No, you're wrong. There are really community defense organizations and communities that have set up checkpoints against cartel violence. It's well known, well d

No, you're wrong. There are really community defense organizations and communities that have set up checkpoints against cartel violence. It's well known, well documented and there's even a link above to one particularly well known case of these organizations fighting the cartels. Some of them do eventually get infiltrated by gangs or turn into something similar, but not always. The idea that absolutely nobody stands in the way of the cartels is not only false but also paints an ignorantly defeatist narrative about their power. Even the apparatus of the state in Mexico could stand in their way, or crush them, but due to a complex multitude of factors, it doesn't and appears weaker than they are though it's in fact stronger and in a certain way the senior partner in the tacit arrangements cartels and formal authorities create.