Putting an end to populism

Donald Trump will go down in history for some extravagant attitudes in governing the United States of America for four years, but above all for embodying populism in power. We will no doubt remember the use of Twitter to announce important decisions such as the gradual dismissal of senior government officials, but we should not remain anecdotal. We should appreciate the significance of his behaviour, as it seriously affects the principles and values of the liberal democracy that emerged after the Second World War and has served as the basis for coexistence and tolerance in each country and as an essential reference for peace at international level. 

We can analyse some crucial aspects of the Trump administration: the extreme protectionism that has blown up the rules of international trade with sanctions and abusive tariffs; the abandonment of multilateralism in international relations has triggered serious crises of credibility and confidence among partner countries and allies and in key organisations such as NATO; the withdrawal from the Paris agreements on climate change or Iran's nuclear programme has given rise to uncertainty and instability; immigration policy has adversely affected thousands of people from several countries; the failure to address racial tensions in several US cities due to isolated cases of police brutality and to tackle the systemic problem of racial discrimination has increased violence in the streets; the disastrous management of the coronavirus pandemic by denying its risk and assuming the deaths of over 230. 000 people and its profound impact on the economy causing 30 million unemployed. All these factors of life in the United States, among others, led to Donald Trump losing the election to renew his mandate as head of the White House. And the culmination of his attacks on democracy from his usual populism and demagogy has been his refusal to recognise the election victory of his Democratic opponent, Joe Biden, and his accusation, without proof, that the electoral system allowed a major fraud. The votes in the key states have been counted and there is no fraud, but Trump has inoculated the doubt, the mistrust of many of his voters towards the system by claiming to defend the leader, the populist who sows demagogy among citizens in order to maintain power at all costs. 

The situation is serious because, despite all the lies and nonsense, Trump has secured many millions of votes. This is not only the case in the United States. It has been happening for years in Russia, Venezuela, Brazil and the United Kingdom. It is a clear warning to liberal democracy of the need to meet the needs of citizens to prevent populists from coming to power and seriously jeopardising liberal democracy.