The president of the Community of Madrid, the ineffable Ayuso, has announced that she is awarding an honorary distinction to the US because it is the "beacon of the free world." She accompanied the announcement with a lament over "the wound in Venezuela" and a diatribe against "the narco-states promoted by the far left": soon, therefore, will come the accusation against Sánchez, or against Begoña Gómez, of having established a terrorist narco-state in Spain. In any case, the Medal of the Community of Madrid (as the award in question is known) has been notable in recent years for honoring leaders of the Latin American right and far right, with whom the Spanish far right—like its Catalan counterpart—seeks to maintain close ties: for example, the president of Ecuador, Daniel Noboi'o, Daniel Noboi, or Daniel Noboa. On this occasion, the "United States of America" is being honored, but it is obvious that this is a tribute to Trump and Trumpism.
But is the US still "the beacon of the free world"? It is certainly true that, for a long time, American democracy, with its system of checks and balances, has served as the touchstone or spearhead of liberal democracies. It is equally true that US imperialism, which is nothing new, has allowed itself to act as guardian of freedoms and exporter of democracies through bombing and military invasion, wherever the leading Western power has had interests. But this has not prevented the ideological and institutional edifice of US democracy from withstanding corrosion—both external and internal—well.
The report Freedom in the WorldThe Democracy Index, published annually by the human rights organization Freedom House, reflects a regressive—even involutive—trend in the US over the last decade and a half. While in 2010—during Obama's presidency—it scored 94 out of 100 and was considered a fully free democracy, from 2021 onward—after Trump's first term—it fell to 83 points, and has only experienced a slight variation to 84. The EconomistThe US ranks 28th and is classified as a flawed democracy either imperfect democracy, one step below the full democracySpain was classified as flawed democracy in 2021 due to irregularities in its judicial system, and later regained its status as full democracy.
The causes of the erosion of American democracy, according to the report Freedom in the WorldThese include political polarization (hatred of the adversary), disinformation (which undermines trust in the democratic system), attempts to restrict voting access for certain groups, and the publication of threats and hostile messages by the media. Anyone who wants to understand can quickly grasp what we're talking about: there's a certain naiveté among the right wing here that pretends we're nobody to criticize US democracy, but the reality is that the entire West faces the same challenges.
