Politics, especially in times when it takes place through social networks, has taken hatred and anger as its main input. To lead is to get angry. Above all, when it comes to societies distressed by uncertainty and material unrest. The method is quite elementary. Every day an enemy must be identified and public opinion mobilized against him.
This technique, which is usually used in domestic power disputes, poses serious drawbacks…
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Politics, especially in times when it takes place through social networks, has taken hatred and anger as its main input. To lead is to get angry. Above all, when it comes to societies distressed by uncertainty and material unrest. The method is quite elementary. Every day an enemy must be identified and public opinion mobilized against him.
This technique, which is usually used in domestic power disputes, poses unforeseen problems when it expands to foreign relations. It is an increasingly common trend, which is no longer inspired by conflicts between states or governments. The president, the prime minister or any simple official forgets his public investiture and attacks the leader of another country for ideological reasons. Diplomacy begins to disfigure. The national interest is being replaced by the interest of a faction.
The Ibero-American space is being contaminated with this new style. The most strident demonstration has been the exchange of statements between the Argentine Government and the Government of Spain. But the problem is much broader in scope.
The question unleashed by Minister Óscar Puente’s insinuations when speaking about the “substances that Argentine President Javier Milei consumes” falls within a context of profound adversity. You have to remember what happened. When Milei won the elections, the head of the socialist government, Pedro Sánchez, did not express any congratulations. On the other hand, from her left flank, Yolanda Díaz pointed out that “it is a sad day for the democratic bloc around the world.” By then the surname Milei already had a meaning in Spanish politics: he was a militant ally of Santiago Abascal and the far-right of Vox.
We must also glimpse what is about to happen: the Argentine president will visit Spain but not to carry out official activities but to participate in a Vox meeting. It is possible that a few days before the vice president, Victoria Villarruel, will appear in Madrid, although that trip has not yet been defined. Some Sánchez official with premonitory abilities looked for an intermediary, weeks ago, to suggest to the Argentine Foreign Ministry that it moderate its president’s outbursts against leftist governments.
Milei’s presence in the Vox assembly is promoted by Abascal with the slogan “come see the lefties shake.” The Argentine president arrives there on the official plane, the costs of which are paid by all taxpayers. Also “the lefties” who will be shaken. Nothing surprising. The leader of La Libertad Avanza already attended, as head of state, a conservative summit in tribute to Donald Trump, in the United States. Later he had to qualify this favoritism, perhaps due to some discreet complaint from the State Department, saying that he was also a friend of the Democrats.
Milei greatly appreciates that his image as a capitalist and conservative prophet is projected outside of Argentina. He thus understands what seems inexplicable to the protocol of diplomats. Instead of reacting with a sober statement from the Foreign Ministry, Milei commissioned his own office to issue a furious statement with the inventory of all the evils with which Vox characterizes the Sánchez Government. He mentioned corruption allegations against his wife. He reproached him for endangering the unity of the Kingdom of Spain by agreeing with separatists; threatening women’s physical safety by allowing illegal immigration; and affect the well-being of the middle class, due to “their socialist policies that only bring poverty and death.”
Minister Puente is usually aggressive in his expressions. A short time ago, when asked by a Venezuelan journalist about the attacks to which the press is subjected in his country, he answered: “I am very struck by the fact that those who complain about a social-communist government come to Spain, where we have another social-communist government. Over the weekend, Puente explained that Milei’s diatribe had been intended as an attack by the extreme right on Sánchez, on behalf of Vox. The socialist government responded in a very sober manner, rejecting the accusations and demanding the care of the brotherhood of Spaniards and Argentines.
The links between ideological currents determine a game of mirrors. The controversy between the Sánchez administration and Milei’s administration prompted Alberto Fernández, the former Argentine president, to enter the game. Fernández said that he wanted to break the silence that he maintained until now because he feels like a victim of the attacks from “the right.” From that premise he tried to identify with Sánchez. For example, he once again celebrated himself for the way he reacted to the criticism that rained down on him when, in the middle of the pandemic, while all Argentines remained locked up by decree, he celebrated his wife’s birthday with a nighttime party. at the presidential residence. Now, in light of what happened with Sánchez, Fernández discovered that “the right” had been cruel to the first lady. In passing, he revealed that he made negotiations with the Colombian Gustavo Petro and the Brazilian Lula da Silva to dissuade the president of the Spanish government from resigning from his position. Maybe Sánchez does not appreciate that infidelity.
Milei had also addressed Petro and Lula in insulting terms at the time. He described the first as a murderer and the second as corrupt. It is true that both warned that a victory for the leader of the Argentine far-right could mean an attack against democracy. The tension with the president of Brazil is a problem for a bilateral relationship with many crossed interests. That is why the foreign ministries of the two countries are trying to repair the breaks. Lula and Milei should meet in June for a Mercosur summit.
The very risque crossing between Madrid and Buenos Aires is just one of the diplomatic storms shaking the region. The Mexican Andrés Manuel López Obrador put his country’s relationship with Spain on the brink of the abyss when he decided to wave the indigenous flag and demand that the old imperial metropolis apologize for the indignities committed against the aboriginal population during the conquest of America. López Obrador changed the anti-imperialist speech targeting the United States for another, more artificial and anachronistic, but perhaps more harmless, speech directed at the Spanish.
If he turns his head south, López Obrador finds himself embroiled in another fight. The government of Ecuador, chaired by Daniel Noboa, denounced the government of Mexico before the International Court of Justice for having interfered in the internal affairs of its country by granting asylum to former vice president Jorge Glas, a prominent figure in the ranks of Rafael Correa, when he was already accumulating two convictions for corruption. López Obrador had also taken Ecuador to the same courts for breaking into his embassy in Quito to arrest Glas.
This agenda of altercations extends to the headache of Andrés Allamand, the former Minister of Foreign Affairs of Chile, who today occupies the Ibero-American General Secretariat, in charge of the Ibero-American summit that must be held in Ecuador in November of this year. Allamand will have to resort to all his diplomatic arts so that the theme of the meeting, instead of being “Innovation, Inclusion, Sustainability”, as the program promises, is not replaced by “Pugilato”.
This bellicose atmosphere shows that also on a scale greater than the national level, the driving force of politics is anger. The heads of state prefer to be heads of an ideological tribe, which coheres through confrontation with another tribe, even beyond the border. International politics is losing content and giving way to another, more primitive one, which could be called “interfacial.” Due to this slope, the region has already lost an agenda that integrates it. The States are left incommunicado as a result of a brawl between leaders.