Dejection, sadness, apathy, fatigue, feeling of emptiness, irritability, lack of energy, helplessness, negative thoughts, even a certain feeling of guilt. These symptoms, typical of this characteristic disorder of our time that we call depression, have also invaded Western democracies. That an individual as undesirable as Donald Trump won for the second time and by a clear majority, the presidential elections of the most powerful country in the world, the cradle of modern democracy, are symptomatic of its illness.
When we woke up a few days ago to this news, a discouragement and disinterest overcame the minds of many Democrats so great that we no longer wanted to know anything about it: we instinctively turned off the radio and refused to watch the information. or read the analyzes and reports of experts and journalists on this nonsense. We leave it to Netanyahu, Putin, Meloni, Le Pen, Orban or Abascal to toast with champagneand we plunge into the darkest of melancholy. Our atony coincided with the atony that democracy is experiencing in these unfortunate times.
Trump’s absolute triumph represents the triumph of lies and disinformation, the victory of malice and demagoguery. Without any other argument than hoax, insult and personal disqualification, this 78-year-old criminal, corrupt, Holocaust denier, shameless and xenophobic sexist He convinced more than seventy million Americans to give him their vote, with a surprising increase among Hispanics, women and young people (the vote for Trump among those under 30 increases by 25%). I would like to think that this man is not as stupid as he seems and that beyond the caricature of the character that has come down to us lies a message (probably referring to the domestic economy of the American means, apart from the use of the immemorial fear of the immigrant) which reached the people.
But the worrying thing is not that there is a guy like Donald Trump, a narcissistic megalomaniac with the emotional intelligence of a 7-year-old, but rather the existence of tens of millions of people who trusted him. Even more: what is alarming is that among the Republican, certain individuals as neurotic and narcissistic as him, but much more dangerous (and infinitely more millionaires), also won: I am referring to guys with ideas too clear that Peter Thiel or Elon Musk, advisors and main donors to the now president-elect’s campaign. Both only believe in the state to the extent that they can use it to benefit their businesses. The privatization of power is its objective.
Peter Thiel, a German raised in apartheid South Africa, is considered Silicon Valley’s most successful investor. He has participated in or is behind the most successful companies in recent decades: PayPal, Facebook, Airbnb, Spotify, Palantir or Space X, the space company of his PayPal partner Elon Musk, in addition to owning the largest company massive surveillance. military and police. In his visionary work From zero to one: how to build the future (“From zero to one: how to build the future”) defines the blueprints of the world to come, a world dominated by technological monopolies from which democracy will disappear (“I do not believe that democracy and freedom are compatible”, writes -he) and the State itself, unless the State is Thiel himself, of course.
This 57-year-old ultraliberal is not only against taxes; He also objects to “death being inevitable for everyone.” This is why he devotes millions of dollars to scientific research and technological developments that aim, in the not too distant future, for the immortality of those who, like him, have egos so big that they need the extend in space and time across the world. for eternity, like his partner Elon Musk, another South African, recently appointed by Trump to head the “governmental efficiency” department, whose mission will essentially consist of reducing public spending and promoting private initiative, which which is always striking, since a donor obtaining a position in the administration that he or she helped to finance is a bit like buying that position.
These gentlemen believe that they are the ones chosen to lay the foundation for a future built under the Stalink satellite network and the Bitcoin empire.. These two visionaries also have something in common: in their childhood and early youth, they were both “strange people” with problems with social integration. They have had plenty of time to fuel their resentment and thirst for revenge against a society and a system that they believe has mistreated them so badly (feelings also very typical of the other narcissist in this triumvirate, Donald Trump).
Elon Musk at a Trump rally
Man has always needed a utopian horizon to contemplate. Democracy, true democracy as the government of citizens as subjects with rights and obligations, has served over the past two or three hundred years as the ideal political horizon toward which to direct our steps. But today, democracy seems mortally wounded and we no longer know where to turn. Traditionally, in the imagination of Westerners, the place of utopia was in the East: medieval travelers went there in search of the earthly Paradise (Columbus himself, when he arrived at the mouth of the ‘Orinoco, believed he was facing one of the four rivers of the Garden of Eden).
But today we look to the East and the first thing we find is the Palestinian genocide in Gaza perpetrated by the criminal state of Israeland if we look further, we find ourselves facing the Chinese giant, a capitalist autocracy which despises the individual and mocks human rights. If we turn our heads towards the West, the (dystopian) horizon that is emerging is no more promising: the world of big data, artificial intelligence, Musk’s autonomous cars and travel in the space for billionaire tourists.
Are we too catastrophic? This is the consequence of the political depression into which we have fallen. Will democracy and humanism finally resist the push of the technological oligarchy and its desire to control and manipulate people for their own benefit? There is perhaps something that escapes these privileged minds who seek to shape the future of humanity: like these spoiled and egocentric children who believe that the world has no limits other than those of their desires. , they will end up coming up against a stubborn reality and unpredictable human beings. This is our hope.
