5G Democracy

Democracy risks becoming demagoguery. It was the Greeks who warned of this implicit destiny hidden beneath the essence of that form of political organisation that had been set in motion in some polis of ancient Greece (Chios, Athens). The perversion of the process has been known for over 25 centuries, and perhaps this is why The Economist magazine asks on the cover of its latest November 2020 issue how resilient democracy is at this time when the US president has not yet been elected in view of Donald Trump's stubborn strategy of presenting as fraudulent the electoral process which, according to all the results and the US institutions, gives victory to the Democratic candidate, Joe Biden. The improbable has become the truth, the false has become credible, the truth has become a lie and democracy has finally become demagoguery. 

To subvert the essence and foundation of the system in order to maintain power at any price in the framework of an increasingly black market where American politics should never have entered. To put an end to democratic virtues and freedoms in the new millennium, using the mechanisms of the system itself, is perhaps also the parallel will and the horizon of the promoters of chaos, who plan to sell off liberal democracy, which has become the official religion after communism, religious fundamentalism and radicalised nationalism. The democratic chaos led to a crisis of faith. 

The global and chaotic conspiracy that nobody assumes. A strategy elaborated from a deep and unknown Hell's Kitchen, by those who want to transform democracy into something else, without traditional parties, without conventional procedures, without recognition of the majorities, without respect for the laws. With the capacity to alter the constitutions by alternative means to weaken the laws and perpetuate the perpetrators of the revolution, devious but real. With the will to convert the truth of an electoral victory into a falsehood with modern digital devices and inventions. 

It would seem that the deconstruction of the liberal order is a multifactorial strategy, not established by any consensus, and therefore gives rise to an image and sensation of loss of direction in international relations and of confusion. Something similar to what occurred two decades ago with the paradigm of globalisation, which was assumed by the main actors and interest groups, but with their respective criteria for interpreting the phenomenon and their own, non-coincidental objectives. However, at that time it differed fundamentally from the perverse dynamics of the present day. One, that the leadership of the United States and some of its fundamental values (promotion of economic relations and global trade; political pluralism; multilateral institutions; human rights, diversity and international cooperation) gave impetus to the globalisation process. Another, that legal tools regularized it and digital technologies expanded it. One more, that globalisation was a socially inspiring, politically democratising and largely stabilising paradigm of the international order for 25 years. 

Now, however, various ultra-progressive, disruptive and radical forces are coexisting with authoritarianism and feeding off each other, giving rise to the common idea that in the absence of a defined order and a global project that has yet to be agreed upon and will be difficult to agree upon, the strategy consists first of deconstructing what already exists. And, later, in the creation of a new order that is still undefined, but surely secessionist, anti-capitalist, federalist if it is convenient and, if not, harmonising in the increase of tax burdens and naturally healthy for the impoverished middle classes, relativist in what is convenient for the implantation of lies in society, but firm in the legislation that protects the only absolute truth, that of the new system, whether national progressive or identitarian, that is, the truth of the populist paradise. Or in another case, the maintenance of a permanent disorder, within which the insignificant minority advances until it becomes a sufficient majority to persist in the effort to deconstruct.

Democracy is a regime of opinion, and therefore relies on plausibility not absolute truth. But what is plausible must in turn be based on what is true, on what is credible, on a search for the common good. Not in the sterile and demagogic debates that are presented in parliaments, in speeches and in today's media like a fairground attraction. Empty, insulting, provocative words. Lies without risk. 'Fake news'. This is one of the foundations of this democratic generation of the 5G. It does not distinguish between messages, channels or between true and false. Madrid steals from us; there has been fraud in the elections; the establishment lies and manipulates us; the caste is them; Biden and the King; I am the truth. 

Democracy has to fight within its constitutional borders and outside its increasingly permeable, cybernetic and undefined territories. It is developing within the framework of a state governed by the rule of law and institutions whose dynamic is the guarantor of a system that decides politically by majority, but acts individually and collectively in a rational and non chaotic manner; balanced and free and not determined by the unacceptable messages that make people believe that Bildu is a democratising force and that inconsistent and quaint leaders are apostles of a new truth, which is completely and utterly false. 

The demagogy of the new politics and the populism financed to promote chaos have put the cards on the table to play a game that leads us to a political struggle without quarter. It is not a question of Pennsylvania or Georgia. It is an American, Spanish and global issue. The Economist says that democracy itself hides the seeds for its regeneration. But the 5G generation of free and equal democrats before the law are today facing the tyrants of ancient Greece, the enemies of the Enlightenment, the totalitarianisms of the World War, the second edition of the Cold War. And now, to the decadent populism that has been paid for by authoritarianisms, propagated by falsehoods and sustained by insubstantial demagogues. As Plato said, the most incompetent.