A few weeks ago, I was talking to an informed, intelligent, and politically influential person here in Spain about the global battle that defines our times: democracy versus authoritarianism. His summary of the situation: “The left must unite.”
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I disagree. At the summit of heads of government held this weekend in Barcelona, the most urgent issue was to forge an alliance to defend the world against Trumpism and its disciples. In these times, it matters little whether a country has a left-wing or right-wing government, as long as that government respects the elementary rules of democracy, for which so many people have fought and sacrificed so much throughout the centuries.
If a government has been legitimately elected by a majority and respects the principles of freedom of expression, of law applied equally to all, and of the peaceful transition of power, preferably without stealing, then we are doing well. Far fewer governments meet these requirements than at the beginning of the century, starting with the United States, which has clearly sided with those who use force to impose their ideas, with the exception of Iran.
Otherwise, the main enemies of the U.S. today are the most democratic countries in the world, those of the European Union and Canada, for example, not excluding South Africa and Uruguay, whose presidents have been in Barcelona these days. The great ally of the U.S., of which the White House never speaks ill, is Russia, this being the country that is at the forefront of the battle – literally, with blood and fire – against democracy.
A new ally of the Americans is Venezuela, until very recently a standard-bearer of the international left, now transformed into a satrap of Washington. Venezuela offers a perfect example of the zero value the U.S. places on democracy. An illegitimate and authoritarian government remains in power, whose Bolivarian president has cordially met with the CIA director in recent weeks. For Trump, the figure of democratic resistance, María Corina Machado, no longer exists. He took his loot, the Nobel Prize medal that the poor unfortunate gave him, and hasta la vista, baby.
If the PP wins the next elections alone, without Vox, I will not flee to a democratic country
But let’s not be entirely pessimistic. It remains to be seen whether a path to democracy opens in Venezuela or if a regime consolidates that has much less to do with, say, Norway, than with Viktor Orbán’s Hungary, whose electoral defeat last Sunday offers the best reason for optimism in a long time. Who defeated him? A right-wing party, much more akin to the Spanish Popular Party than, for example, Podemos. In another era, I would understand the left in free countries lamenting that their side didn’t win. Today, this is not even remotely the priority. Just as it was not remotely the priority during World War II for conservatives, not Labour, to be in charge in the United Kingdom.
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More depressing is the Spanish panorama, where Vox continues to rise in the polls. The problem with Vox is not that it is right-wing, in the first place, but that it has positioned itself on the side of the global authoritarian camp. It doesn’t matter whether we call it fascism or communism. If the PP wins the next Spanish elections alone, without having to enter into a coalition with Vox, I will not flee to a democratic country, like Uruguay.
Should Spaniards vote Vox into power, they should know that it plays on the team of Orbán, Putin, and Trump
I would doubt their competence, but the PP doesn’t scare me, just as Giorgia Meloni didn’t scare me when she won the elections in 2022. The Italian prime minister scares me even less since she opposed Trump this week, earning applause from the Italian social-democratic opposition, which knew how to prioritize seriousness and maturity over the dominant Spanish concept of politics as a football match, where winning for winning’s sake is everything.
Vox represents the worst that politics offers in the Western world today, and to understand it, one only needs to look at its love affair with Viktor Orbán, who, during the 16 consecutive years he was in power, brought together the international forces conspiring against democracy. The leader of Vox, Santiago Abascal, traveled to Budapest in March with the same purpose as the even more repellent U.S. Vice President last week, to “support” Orbán on the eve of the Hungarian general elections. After Orbán’s crushing defeat on Sunday, Abascal said that the emblem of “European patriotic forces” had left Hungary much stronger than when he came to power.
If “stronger” means having ended press freedom, the independence of the judicial system, and having enriched himself, his family, and his cronies in the most corrupt and brazen way, Abascal is right. If being on the side of “European patriotic forces” means having been the most anti-EU leader on the continent and the only (yes, not even Meloni) European ally of Putin in the war that Putin is losing in Ukraine, then also. And furthermore, let’s not forget, the admired Orbán has been the idol and example to follow for the grotesque MAGA movement in the U.S., the source of Donald Trump’s power, who, in addition to his countless absurdities, childishness, and even heresies, is managing, after the whim of starting the war in Iran, to send the economies of Spain and the world to hell.
In this team – that of Orbán, Putin, and Trump – plays Vox, a party that currently seems to be supported by a fifth of the Spanish electorate. Well, let’s be consistent. If Spaniards vote them into power, that is democracy. What I want to think, being generous, is that if it happened, it would be a consequence of ignorance and stupidity rather than an explicit desire for Spain to follow the path of the United States, which would lead, if Trump got his way, to becoming the model of a kleptocratic, tyrannical, and cruel state run by the leader Trump most venerates in the world (after himself, of course), Vladimir Putin. If that’s what they want, let them vote for Vox. But at least let them do so with their eyes open, aware of the consequences for Spanish democracy, a historical and exemplary conquest for which so many gave their blood, sweat, and tears.
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