The meeting of progressive leaders in Barcelona, instead of providing solutions to the world’s problems, accentuates the ideological gap that encourages extremism. The struggle between left and right punishes citizens.
It is a mistake to think that we are better. Seeing the world as a competition between good and evil only leads to more political, economic, and military confrontations. That is why I believe it is a mistake to gather a few progressive leaders in Barcelona without including other leaders who can contribute to a better world.
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If we are not mistaken and admit that all of us, anywhere on this planet, wish to live in peace, we easily understand that the solutions of the left can well be those of the right.
Ideologies are important, but when it comes to moving from the world of ideas to that of actions, everything becomes complicated. There is a lack of leadership, both on the left and the right, to do what any sensible citizen believes must be done to live peacefully: ensure that no one lacks what is necessary for a dignified life, that is, education, healthcare, housing, transport, and security. And all of quality.
If we read history and follow current events a little, we understand that there are no good guys or bad guys. Trump may be an inept trying to moderate Iran and make America great again, but regulating immigration and favoring business initiative are not ideas that a progressive government would not embrace.
Meloni may be a daughter of Italian neo-fascism, but she has severely criticized Trump. She has reproached him for the war in Iran and the disqualifications he has launched against the Pope.
The Pope is the new leader of the political opposition to Trump and Meloni defends him
By denouncing the same things Meloni denounces, especially the unnecessary use of violence to reduce the threat of the Islamic Republic, Leo XIV has become the most popular American in the world. The leader of 1.4 billion Catholics is also the new head of the political opposition to Trump, a defender of human rights, dialogue and diplomacy, a standard-bearer against the politicization and militarization of faith.
It is a mistake that neither Macron nor Merz are in Barcelona. Neither the President of France nor the Chancellor of Germany make the cut for global progressivism, but both are trying to do things right to strengthen European security and integration. Germany, bearing the enormous weight of guilt for Nazism, is willing to build an army capable of defending Europe, and Macron, undoubtedly exaggerating the importance of France in common defense, is rowing in the same direction. Of course, Paris and Berlin disagree on the weight that the American military industry should have in European arsenals, but the two capitals agree that we cannot continue as before, at the mercy of the whims of the nuclear-armed kindergarten that the White House is today.
Few on the left and right would question the evidence that Trump is a grotesque figure. Everyone knows of his defeat in Iran and knows that it is impossible to maintain power when prestige is lost. The day he impersonated Jesus Christ, all he achieved was to accentuate suspicions about his paranoid state.
It is time, therefore, to remember Karl Marx reflecting on Louis Bonaparte: “The serious clown no longer takes universal history for a comedy, but his comedy for universal history.” Trump, Putin, and Netanyahu fit this description of Emperor Napoleon III very well.
The left can revel in Trump’s grotesque comedy and the tremendous damage he has caused to the moral authority of the United States. And it can also laugh at Putin and Netanyahu, rulers who need war and testosterone to keep living. But what good does it do to see the world as a confrontation between absolutes? None. Will it help save global trade, now compromised in Hormuz? No.
Rebuilding global trade shattered in Hormuz does not depend on ideologies
It doesn’t matter if Iran reopens the strait. The ayatollahs have shown that with very little, just the threat of launching drones and mining the waters, a defeated country, returned to the Stone Age, as Trump likes to say, is capable of strangling the world economy. The US Navy, for the first time since 1945, has not been able to guarantee freedom of navigation. Other pariahs of the West, especially the Houthis of Yemen, have taken note. They too can extort great powers with their control over a crucial strait for supply chains.
90% of world trade moves by sea. Globalization, as we have understood it until now, is no longer as effective. Insurers will levy risk premiums, and routes will be longer to avoid straits. What good does it do to be left-wing or right-wing to face this tremendous challenge? None. We must see the world from another perspective, less Manichaean and patriarchal.
Claudia Sheinbaum, the most intelligent president in Barcelona this weekend, knows how to move forward by avoiding a frontal clash with Trump. Her policy advances in circles, and circles, as everyone knows, encompass much more than straight lines.
This pragmatism, combined with necessary idealism, paves the way to unite people who, regardless of where they come from, work for the common good. Humanity is eager for this leadership. The Hungarians who retired Orban last Sunday sang We’re the champions in the streets of Budapest. And the vast majority of them are conservatives.
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