Hit the hope

Let's think about the man sentenced to thirty years in prison who looks out the window and sees, beyond, through the bars, the green meadow where he thinks he can go, free, one day. It is hope that sustains him. But thinking that something desired will happen, although it alleviates the suffering of waiting, is not enough: the wait must be active, actions must bring hope closer to reality.The actors are the ones who can change the plot. For the world's geostrategy, it is the citizens of the United States, Israel, and Europe, who vote, who can most actively influence the historical moment we are living in; not those of China or Russia, to whom their states do not grant this possibility. The weight of the BRICS in world politics – that is, of the Global South – is growing, but it is not yet decisive.In November, the midterm elections will be held in the USA, and it is possible that the majorities in the chambers of Congress and the Senate will shift from Republican to Democratic. More possible in Congress, more difficult in the Senate. There are reasons for the American voter to feel deceived: the unnecessary war in Iran, growing inflation – after Trump criticized Biden's – the president's abuse of power – which the Supreme Court has corrected – in attempting to suppress the right to citizenship for those born in the USA... And also the failure of immigration policies: in what way has ICE, the US border police, improved them, beyond reducing the rights of American citizens and causing suffering and anguish to immigrants, more or less in an irregular situation, but settled in the country? And tariffs, what has changed? And in Ukraine, the war that Trump said he could end in a day, where are we now? The conflict created with NATO and the EU, what has it served? Member states are backing out, actively or passively, of investing 5% of their GDP in defense, as Trump demanded. More than a state policy, it was a business.Now Trump is talking about the communist threat. Is he inventing a problem again to later claim he has solved it, as he did with Iran? The president can claim that in Central and South America – in Colombia, Peru, Venezuela, and Argentina – he has friendly governments that are stable. Or are they stable because they are his friends? Isn't this practicing the interventionism he denigrated before winning the elections two years ago? He has taken on a burden he didn't have. It is true that the voter's memory is short, but, so much so? If citizens have a thread of memory, Trump and the Republican Party could lose this November. The distance between what he promised and what he has achieved is great.Elections in Israel could cause Netanyahu to lose his majority. The reason? Citizen fatigue with a war that has been changing objectives – eliminating Hamas terrorism in Gaza, protecting northern Israel and ending Hezbollah in Lebanon, stabilizing Syria, defeating Iran...–, the end of which is not on the horizon and which makes one think it is being maintained to postpone the prime minister's trial. This is a difficult argument to refute for the Israeli voter, right and left, and highly destructive for Netanyahu. Who should they vote for? And why? If maintaining the war distances them from collaboration and understanding with the states in the region – Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Oman, Emirates, etc. –, if the Abraham Accords are dead with this policy, why don't they move to the next phase of the conflict and extract benefit from the war they have supposedly won? What is the "eternal" war for? Changing the government could prevent the problem they already have from getting bigger, after the extermination war in Gaza and the apartheid in the West Bank, which have changed the international perception of Israel: from victims they have become seen as perpetrators. But, above all, the US no longer monolithically supports Israel as before; their interests are beginning to diverge.

The elections for the presidency of France, scheduled for April and May 2027, have no alternative candidate to the National Front, but with recent events the substitution of Jordan Bardella for Marine Le Pen, more extremist and convicted of fraud, will weaken the candidacy. Jean-Luc Mélenchon's La France Insoumise has only the support of the left, and the centrist parties are facing each other. This situation makes it unviable for a candidate capable of directing and leading the state to win. The presidency is elected by direct vote. The citizen knows that with their vote they choose the president. It is different from voting for a Parliament that elects a prime minister...It is possible that the president of the European Central Bank, Christine Lagarde, will take the step to present herself. Lagarde, who has the image of a good administrator and has shown that she is economically capable, could concentrate the centrist vote. Furthermore, she has time to consolidate her candidacy. French citizens are clear that they do not want a political figure like Trump as president. 80 years have passed since Vichy but the memory serves as an antidote. And they are aware that if they vote for the far-right, they could lose the strength that the EU gives them, as the Hungarian example shows.In the United Kingdom, the change of Keir Starmer for Andy Burnham as prime minister will strengthen Labour. The decentralization measures proposed by the latter are aligned with the EU. A certain political transition must be made for citizens to accept that Brexit was a historic mistake and that action must be taken to correct it. Nigel Farage's attitude, which denies it, will, over time, help to make it evident. He is a politician who is in the process of becoming a clown – and in fact will have to face a comic actor in a by-election– from explicit corruption.These are the dreams of the prisoner looking at the green field from his cell window. For Pedro Sánchez, these dreams, if he knows how to wait and put the elements in his favor, can help him not to lose the elections. Now the path is uphill and he has to pedal hard, but once the summit is overcome, if politics, as may happen, changes, the descent will require balance and speed. Aspects in which he excels. In any case, here is a rational strategy, even though we already know that feelings, at times, can be stronger than reasons.