Excess of personalism
The world suffers from the existence and manipulation of personalities who use an exorbitant excess of personalism to achieve their personal and, if there is room, partisan goals. This is the stark expression of the authoritarian populism that plagues the political scene in too many countries. It is about using the mechanisms provided by the system, democratic or otherwise, to throw at citizens or people the messages they need and want to hear as a way of solving their serious problems. It doesn't matter whether these promises can be fulfilled or not, usually not, the point is that, once in power, having neutralised any kind of opposition, both external and internal, the leader exercises power with an excess of stultifying personalism so that everyone thinks that any achievement or positive progress in their living and working conditions is mainly due to the all-powerful, hard-working and supposedly indispensable guide of the nation and, soon, of the universe.
How the stars and the stars were aligned with Zapatero. But this is not a Spanish issue, where Pedro Sánchez, who is not yet a Spanish president because he is now Sweden, is taking advantage of the upcoming rotating presidency of the European Union to go to China to have his election photo taken with the world leader of the moment. Curiously, a few days later the French president, Emmanuel Macron, and the president of the European Commission, Ursula Von der Leyen, will visit Beijing. German Chancellor Olaf Scholz did so just over two months ago. The suspicion is that this is either an excess of personalism or an effort by everyone on their own to get the now great Chinese mediator, Xi Jinping, to broker a peace deal in Ukraine. Think again, and they will all be speaking the same language on Ukraine and the Russian invasion, as NATO allies and with US leadership, even though Washington is in a bitter struggle with China for global hegemony.
If we consider the excess of personalism, we suffer from the ambitions of a couple with a disastrous influence on international relations, trade, stability and security: Donald Trump of the United States and Vladimir Putin of Russia. Right-wing authoritarian populism, including an assault on Capitol Hill to defend their personal interests and use political protection against judicial investigations, and Leninist authoritarian populism, with the invasion of Ukraine to restore Russia's forgotten pride, sustained almost exclusively by the nuclear threat. Its military units have been underperforming. The big problem today is an excess of personalism fuelled by populist bets with a high profile on social media and television.