demonstrate that you have better policy alternatives than the incumbent or at least better at carry out policies that every agrees are the desired choices. ARENA has so far failed that test and will in all likelihood be punished at the ballot box.

And given how wrong the US right-wing was about Mauricio Funes, why should you take Cardenas, Elliott, Reich, and DeMint seriously now?

Update
I forgot, this guy too.

 I wonder if they are all on Flores' payroll - "trumped up legal threats?" Even ARENA has dumped him.