1. The American delirium. On Monday, at a dinner in Barcelona, the Indian writer Pankaj Mishra said that there probably won't be a presidential election in the US in 2028 and that Trump will proclaim himself president. What disturbed me most was that no one present thought it was impossible. In the current context, it's perfectly plausible, in a country where the president punishes those who criticize him, manipulates the media, threatens to outlaw organizations that oppose him with complete impunity, the powerful laugh at his jokes, and even Bill Gates pays homage to him, while the country is shrinking. Where is the Democratic Party? Where is the press?
The current emanating from there—via the new communications system—is spreading with little resistance throughout old and dislocated Europe. The consensus necessary to demand decency is lacking. And the harsh reality becomes evident when genocide is displayed without restraint or shame, and European societies are divided, unable to face a historic dilemma: combat nihilistic barbarism or lead Western democracies to the brink. That is the question.
2. We go down to Catalonia. Let's get to the fine print. The Process has been a major shock that ended in a stalemate. The noise that accompanied it helped cover up problems that cannot be ignored: housing, immigration, marginalization. It has been difficult to recognize the limits of the independence movement, even though they are evident. But reality prevails, and going beyond what is possible and capturing the rhythms of each moment comes at a price. And we have entered a period of deflation—and frustration—without the independence movement being able to govern it, to have the flexibility necessary to find the tone in the current era. And the one who is paying the most is Junts. The faces brought in from outside during the Process, who gave it breadth and diversity, have gradually disappeared, and it has been trapped by a small core attached to the distant icon of Puigdemont, wanting to prolong a period that has ended. And every day it is a little more out of the game.
First, the PSC overwhelmed them, anticipating that citizens wanted a period of respite, giving more substance to things than to slogans. Now, like all right-wing parties, they are experiencing harassment from the far right. And it took a surge by the Catalan Alliance in the polls to set off alarm bells. The figures emerging may seem excessive, but it's true that these resentful groups accelerate and decelerate unpredictably. The current trends are clear: what's happening in Catalonia—the acceleration of the far right—is recurrent in Europe and demonstrates the difficulty conservatives and liberals face in governing the ongoing change in the economic and communications model. They don't instill the necessary confidence in people, and many voters are falling into the far right's trap at a time when their fanciful promises are becoming cruel reality in the United States thanks to Trump. In other words, we are part, on our own scale, of a global problem.
If the PSC and Junts are still the main figures in Catalan politics, they will have to get their reading of the present right. President Isla has found a suitable tone in a moment of hangover following the failed confrontation with the state. But pragmatism cannot last forever, among other reasons because the results of his administration fluctuate greatly. Wearing work clothes isn't enough; politics must be dressed in a way that wins, and what sets the current fashions wins. Together must make the leap to the present: melancholy can be a consolation, but never a project for the future, and that means renewal. Remaining hooked on Puigdemont, the cypher of what could never be, stuck in an image of an exile that no longer works, guarantees the permanent flight of votes to neo-fascism, to those who respond to discontent with the toxic nebula of patriotic radicalism.
3. Catalonia-Barcelona. In the background of all this is the model with which Catalonia built its profile after the dictatorship. Even today, it's recognizable by the names of Pujol and Maragall: an imperfect two-party system that, with the support of each side, shaped the country, with a certain Catalonia-Barcelona dialectic as a useful backdrop. And it wouldn't be good for Barcelona to swallow Catalonia, but neither would it be good for Catalonia to obscure Barcelona. It's creative tensions that can make a country greater. And I believe the Barcelona-Catalonia dialectic, well managed, is a powerful catalyst.
