Trump and the people of Barcelona

The best finding of democracy is that, once the polls close, elections are always won by the best. In the most recent case, Donald Trump won the US elections not (as pedants think) because the American electorate is boorish or wants to be led by a kind of soft fascist. The Republican candidate triumphed because he was the most competent option among rivals for whom we may feel more moral affinity, but who have sinned with great political myopia. Indeed, Trump has solidified his popular vote, improving his voting record in practically all anthropological strata; he has managed to focus his political message on what currently worries Westerners the most ---whether they say it or not, the economy and immigration--- and all this without the horrifying moral pedantry of his Democratic rivals. In a democracy, I repeat, skill always wins.

The second Trump presidency (something only achieved by Grover Cleveland in 1893) will involve more than one new paradigm, starting with the movement itself that will soon return the candidate to the Oval Office; as has happened in most countries of the world, and we have recently seen with the DANA in Valencia, the electorate distrusts the administrations it funds with great effort. In this sense, it is no coincidence that Trump returns to power waving the flag of a movement far removed from party politics. In turn, the future forty-seventh president has seen that Americans are much more concerned about the price of apples and cheap Chinese manufacturing than about intersex bathrooms in high schools or racial tensions. Metaphysics about the third sex is certainly very entertaining, but only if hake doesn't mortgage you.

Despite everything, Trump's victory is not only attributable to an appallingly managed transition between Joe Biden and his descendant Kamala Harris (if one distrusts democracy, flaunting an election concocted with a rather digital technique ---by appointment, that is--- and without even primaries to disguise the fact in question is not usually a stimulating procedure). In this sense, many Americans have preferred to elect a candidate persecuted by justice ("I'm voting for the felon!", many electoral posters read) than a being prefabricated by a system of leftist politicians who have enriched themselves with much more questionable methods than Trump. The triumph of Trumpism appeals, in short, to the pride of an average worker who is fed up with living scared, who thirsts for protectionism and, above all, who is tired of being accused of being stupid for being afraid.

Whether we like to admit it or not, the anxieties and concerns that have marked the American elections are the same ones that distress citizens and European politicians (many of whom mock Trump, but copy point by point his technique of frying the Chinese with tariffs to save their morbid industry). They are also typical of a place as seemingly far from Arkansas or Pennsylvania as Barcelona, where citizens go to the market closest to their home (if they can afford the whim of buying) scared to death about whether olive oil has gone up. Also regarding the issue of immigrants, a taboo subject in national terms but much more perceptible in the micro-sphere of neighborhoods; it costs us little, in short, to talk about the loss of essence represented by the arrival of immigrants and expats in Ciutat Vella and a lot to apply the same criterion in an environment like that of Catalonia or the State.

We can laugh as much as we want at Donald Trump, but I would like to know if there is a single politician in Europe (or in Barcelona, for that matter!) who has a serious plan to restore the economic health of the middle class or who has a migratory program that overcomes the absurd dichotomy between building walls at the borders or boasting about wanting to welcome without limits. The problems of the Yankees are very similar to ours; and politicians like Trump, if not counter-argued with a solid discourse, will also run through our cities. And sooner than everyone thinks.