How do you explain the vote for Trump or Ayuso after the pandemic?
BarcelonaThe Community of Madrid was one of the European territories with the highest number of deaths during the pandemic and where life expectancy was most reduced. Epidemiologist Fernando García López explains this a few pages later. And that's not to mention the 7,291 people who were denied transfer to hospital and died in nursing homes. Or that the then Director General of Health, Yolanda Fuertes, resigned because she did not agree with the opening policy imposed by President Isabel Díaz Ayuso... And yet, in the 2023 regional elections, Ayuso won an absolute majority and nearly 50% of the votes.
In the United States, a president who suggested in an appearance at the White House that Covid could be fought with "injections of disinfectant" or "ultraviolet rays" was re-elected to office four years later. Fear of revenge against the scientists who dared to stand up to him made Joe Biden sign a preventive pardon against the renowned Anthony Fauci before leaving the White House.
At the other extreme, in Great Britain, Boris Johnson's management disaster did have consequences, and today the Labour Party governs with an absolute majority. In Brazil, there was also a change of government and Lula replaced the denialist Jair Bolsonaro, but it was just a hair's breadth.
An example of good management was that of New Zealander Jacinda Ardern, who imposed very tough restrictions and even cancelled her own wedding due to the risk of contagion. Her phrase "be strong, be kind" became a sort of national motto and managed to reduce deaths to a minimum. She won re-election, but far from wanting to remain in office forever, she later resigned because she said she was "exhausted".
The "communist" threat
At first, during the pandemic, there seemed to be a very broad consensus around confinement and vaccines, but the reality is that conspiracy theories and anti-vaccine groups also proliferated. The extreme right was quick to denounce the measures that restricted mobility as a type of "covert communism" or the victory of "Big Brother". In Madrid, Vox even called for a demonstration by car (!) and, after supporting the first state of emergency, later took it to the Constitutional Court, which in a most bizarre ruling declared it unconstitutional and said that the state of emergency should have been approved. At the same time, videos questioning vaccines or a speech by Gaddafi from 2009 in which he spoke of "invented viruses" were circulating in WhatsApp groups. It was a golden age of fake news which, like an underground current, was growing more and more outside of traditional media.
The mixture of a demagogic and misunderstood defense of the concept of "freedom" plus conspiracy theory, denialism and the general discredit of the political class has led us to a scenario in which Trump can sweep the US elections and Ayuso be an extremely popular politician in Madrid. It seems that no one remembers the scientific success that was the creation of vaccines in record time and the logistical challenge that their supply entailed. Five years later, among the rubble caused by the DANA in Paiporta, it is not unusual to see stickers denouncing that the trails of the planes, the chemtrails, are proof that someone is spraying us with chemical agents to keep us under control.
