Giuliano Da Empoli: "The miracle, and its spectacle, is the political promise of today's leaders."

BarcelonaThe writer, essayist and also political advisor Giuliano Da Empoli became known a few years ago with his magnificent The magician of the Kremlin (Ediciones 62), a key book for understanding Vladimir Putin's political personality. He has now returned to the essay The hour of the predators, also published by 62, brilliantly and provocatively describes the arrival of a new era of power dominated, he explains, by political and technological "predators." Recently, the French writer of Italian-Swiss origin presented the book in Madrid, where we were able to have a long conversation about the political transformation he describes in his book. Da Empoli arrives for the interview after meeting with Pedro Sánchez; surprised to have appeared on the public agenda of the president whom he says is "interesting." I ask him if he considers him an exception within the European framework.

— I think there is something of a Spanish exception in the sense that Sánchez, on the one hand, is a professional politician in an environment where there are fewer and fewer of them. If you look at the United States, certainly not; if you look at the United Kingdom, he's a lawyer who recently became a politician; if you look at France, of course, Macron is not properly a politician nor does he have political experience. And I think this is both an advantage and a disadvantage. Today it is much more difficult to come to power as a politician, because people do not want politicians: they want something else; they do not want the breed, they don't want the old political elites. It's harder to get there, but once you're there, I think it's a profession where if you understand how it works, you have an advantage. And that's why I think the politicians who truly govern in Europe—with very different trajectories—Sánchez in Spain, Meloni in Italy, Orbán in Hungary, Mette Frederiksen in Denmark... four completely different worldviews—two social democrats, two right-wing—seem somewhat better at staying in power. And in Sánchez's case, there's the added bonus that he's quite explicit in his opposition to technology and Big Tech. I think he is because he grasps the political—and power—dimensions of this, and not just the business dimension. I don't know if this is an exception, but they are two somewhat different elements from what you have in France, the United Kingdom, or Germany.

Your latest book explores the battle between power elites for control of the future. Does the power of the technological elites mean that we've all moved into their domain?

— Each of us has adopted the screen as the global interface for all our relationships with the world. We don't just use the phone to communicate, but for everything: to interact with each other, with family, with any kind of service, to live our lives. We spend hours every day, and I think when you move your life from the physical world or traditional media, or wherever you spent your time before, and enter the digital world, you're entering an area where power is controlled and sovereignty rests with the technological overlords, because there's no democracy, there are no rules, it's a kind of technological. And, of course, then there's all the incredible power of technological developments, and now AI, which places them in an almost sovereign position in the new spaces where public debate, public conversation, and public life take place. And even private life and private conversation.

Who exactly are these predators you're talking about? Autocrats, digital multinationals, or a broader ecosystem that connects them?

— I think there are two types. On the one hand, there are the predators you see: the politicians, the extremists, the national populists, the far right—and not just the far right—figures like the Trumps, the Bolsonaros, the European far-right parties, and all that. These are figures and movements that seem new to us in the sense that we weren't used to seeing them on the scene, but in reality, they're very old: if you open a Latin classic, a Suetonius or a Tacitus, you find characters like that, who believe in strength, verticality, the absence of rules, sudden decisions, aggressive action. This is classic. And the interesting thing is that they've returned, in a way, even with their values—often traditional: nationalism, norms, masculinity, and all that—but they've returned thanks to a digital ecosystem that rewards aggression and this kind of behavior; and in that ecosystem controlled by another type of predator, the technological predators, who are not nationalists, don't share the same agenda; It's not that they're postnational, it's that they're even posthuman, moving in a completely different direction. But they share a common interest: they want to get rid of the old system, they want to get rid of the old elites—political, but also media and all kinds of authorities—they want to get rid of rules, countervailing powers, checks and balances, and they don't want any limitations on their power or their trajectory. And even if they don't agree on values or anything else, in a revolution it's not necessary to agree on the details of the future; it's enough to agree that you want to overthrow the current power, and they do share that.

You mentioned masculinity. How important is it?

— Well, it's important because it's connected, I think, to two dimensions. It has a cultural element, which is a kind of counterrevolution against all women's rights, and the social change that this entails, which a portion of the male population—including some of these leaders—has experienced as a humiliation. So there's a sociocultural element. And then there's a more political one, which has to do with raw power, I would say. Part of the appeal of these predators is the idea that they're restoring power in societies where power has been diluted, where no one really has it, where no one can impose authority and verticality. And I think masculinity is part of that narrative of restoring raw power in its most brutal form. And in societies where there are people who perceive themselves as paralyzed, blocked, decadent, disempowered, it's a pretty powerful proposition.

He suggested that the alliance between authoritarian political power and technological power has produced a new kind of domination. Is citizen indifference the danger to democracy?

— The greatest danger is taking liberal democracy for granted. It's like the famous story of the fish: the old fish asks the young one, "How is the water today?" and the young one replies, "What is water?" Because you don't even realize it. And I think we're a bit like young fish, in the sense that we think we live in a democratic environment and basically consider it a given, when it's not at all. Before, you read history books about the 1920s and 1930s, and that was history, but you didn't fully understand what was going on. Sure, Spain may be a bit of an exception in this, but let's say that in most Western countries it was like that. But one of the few advantages of this era is that now you see again what the passions, the impulses of all that are, and how democracy can be erased, how it can cease to exist, at least in its current form. Being complacent is the greatest danger.

Is this phenomenon reversible or are we witnessing a mutation of the political species?

— I don't think it's reversible, in the sense that there won't be a return to normal. That idea that some had—that Trump's election was an event, and then others came along, and that's it—is a mistake: it's an era, a time, a new paradigm. Therefore, I don't think we'll return to normal. In the Renaissance, at the beginning of the 16th century, offensive technologies developed faster than defensive ones: heavy artillery allowed attackers to take cities, breach walls, and all that. And now we're back to living in a very aggressive environment, where attacking costs nothing digitally; a hate campaign, an attack on networks, costs nothing, and defending yourself or imposing responsibility is practically impossible. But Renaissance engineers, at a certain point, developed walls that could withstand heavy artillery, and this, in the second half of the 16th century, inaugurated a period of relative peace in Italy; that's when all the tourism started arriving. Well, I think that's possible again: there's no reason why we can't adapt these technologies—digital, AI, and all of that—to our democratic models. It's doable; it's not easy, but it would have been easy in past decades. Even if you read books by people who were inside tech companies—there's a very good one that says, Careless people–, they say: "We expected to be regulated and held accountable for a long time, and it never happened." It didn't happen, and it would have been easy at one point; it's no longer easy. Now the alliance of predators – technological and political – is part of the power; it's the US government, at this point. So it's much harder to protect our democratic ecosystem, but it's still possible: there are technical solutions, and if there's political will, it can be done.

Have our politicians replaced ideology as the main instrument of power?

— They've adapted it to the market functioning of algorithms. If the great political rift of the 20th century was state versus market—which decisions should be made by the state and which by the market, private enterprise, individuals—today this is shifting toward a great rift that is human versus machine, or human versus algorithm: which decisions should be made by humans and which should be defined by the algorithm. Decisions or the allocation of certain resources. And this is important: I think every society should be able to choose about this, and it shouldn't just be something that happens to us. We should be able to decide, because it's not just a business or economic issue: it's fundamentally a question of power, it's fundamentally political. And this is what we have before us.

He calls for restoring trust as a political force and talks about choosing. But can trust exist without hope?

— No. Obviously, hope is needed. The book, of course, is quite dark, almost somewhat hopeless, in a way; but also because I wanted to provoke a reaction. I wanted to paint a very dark picture, and I also tried to immerse the reader: it's not so much a theoretical book as a narrative of situations, characters, and things, because I wanted to immerse the reader in a rather dark and murky situation. But it's not hopeless. If you look at technology over time, you need to get away from the idea that technology is a single thing that must be accepted or rejected, with a single set of rules and a single way of working. Historically, that's not true. If you look at history, the same technology—take the printing press—produced different effects in different societies: in imperial China, in Reformation Europe, in the Muslim caliphates. The same technology, the printing press, and three completely different political and social effects. And we'll see that again, I think: if you look at digital, if you look at AI, you see a Chinese model, you see how it develops; I think we're increasingly understanding the American model—I think it converges somewhat with the Chinese model, which is another matter, even though they're at odds. But you can have a more democratic adoption—not just European, it could be a coalition of countries outside Europe as well, from Canada to Brazil and others—in which the adoption of digital and AI and all of this is compatible with the type of society we want to continue having, with the democratic procedures we want to preserve, with a public sphere and public debate. It's not impossible. And I think it's worth it if we want to retain power over our destiny, because that's what democracy is about: the community that controls its destiny. And if we don't develop this in the digital sphere, as we have in the analog sphere—with all its imperfections and problems—in our countries, then we won't have democracy.

In this scenario, what is the role of the press and what future does it have?

— It has a very important role as a countervailing power, but in relation to the real powers of today, because power is shifting: it's not just about being a countervailing power to the government—although that remains important—but also to those new powers and new centers of sovereignty that must be held accountable. And I think most predators operate through a kind of hypnotic process. What's fascinating about Trump, for example—but also about technology, in a way—is how fast and impactful it is. Every day, Trump does something, and it doesn't matter if it's entirely coherent, if it works or not; the point is that it's fast and impactful, and if you put all these actions together, the result is a hypnotized public: a constant element of hypnosis. And I think the role of the media and the press shouldn't be to exploit it—although there may be an interest in exploiting it for profit, because it can help sell—but to be an interrupter, something that breaks the hypnosis. And I think the media should do this in various ways; perhaps art and literature can also play a role. It's difficult, because we are relatively weak in the face of this power offensive; but what happens is never inevitable; it's always unforeseeable, after all. So it's worth trying to be there. In Italian, they call it granello di sabbia, that is, a small pebble that jams the machine: this is what many of us should try to be, and the media, no doubt, too.

What fascinates you about Putin?

— I try to enter into the logic of the other—person, figure, actor, or movement. I try to put myself in their shoes, even with predators. It seems quite obvious to me, if you read the book, that I'm not a sympathizer, but at the same time I don't like the attitude of simply denouncing and saying, "This is very bad." What I find interesting is trying to enter into their law: if you're faced with something very successful, of course you can say it's bad, that people have gone crazy, but at the end of the day you've been defeated by something that you consider stupid, crazy, and evil. That's why I find it more interesting to understand what the logic and intelligence of this is, how it works; there's always one, and it's different from our own. This is what I tried to do in The magician of the Kremlin: dive in. That's what I did before in The Engineers of Chaos, with the spin doctors national populists; and, in part, I think I do so here as well The predators: I try to enter into the logic of these bad characters.

These predators share a kind of dramaturgy. What significance does this have?

— It's much bigger. In this spectacle, for example, the humiliation we've seen in the White House—which we see very often—is part of that restoration of power. And I think the whole predatory promise is a kind of political miracle—"I break the rules, I break the laws, which ultimately only serve to protect the old system"—and it produces a spectacular effect on a situation, on a problem. Illegal immigration: I bring them back, then maybe I bring back some who weren't needed; it doesn't matter, it will serve as a warning, and I do it very visibly. It becomes a kind of spectacle of cruelty. Bukele is another incredible example: "I abolish the rules, there are no lawyers, no due process, or anything; I replace the Penal Code with a tattoo manual; I put everyone who wears it in jail, and I film it." And then you have these videos on TikTok and elsewhere where you see the ritual humiliation of all these gang members—and perhaps some people who shouldn't be in prison. That miracle, and the spectacle of it, is basically the predator's main political promise. Therefore, it's very important; the same is true in Argentina and elsewhere.

As a political advisor, he says he has often seen the ritual degradation of...

— There's always a very humiliating moment, because the tech oligarch doesn't care: he considers himself meeting with someone from an endangered species, from an ancient tribe that shouldn't even exist in his vision of how society should be governed—it should be governed by algorithms and data and all this. He's meeting a prehistoric figure: a democratic politician. So he doesn't care, but he does it because, of course, there's still the possibility of the law affecting him; there's still the possibility of public contracts and things, so from time to time he's forced to have a meeting like that. And the politician, for his part, resorts to a position of cultural—rather than economic or technical—submission. He's internalized that he's the past and that he's meeting the future, something much more advanced that he doesn't understand how it works, but asks him to do something for his country, for his community: "Please set up a research center here, at least a data center or whatever, create jobs, bring innovation..." And it never works; They usually don't achieve anything. But in the end they get something selfie and, for a moment, they look modern, innovative, because they have taken a photo with a technologist.