Guelphs and Ghibellines
The struggle for power between the Papacy and the Empire during the late Middle Ages divided many Europeans into two irreconcilable factions: the so-called Guelphs, defenders of the earthly power of the church, and the Ghibellines, supporters of the imperial monarchy. The persistent dispute spread throughout Italy and confronted the citizens in bloody fights to decide on which side the nobles and the res publica of each city stood. Dante, more Ghibelline than Guelph, took the side of the Ghibellines in his treatise on the monarchy. He wrote it in the 14th century, during which the Black Death devastated Europe. Later, Shakespeare partly rescued the social context of late medieval Verona to write the tragedy of Romeo and Juliet in 1597.
As modern Guelphs and Ghibellines, Democrats and Republicans have been living for years in an atmosphere of confrontation and polarization in the United States, which COVID-19 has not managed to eliminate. The struggle is now focused on how to face the next stage of the fight against the spread of the pandemic and on the need to reopen the economy and to deconfine American society, defended by President Trump and his followers, against those who demand to maintain the confinement, led by the Democratic representatives in different states. The dispute, which began with health and economic issues, has now entered the public sphere of the electoral campaign, which not only affects the president, it also affects the senators and governors who were also convened in the month of November.
Republican candidates have become nervous as they see their campaign collection figures weaken while those of their Democratic rivals grow. The political reaction hasn't been long in coming, and some Republican leaders have found a new electoral bogeyman in China. Senator Hawley of Misouri, where he is also elected governor, has intensified his criticism of the Asian giant after New York Times polls showed that 79% of voters find Chinese explanations for the spread of the virus and the number of recognized victims implausible. President Trump himself, accused by his rival Joe Biden of being "too moderate" with the Chinese government and of being more concerned about his personal and political affairs with China than about the spread of the virus, has multiplied his messages against the Asian power.
In the midst of the deep international economic crisis, the two swords of the 21st century, the United States and China, are today fighting for power in the world order and in the public opinion of modern Guelph and Ghibelline citizens of the five continents. The Chinese government, through a soft power campaign, explains The Economist: "China is trying to paint a new picture, of itself as a model for taming the disease". And the Americans, increasing political pressure so that the results encourage economic measures at home and make their capacity to influence abroad present. The effort of the Chinese propaganda plays in their favor. And also, the action of some of its multinationals: the charitable foundation of Alibaba has sent respirators and other materials to 54 African countries and Huawei half a million masks to New York. The low quality of some materials sent by the Asian government, in this frenetic race to be the most humanitarian and efficient power, plays against them. To revive the economy, the Trump Administration, among other initiatives, has launched the Great American Economic Revival Industry Group, a multi-sector advisory and consensus-building group in which all the country's major companies participate.
In the panel "US presidential election and the impact of the Covid 19 in the American leadership" that took place on Monday 20th in the virtual space of the Communication Week of the European University, Ramón Pérez Maura (ABC), Carlota García Encina (Elcano Institute), Daniel Ureña (Hipanic Council) and professors Alana Moceri and Miguel Ángel Benedicto agreed on two issues: that the presidential election will be determined by the outcome of the management of the pandemic, and that the resulting international relations in the face of hypothetical changes in the World Order will depend on the United States' ability to recover from the economic and political crisis.
The spread of a disease and the high levels of affected and victims were the historical protagonists of a distant century, the 14th, where the medieval order of balance between the Two Swords, that of political and religious power, was breaking down. Marsilio de Padua and Guillermo de Ockham certified with their theoretical approaches the final decline of that political system. Some time later, Shakespeare set in Renaissance Verona the tragic romance of the lovers belonging to the irreconcilable families of the montesques and the capulets. Confined, perhaps, as the writer might have been during another plague, that of London at the end of the sixteenth century, and who knows if, looking out of a window, he wrote then: "What light through yonder window breaks?