1. The reactionary escalation. The right is sweeping Portugal, the Social Democratic Party is sinking—losing more than 900,000 votes—and the far right is fighting back. And, all smug, it proclaims itself the opposition to the right that had vetoed it. In other words, while social democracy, which hasn't found a way to read the present, is fading away, unable to respond to the discontent of the working classes, the right, allowing itself to be carried by the winds blowing from economic power, is seizing power while the far right is undertaking—and even more so since it has taken it from now to the one it has made its own—to close the doors on it.
The American president deploys the spectacle, his nihilistic delirium, with the blind conviction that everything is permitted, and it becomes contagious. The European right is groping for support, with varying success, while the far right is growing and, with the unique characteristics of each case, controlling the perimeter, waiting for the moment of opportunity that will allow them to take over their rivals. Not a day goes by without news in the same direction. And this week it's not just Portugal. The reactionary escalation continues. It's true that the Romanian right has prevented the far right from winning in the second round. But there, as in Poland, the extremists are consolidating, ready to assault an increasingly besieged right. It's worth noting that, for now, the only one who still has the courage to occasionally make a gesture that might awaken the memory of social democracy is Pedro Sánchez, while the PP has been flirting with Vox for some time now. How long will it all last? The scenario can be summarized as follows: the far right is growing, social democracy is fading, and the right is pretending it has nothing to do with them, ever closer to falling into the hands of the extremists.
Europe in a bind. From a starting point to feeling surrounded. We are facing a structural crisis: a change in economic regime, technological acceleration, political confusion. The order that emerged from the Second World War had simplified the world: West/East, and the Third World as a disputed territory: capitalism/communism. The fall of the Berlin Wall has gradually returned us to complexity. Europe is dragging itself along, and the countries trapped in Russia's orbit are drawing closer. Great Britain is going it alone (and it's not working out well). In the Cold War, Europe represented protected peace and well-being. Now, its time has come to be that Europe. And here it's stuck: nations and their powers are resisting, although fear—now of China—is growing. And Trump's ways have made evident the need to emancipate itself from the US. It is these contradictions that—on the defensive—Russia has tried to capitalize on. And Europe is struggling to grow up and coherent: the European Union is thin as an institution and corporatist in its ways, distant from its citizens.
2. Melancholy. Europe has believed it too much, convinced that both the US and the USSR were the fruit of our fabrications. And now we want to continue being right, and we're far from it. Social democracy and Christian democracy were Europe's refuges. And both are faltering. The 2008 crisis unleashed neoliberalism—Thatcher and Merkel as its leaders—which has taken us to another era: the transition from industrial to financial and digital capitalism. Our place was the factory. The employers/workers dialectic. Now it's melancholy. Power has other paths, the nation-state has become too small. And we leave when the far right takes off and social democracy fades. The welfare state slips. The reactionary threat is the order of the day: we won't be able to plead ignorance.
The powers, economic and social, have changed. Nothing remains of the bourgeoisie-proletariat dialectic, in which social democracy served as a bridge. The elites who set the pace in financial and digital capitalism are running riot. The middle classes are teetering. And the public's sense of neglect and helplessness when basic needs—starting with housing—fail is profound. In this doom, what wins is what can deceive citizens with their homeland and resentment. Trump has created his caricature. And if others continue to give in and the social networks do theirs, young people and men will continue to fuel the far right: in Portugal, here, and throughout Europe.
