The influencers, rather than advertising a product, they project aspirations: from orthodontics to stiletto, of the Neolith in the infinity pool, of the clean look from Monday to Friday boho. The relief of socialities Exquisite women like Isabel Presyler have been taken over by snobs of all kinds; devoted ultras like Tamara Falcó, easygoing ones like Dulceida, newcomers like Georgina Rodríguez... Those born in the independent republic of IKEA are as quick to record videos on the couch with a soft blanket as they are to CrossFit with a sweaty towel. Naturally, no one buys certain montages, but the combination of annoyance and fascination they provoke is addictive. La Ballerina Farm, a parody of a farmer married to an airline heir, has no idea of the difficulties of a livestock farm beyond getting her boots dirty with manure. In the bucolic images of her making mustard or spinning mozzarella with one of her eight children, there are no maids or nannies. There is nothing natural about that house, except the well-washed wood. country chic. Delphine de Vigan recreates, in Children are kings, the dark corner of families who live in a shop window.
Behind the banal recipes lies a hidden political depth charge. The Utah Instagram farmer is a successful businesswoman, but also a Mormon. tradwife (traditional housewife) in version 2.0. Many icons of the fascist world –as UTBH (a straight white guy)– They don't create content, they live off monetizing hatred towards those they consider filthy. wokeThe strummer Ibai Llanos, one of the few who hasn't taken up residence in the Andorran paradise, warns against individuals like The Grefg or El Rubius; smart guys who not only dodge taxes, like traditional tax evaders, but also campaign for fiscal insolvency.
However, when we talk about influence, as an organized activity, we are not referring to those who live off digital exposure or confrontation, but rather to the pressure of interest groups. In English, they take their name from the place where those who wanted to access the congressmen waited: the lobby (lobby) of the Willard Hotel, near the Capitol and the White House. In Spain, where we talk about "making corridors", there was the figure of the lobbying as synonymous with scheming or conspiring.
In reality, there is no right to influence or win over goodwill, but rather to participate. The right to have all interests involved represented, and for decisions affecting the community to be made for the common good, taking into account all information and its implications. Independent oversight is essential to detect and monitor breaches of these three conditions: transparency, integrity, and equity.
Undue influence will be more difficult with strict rules and full publicity for meetings of public officials; even with the disclosure of funding for foundations, research centers, and organizations that lobby. Favorable public opinion can also be created indirectly through high-profile campaigns in the media or on social media, by posting news on Wikipedia or removing critical posts. It's outrageous that public universities are willing, as if nothing had happened, to host chairs funded by lobbyists, with their independence under suspicion; this is the case, reported by the Sindicat de Llogateres, of the ones the UPF holds with the real estate industry. –Tecnocasa; Association of Property Managers; Association of Building Developers and Constructors of Catalonia (APCE)–.
On the contrary, in a context of secrecy and half-truths in the Spanish government's policy on the arms trade, it is appreciated information such as the one from the Delàs center on the financing by our banks (BBVA, Santander, Caixabank...) of the business of death, or the fact that the same center has uncovered the 46 contracts that Spain has closed with Israeli military companies since October 7, 2023.
Transparency is not a superpower. It must go hand in hand with integrity, as not all pressure is admissible. Some miserable ones, revealed by The Intercept, Reuters, or MIT, have made history: the offensive by one hundred lobbyists for Big Pharma, in Washington DC, to stop the release of patents and the shipment of COVID vaccines to "Third World" countries; the secret campaign by Philip Morris International to undermine the WHO framework convention and torpedo anti-smoking laws in Asia and Africa; or the injection of funds from the oil lobby (see where, to the same think thanks than tobacco companies) to promote climate denial.
Just as important as combating opacity and indecency is ensuring that access to the centers of power is on an equal footing. Large corporations have monopolized power, as Amnesty International denounces with the Shell case, which has withdrawn from oil extraction in Nigeria without being accountable to the communities affected by decades of pollution in the Niger Delta. It may seem eccentric, but in the US, "public relations" firms pay indigents to save their time for meetings with congressmen, while environmentalists, for example, are left out.
A naturalized form of promiscuity among the political and economic elite is revolving doors. Those who have made a career in the party, rewarded with public positions from which they pad their contact lists, end up profiting from them in the private sector. The predilection of the energy and real estate lobbies for recruiting former high-ranking officials is more than suspicious. Without going any further, the presidency of the Association of Rental Apartment Owners (ASVAL), which represents large investment funds, passed from Joan Clos (doctor by training, former mayor of Barcelona and former director of UN-Habitat) and Helena Beunza (former Secretary General of Housing for the Spanish government). Seeing the Lampedusism in the regulation of rentals in our home –full of holes, like seasonal rentals–, The slogan of James O'Brien, the English labor leader, comes to mind: "The scoundrels will tell you that you are not represented because you have no patrimony, I tell you that you have no patrimony because you are not represented."
