Lessons from Trump

The Objective, January 26, 2025

Donald Trump’s political resurrection reflects the failure and inability to make amends not only of the Democratic Party, but of an entire consensus of political, intellectual, economic, and bureaucratic elites that, even in the United States, has much that is “European” about it. By ignoring the demands of the majority and prioritizing the tastes of various minorities—from identity voluntarism to the sacralization of the environment or subsidized immigration that generates adverse selection—, this consensus invites leaders outside the system to come to power by appealing directly to the electorate to "restore common sense". Contrary to what some would like to believe, Trump is not the disease but the symptom of conventional politics that has distanced itself from the concerns and desires of the majority of citizens; an unstable and fragile majority, but a real majority.

It is highly debatable how to restore common sense and whether or not Trump, unlike what happened in 2016, is in a position to achieve it. In any case, there is no doubt that he has a clear mandate to try. European elites should also learn from their American counterparts, who refused to understand the message of Trump’s first victory, considering it an anomaly and fighting against his re-election in 2020. His comeback, which they dismissed after the attack on the Capitol, shows that he was not a temporary phenomenon. But their success can only be explained by the failures of the Biden administration. The latter, instead of correcting course, went to extremes in all the vices that brought Trump to power in 2016, from favoring identitarian minorities to abusing his power to persecute his rivals and control public opinion, even going so far as to deny the president’s own obvious disabilities.

European leaders have made the same mistake by shaping a status quo-oriented European Commission. Some even want to double down, using the excuse of competitiveness to follow the advice of the Draghi report. The latter barely disguises its interventionism with mild debureaucratization advice, prioritizing the issuance of a huge volume of debt on a European scale: five times that of the ineffable Next Generation EU plan, whose funds we have yet to spend but will soon begin to repay. In addition to jeopardizing the solidity of the euro, its Keynesian delirium would mortgage young Europeans for life, only for our rulers to squander these resources on their pet projects: 60% on the environment, 33.3% on innovation and digitalization, and the remaining 6.7% on defense.

In the coming months, Europe’s leaders have the opportunity to make amends, but they will not do so unless forced by an electoral disaster. In any case, it may only be a matter of time, as the current consensus has reached an impasse. In addition to a double fiscal and regulatory hell, this consensus includes policies on energy, the environment, and immigration that are proving to be minority options as their costs become apparent, something that happens by the mere passage of time, by crises such as the invasion of Ukraine, or by the disruption of new players such as Musk or Trump. In the absence of a substantial change of course—which can currently only be observed in some Scandinavian social democratic parties—this process of disillusionment ensures the loss of credibility of the current establishment and heralds its disappearance as alternative political forces grow. Our future is thus in the hands of how these new parties mature, just as the fate of the United States today depends on whether or not Trump remains the inexperienced politician he was in 2016.

This situation will eventually affect us in Spain, and if we continue to navel-gaze, it will happen passively, by surprise, and in the worst way. Just this week, many media rushed to disavow Trump for including Spain among the BRICS—Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa—countries with emerging economies and policies that are not aligned with the West. Whether Trump’s statement was a slip of the tongue or a hint, including Spain in this group could even be optimistic, since our government gets along better with the dictatorships of Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela. It does so in its foreign policy, when it maintains extreme rhetoric and positions that are neither explained nor justified on their merits, arousing suspicions of all kinds; but also in its economic policy, because it spends far beyond our means, thanks to the ECB’s support of our debt; and above all at the institutional level, because it has demolished the separation of powers. Not only does it make pacts with Spain’s internal and external enemies to stay in power, but it also indebts citizens to control and ruin strategic companies such as Indra and Telefónica; and it multiplies spending on propaganda to strengthen its control over public opinion. It even intends to grant itself a preventive pardon and to appoint up to 25% of the judges without opposition, in order to make them more obedient to power.

The Spanish right should learn how to influence Europe, because it is the toxic European consensus that has allowed Pedro Sánchez to stay in power after the massive purchase of votes through public spending. Spending that he has only been able to finance thanks to the mutualization of debt at the European level, both explicitly, through the EU’s Next Generation program, and above all implicitly, through the ECB, which backs our debt and thus silences a risk of insolvency that, without this support, would have prevented us from going into debt.

Of course, if Spain’s right wants to lead in Europe, it must first lead at home. For example, just this week, while the right has maintained a comfortable silence, the center-right has shown itself willing to tolerate the government’s vote-buying, in its case by maintaining transport subsidies and continuing to increase pensions that we cannot afford. They have also criticized the government’s attack on Telefónica, but they have not committed themselves to divest when they take office. Leadership is difficult, but those who do not even try have little moral authority to complain.