Liberal Democracies

With the end of the year and the beginning of the new one, 2025, the media are very prone to take stock of what has happened and focus on what may happen. On many occasions, these forecasts are loaded more with wishes than with realities, although we are now very close to an event that is going to affect us very directly.

It is already affecting us as Spaniards, as Europeans and the whole world. On January 20, Donald Trump takes office and returns to the White House. And he leaves no one indifferent. Hates, loves, fears, hopes, protectionism, United States and that's it, eccentricities, provocations, but we must highlight the need to wake up and a lot for Europeans who need to get out of our comfort zone, as the moderns say now.

That is to say, to wake up from the goodism, the extreme regulation, the radical ecologism and the crisis of principles and values to be aware that Europe has to find its own way and face the current challenges alone and united. 

The challenges are far-reaching, starting with security and defense in the face of Putin, but continuing with the economy, trade, the welfare state and stability in the face of China and the extremists. 

And the best way to do this is within clear and evident parameters such as democracy, the rule of law, the market economy, human rights, solidarity, digitalization and care for nature, among the most relevant that must also include the defense and care of our roots, our social, cultural, religious model and from there, firmly, but with dialogue and tolerance to coexist with everyone else. 

To confront without complexes to the populisms of all type, condition and to reject their lies without contemplations.

It is necessary this reflection in defense of the liberal democracies that we have given ourselves after the Second World War, that so much effort, sacrifices and lives have cost us, but with a result of progress, development and stability more than evident. 

The serious problem is that they are now endangered by internal and external authoritarian populisms. 

That manipulation of reality without scruples, twisting the unsatisfied needs of too many people with illusory promises impossible to fulfill, the permanent intoxication through social networks and other communication channels that lend themselves to a supposed modernity of minority groups that seek to impose their interests against the vast majority.

It happens in Spain and in many other countries. The defense of liberal democracies made by Felipe VI in his Christmas message uses a summary of clear arguments to warn of a very serious threat to our society that must react.