Federico Reyes Heroles
“For decades, we believed that democracy was irreversible, the club nobody wanted to leave.” The lines come from Irene Vallejo, the brilliant yet very composed Spanish writer, a very scarce combination. “It is hard to last in the liquid society (Zygmunt Bauman). Time wears out everything fast…by rising expectations or by the erosion of dreams.” Trump returns to the presidency of the great power. He is the first convict. He repeats, even after supporting a coup attempt in one of the founding democracies.
The signals he systematically emits are always a threat. Recovering the Panama Canal, he is going for Greenland; it will be for the key minerals for the green economy. He also intends to change the name of the Gulf of Mexico and other barbarities. But these imperial rantings gave him a majority in both houses. Fortunately, there are other counterweights in that country. But we are facing an energumen, in the literal sense of the word “person haunted by some demon, ghost or evil force”. The meaning of his decisions already affects us all. He despises multilateral organizations, such as NATO or Unesco, and it doesn’t matter. He is convinced of the supremacy of a group, not to speak of race. His arrogance knows no bounds; remember that he refused to greet Angela Merkel. He is misogynist, evasive, and so on, the reincarnation of barbarism. Now, the alarm signal is coming from the United States. The situation is reminiscent of Churchill’s desperate warnings against Hitler. The United States did not want to see it. So went the world. Now, the answer is in other latitudes. The Western civilizational project is at risk.
Trump is returning at a time when the wild waves of authoritarianism are battering the democratic culture in the world. In many countries, people willingly accept authoritarian regimes: “The appeal of the iron fist seems to be increasing among those who have never experienced it,” adds Vallejo. In 1999, The Wall Street Journal coordinated, along with 16 other newspapers, a polling exercise called the Mirror of the Americas. The choice for the respondent was very clear: “Democracy or an iron fist”. Authoritarian thinking is present in all countries. In the United States, 6% expressed sympathy for the “iron fist”. In Venezuela, it was 32%, and in Guatemala 38%. In Mexico, 28%.
Fortunately, in the years that followed, the democratic culture in Mexico grew stronger. Municipal, state, and executive alternation helped. By 2016, around 60% of people demonstrated respect for the law as a moral duty or to bring a common benefit. Criticism of corruption grew. We were on the right track, although skepticism about the actors never gave way. We were on the right track when authoritarianism in the world showed its new vigor: Orbán, Erdogan, the Ortegas, Chávez-Maduro, China, and many others. In the AmericasBarometer 2023 (Vanderbilt University/Data), 57% of young Mexicans between 18 and 35 consider authoritarianism superior to democracy. The data coincide. Pew Research Center reports that in Mexico, support for authoritarianism went from 27% in 2017 (watch the date) to 50% in 2024. The 4T and its mañaneras destroyed our incipient democratic culture. We are sitting on a powder keg.
The Barometer reveals that 52% of the Mexican population approves of authorities acting outside the law. The same percentage justifies a self-coup d’état! As Irene Vallejo warns, there is an idealization of the “iron fist”. Most recently, Mexico’s ridiculous positioning vis-à-vis the Venezuelan dictatorship. One more example is that the Mexican government is, in fact, a collaborator of authoritarianism. The civilizing values of the second half of the 20th century are tottering. Let us remember Churchill.
The democratic dream is eroding. Without democracy, we will all be shipwrecked.
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