War with Mexico? It’s on the 2024 ballot, at least if you believe the campaign rhetoric of more and more Republican candidates.

In January, two Republican House members introduced a bill to authorize the use of military force inside Mexico. They were not know-nothings from the fringes of the MAGA caucus. One was Dan Crenshaw of Texas, a former Navy Seal who received a master’s degree from Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government. The other was Mike Waltz of Florida, a former Green Beret who served as the counterterrorism adviser to Vice President Dick Cheney and was a successful entrepreneur before he entered Congress.

Military operations inside Mexico have been endorsed by Republican senators too. Last September, Tom Cotton of Arkansas published an op-ed that proposed:

We can also use special operators and elite tactical units in law enforcement to capture or kill kingpins, neutralize key lieutenants, and destroy the cartel’s super labs and organizational infrastructure. We must work closely with the Mexican government and ensure its continued support in this effort—but we cannot allow it to delay or hinder this necessary campaign.

At a committee hearing in March, South Carolina’s Lindsey Graham also favored military operations: “America is under attack. Our nation is being attacked by foreign powers called drug cartels in Mexico.” He concluded: “They are at war with us. We need to be at war with them.” That was not a figure of speech. Along with fellow Republican Senator John Kennedy of Louisiana, Graham has repeatedly urged military operations against cartels backed by the “fury and might of the United States.”

[Anne Applebaum: How do you stop lawmakers from destroying the law?]

Also in March, Rolling Stone reported that former President Donald Trump—who is once again the Republican presidential front-runner—has asked advisers for war plans and has speculated about deploying Special Operations teams into Mexico.

At a campaign event in Eagle Pass, Texas, Trump’s closest rival, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, proposed a selective naval blockade of Mexican ports.

“These precursors are sent into Mexico,” he said, referring to chemicals used in the production of fentanyl. “The cartels are creating the drug. And then they’re moving the drug into the United States of America. We’ll mobilize the Coast Guard and the Navy to interdict precursor chemicals.”

Sometimes the proponents of military operations inside Mexico add a caveat about cooperating with the Mexican government, as Cotton did in his op-ed and as DeSantis does in the written supplement to his naval blockade proposal.

But DeSantis did not mention the caveat in his spoken remarks yesterday, and the caveats get dropped when the idea is promoted on television and in social media. The Fox News star Greg Gutfeld argued on his program in December 2022 that it didn’t matter whether Mexico agreed or not:

It’s time to take out cartels in Mexico, bomb the bleep out of them. It’ll be over in minutes … And it doesn’t matter if Mexico won’t agree, when their cartels are free to invade us anyway. We didn’t ask Pakistan if we could drop in and kill bin Laden.

Probably very little of this talk is meant to be taken literally. Much of it functions as a rhetorical escape from the political dilemma that Republicans and conservatives face.

Synthetic opioids are inflicting death and suffering across the United States: 70,000-plus Americans died of overdose in 2021. The Republican brand is to sound tough, to promise decisive action. In the past, that impulse led Republicans to vow a war on drugs inside the United States: harsher penalties for users and dealers, more powers for police to search and seize. But this time, the users are Americans whom Republicans regard as their own. Five out of every eight victims of opioid overdose are non-Hispanic white people. Whereas historically, fatal overdoses have been an urban problem, synthetic opioids have been taking lives almost exactly equally between urban and rural areas. In deep-blue states such as California and New York, the death rates from synthetic opioids are even worse in rural areas than in the cities.

Republican lawmakers have little appetite for a domestic crackdown that would criminalize so many of their own constituents and their constituents’ relatives. At the retail level, many a “dealer” is also a user, a member of the community seeking to finance his or her own addiction by spreading addiction to others. Contemporary conservatism tells a fable about virtuous middle-Americans beset by alien villains. Apply that fable to the fentanyl crisis, and you arrive where Fox’s Gutfeld did at the conclusion of his December monologue: “So that’s my plan, bomb the supply, reduce harm among the demand by availing safer, clean alternatives.” Compassion for us. Violence for them.

But even if bomb-Mexico talk is intended only to shift blame—to redirect anger toward politically safer targets—the talk carries real-world political dangers.

The first danger of these calls for unilateral U.S. intervention is that it alienates opinion inside Mexico. Trump, DeSantis, Graham, and the others are speaking to Americans. But Mexicans can hear too. Are Americans dying because of Mexican drug sales? Mexicans are dying because of American drug purchases. Mexico has about one-third the population of the United States, but four times the homicide rate. Many, if not most, of those homicides are casualties of the battles for market share set in motion by American drug demand. Does Mexico do too little to halt the flow of opioids northward? The United States does nothing to halt the flow of guns southward.

Mexican resentment of U.S. hypocrisy has weakened Mexican leaders who want to strengthen the partnership with the United States—and empowered exploiters of anti-American sentiment, including the current president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador. As American politicians shift from merely blaming Mexico to outright threatening Mexico, the resentment will only intensify.

[David Frum: The autocrat next door]

The second danger is an even more sinister effect within Mexico: American threats of war upon Mexico will enhance the political power of criminals against the Mexican state.

Criminals have often benefited from nationalism in protecting and supporting their operations inside Mexico. One notorious example: In 1985, Mexican cartel criminals abducted, tortured, and murdered a Drug Enforcement Agency officer, Enrique Camarena. The crime boss Rafael Caro Quintero was identified by the United States as the “intellectual author” of the murder. He was immediately arrested, but never extradited. Caro Quintero was rearrested by Mexican marines in July 2022. But President Lopez Obrador took exception at his daily morning press conference to reports that the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency had located Caro Quintero, suggesting the Americans had overstepped. The Mexican courts meanwhile seemed to interpret U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland’s request for “immediate extradition” of Quintero as a potential infringement of the accused’s rights as a Mexican citizen. Nor unfortunately is this a unique case of Mexican officials using nationality as a justification to protect criminals from American justice. If Republican politicians revive ancient memories of past U.S. aggression against Mexico, it will make any such justifications more plausible and acceptable to Mexican opinion.

A third danger of the war talk is that Republican politicians are radicalizing their own voters. Three years ago, proposals to bomb Mexico would have sounded crazy. But if enough people repeat the talk—if it is debated, amplified, and validated by trusted commentators—the talk gains power. It becomes thinkable, sayable, and then ultimately doable. “Doable” is not the same as “done.” But an atmosphere is being created in which Republicans who do not speculate about war with Mexico may be perceived as weak.

DeSantis may imagine that his call for a naval blockade offers a moderate alternative to outright war. But he is still training Republican primary voters to expect a promise of some kind of military action against Mexico. It could be conducted beyond Mexican waters, farther from cameras that could record images of explosions or injured civilians. But think harder, and it’s actually an even more invasive idea than air strikes, because the blockade would need to continue for months, years, maybe forever.

The fourth danger is that the Republicans have ceased to consider even the most obvious risks. Despite Lindsey Graham’s vivid language, the Mexican criminal cartels are not in fact at war with the United States. They are doing business with the United States—a lethal business, but business all the same. As rational profit-maximizers, they take care to avoid direct confrontations with American power. In March, criminals abducted four Americans in Matamoros, Mexico, killing two. After the survivors were released, the local cartel issued a public letter of apology and surrendered five men whom it blamed for the abduction. “We have decided to turn over those who were directly involved and responsible in the events, who at all times acted under their own decision-making and lack of discipline,” the letter stated. Whatever was really going on in this murky story, clearly the cartel was worried about consequences for the murders.

But what if the U.S. begins bombing and rocketing cartel operations? Will the old restraints still apply? What would then deter the cartels from extending their violence across the border? “The enemy gets a vote,” goes an old warning. If the United States opts to escalate a law-enforcement challenge into a military conflict, it must prepare for its well-financed, well-armed antagonist to respond in kind. And unlike previous irregular antagonists, such as al-Qaeda or the Islamic State, this is one that intimately understands and has deeply penetrated U.S. society.

The risks to the United States extend beyond U.S. and Mexican territory. Right now, the United States and its allies are assisting Ukraine against a Russian invasion. What happens to the consensus behind that effort if, 18 months from now, the United States has bombed, invaded, or blockaded its own neighbor? What if U.S. forces unintentionally inflict civilian casualties or destroy the property and livelihoods of nearby innocents? The U.S. military campaigns in Afghanistan in 2001 and against Iraq in 2003 were joined by global coalitions and supported by United Nations resolutions. There will be no such international legitimation for a U.S. attack inside Mexico, or blockade of Mexico, without the consent of the Mexican government.

There have been occasions in the past when the threat of unilateral U.S. action has pressured Mexican authorities to step up to their responsibilities. But in those cases, the threat was delivered behind closed doors, such that the Mexican side could yield without public humiliation. Today’s threats are creating the opposite pressure—so much so as to raise the question, disturbing on both sides of the border, “Is public humiliation maybe the real point of this otherwise futile exercise?”

The toll of opioids upon American life and American homes is indeed horrific. The cooperation of the Mexican state has been unsatisfying, as López Obrador has proved an especially unreliable and double-sided partner. U.S. frustration with Mexico has a valid basis, and nobody should pretend that the Mexican government is innocent amid the fentanyl traffic. The point is that the American government should not act brutishly, stupidly, and self-defeatingly.

[From the November 2021 issue: ‘I don’t know that I would even call it meth anymore’]

Daniel Patrick Moynihan, who advised President Nixon on domestic affairs, told the following story in The American Scholar about his attempts to curb drug abuse by squeezing supply. In the late ’60s, the drug of concern was heroin; an important source of supply was via the port of Marseilles in France—the fabled “French Connection.” Over many months, Moynihan negotiated agreements to stop the flow through Marseilles, mercifully without the threat of rockets or Special Forces operations.

I found myself in a helicopter flying up to Camp David to report on this seeming success. The only other passenger was George P. Shultz [then the secretary of labor ], who was busy with official-looking papers. Even so, I related our triumph. He looked up. “Good,” said he, and returned to his tables and charts. “No, really,” said I, “this is a big event.” My cabinet colleague looked up, restated his perfunctory, “Good,” and once more returned to his paperwork. Crestfallen, I pondered, then said, “I suppose you think that so long as there is a demand for drugs, there will continue to be a supply.” George Shultz, sometime professor of economics at the University of Chicago, looked up with an air of genuine interest. “You know,” he said, “there’s hope for you yet!”

Drug interdiction has not worked in Southeast Asia, in Afghanistan, in Andean South America. American demand and American wealth will summon supply from somewhere, and if one channel of commerce is stopped, another will open. The drug problem is located here, and the answer must be found here. Belligerent snarls and growls may excite American emotions, and they may win some American votes. But if those snarls and growls are acted upon, they will plunge the United States into troubles compared with which the fentanyl problem of today will seem the least of evils. Unfortunately, it’s too late to silence the threats. They have become the price of entry to Republican politics. But it’s not too late to challenge and rebut them—and to elect leaders who understand that Mexico will be either America’s partner or America’s disaster.

Picture a family. What do you immediately imagine—two parents and their children? Your answer likely depends on the kind of household you grew up in, or on the kinds you’ve known. What role might aunts, uncles, cousins, and grandparents play? What about neighbors, friends, and lovers?

The American focus on the nuclear unit is far from universal—many cultures define family more broadly—and it is a limiting paradigm. But attitudes are shifting: The coronavirus pandemic necessitated a new infrastructure for care among friends and companions, and the number of Americans living in multigenerational homes has risen sharply in recent decades. An epidemic of loneliness has made it clearer than ever that humans need socialization and kinship for their health and happiness—and blood relations sometimes aren’t enough to fulfill those needs. LGBTQ people, in particular, have long created and stumbled upon alternative families. In the face of homophobia and transphobia, queer folks have frequently needed to forge connections that facilitate love, safety, and joy.

The following six books span memoir, reportage, and fiction, but each illustrates, in its way, how expansive a family can be, and the many ways we might create one.

Farrar, Straus, and Giroux

A Home at the End of the World, by Michael Cunningham

Cunningham, best known for the Pulitzer-winning novel The Hours, has long been an astute and tender chronicler of relational intricacies. In his second novel, he introduces readers to Bobby and Jonathan, two boys growing up in 1960s and ’70s Ohio, each with his own painful family dynamics. The boys become fast friends when they meet in junior high; they eventually become sexually intimate, though they never talk about it. Years later, Jonathan has come out as gay and is living in New York with Clare, a woman he loves deeply—but when Bobby moves in with them and begins sleeping with Clare, all of their relationships become complicated. Clare gets pregnant, which inspires the trio to try to forge a new bond. Gently, they attempt to give one another what they need; there’s love on all sides, though it’s sometimes confusing and painful. Even after things go wrong, the wrenching conclusion allows a different kind of care to emerge.

[Read: The rise of the three-parent family]

Abrams

Choosing Family: A Memoir of Queer Motherhood and Black Resistance, by Francesca T. Royster

The moment that Royster realized she wanted a baby, she was overwhelmed. She was in her early 40s, and her longtime partner, Annie, was in her early 50s. They also needed to choose whether to conceive, foster, or adopt, and each option presented its own challenges. Together, through hard conversations and consultations with friends, they decided that open adoption was the most ethical path, and worked with a well-respected Chicago organization to adopt a Black baby. As Royster narrates the journey and her daughter’s childhood, she knows that the home she’s shaping is nontraditional, and draws strength and inspiration from her own history. Her mother, her great-grandmother, and other women in her life have always taken in relatives and friends, making space in their houses for those who’ve needed it—in essence modeling “the spirit of queer family in the fluid shape of its membership and the permeability of its borders,” Royster writes. Her book compassionately charts her realization that she doesn’t have to reinvent the wheel to raise her child—she can rely on her ancestors and her community.

Soho Press

Blue-Skinned Gods, by SJ Sindu

Sindu’s novel begins in Tamil Nadu, India, where a baby boy, Kalki, is born with blue skin. His parents recognize him as a god—the tenth incarnation of Vishnu. Being divine isn’t easy, especially for a child, but Kalki is not unhappy growing up in the ashram his father builds. He has a doting mother; his cousin-brother, Lakshman; his servant friend, Roopa; his aunt and uncle; and the villagers who come to worship him. Still, he’s kept separate from the local children, too holy to take part in their fun and games, and the household dynamic revolves unsteadily around him. As Kalki grows into adolescence and his faith in his own godhood is shaken, the status quo disintegrates. Ultimately, he strands himself in New York City and strenuously avoids his father. When he renews his association with Lakshman years later, he’s introduced to queer artists, musicians, and chosen kin. This entirely different kind of family teaches him valuable lessons he missed in his sheltered upbringing: how to live authentically, learn to love difference, and find joy and passion.

[Read: Live closer to your friends]

Catapult

I Keep My Exoskeletons to Myself, by Marisa Crane

In Crane’s imaginative debut, prisons have been abolished, but punishment hasn’t, nor has surveillance. The authoritarian government gives people convicted of crimes a second, literal shadow, and more if they reoffend. These citizens have limited rights and resources, and suffer a great deal of social stigma. When the narrator Kris’s wife dies giving birth to their child, the baby is penalized for inadvertently killing her mother. Kris, now both a widow and new mom, has a second shadow too, so she and her daughter both become pariahs—especially because few children are marked in this way. Kris feels lonely for a long time, and neither her bumbling father nor her grief-stricken mother-in-law are able to give her the kind of help she needs. Instead, her bond with her child grows: They learn to embrace their shadows as part of their lives, giving them names and playing with them. As the novel progresses, that kind of acceptance is paramount. Kris slowly emerges from her morass of sorrow and builds connections with new friends and neighbors, intent on giving her daughter hope, gumption, and a collection of people who won’t fail her.

Riverhead

The Death of Vivek Oji, by Akwaeke Emezi

Emezi’s novel is structured around the question of how and why Vivek Oji’s life ended, but it is more concerned with his life. Vivek was born the same day his grandmother Ahunna died, and he came out of the womb with a scar similar to hers, an indication that they were spiritually connected. The book explores the meaning of their link: Vivek never met Ahunna, but she—or some part of her—lived in his cells and soul. Through the unique points of view of those who loved him, Emezi illuminates the title character’s life. His parents and relatives knew him as a beloved child and devoted student. But Vivek also has family of a different kind, and they honor different sides of him. The girls who took him in as one of their own and the cousin who became his lover remember their friend’s gender fluidity and independence, traits rejected at home. Everyone who grieves Vivek feels possessive of him, but his death actually helps bring them together, carrying his memory through this extended kinship network.

[Read: The nuclear family was a mistake]

Knopf

Diary of a Misfit: A Memoir and a Mystery, by Casey Parks

Who was Roy Hudgins? Parks’s debut, a blend of memoir, research, and reporting, is dedicated to finding out. A few months after the author came out to her Southern parents as gay—and after their preacher prayed for her death, seeing it as preferable to a life of sin—her grandmother told her that she “grew up across the street from a woman who lived as a man”: Hudgins. Some years later, Parks begins to look into Hudgins’s life, trying to understand why he was accepted in Louisiana, her home state, which she’s always seen as hostile to queer people. Alongside her research into Hudgins, which grows more personal and moving over time, Parks tells the story of her complicated relationship with her mother, who has a substance-use disorder. As she learns to accept her mother’s illness and flaws, she also has to reckon with Hudgins’s imperfections; he’s not always the progressive forefather she might wish for, and because he died before she started her investigation, she can’t have it out with him. Then again, families—whether born into or chosen—are rarely ideal, and Parks embraces the nuances, contradictions, and hard truths that come with loving someone.