One of the weaknesses of our Western democracies is the disdain that the majority have for politicians. I remember the words of David Letterman, famous on American television, when he said in 2000, the year in which George W. Bush and Al Gore faced each other in the presidential elections: “I think I speak for everyone when I say that it is a It's a shame that only one of these two characters is going to lose."
Twenty-three years later, with Biden and Trump being the options, I could say the same thing, but with more conviction. And apply it to more countries, such as Argentina, which has to decide today between Sergio Massa and Javier Milei. Here in Spain we don't have it so bad, at first glance, since not everyone despises Pedro Sánchez and Alberto Núñez Feijóo. But, without having been so clear when we voted in July, it turns out that we ended up choosing between a government in which either Santiago Abascal or Carles Puigdemont would have the decisive say in determining the direction of the country.
But, let's see, there are good people in politics. They may not last long, but yes, there is. I am going to tell you a real-life fable centered on Rory Stewart, possibly the most brilliant public figure in the ancient, venerable and decadent British democracy. I know you don't know him, but listen to me. Don't leave me. Stewart is a unique guy.
He is 50 years old. He is a martial arts expert who studied medieval history, politics, philosophy and economics at Oxford. After leaving university he was a soldier, then joined the British diplomatic service and operated in Indonesia and Montenegro. He stopped serving Her Majesty at the age of 30 and embarked, alone, on a trek that lasted 21 months, in which he covered more than two thousand kilometers from Iran to Nepal, passing through Afghanistan, Pakistan and India. Stewart speaks Dari, one of the two official Afghan languages, and nine other languages, including Nepali, Urdu, Serbo-Croatian and (easy) French.
He was elected parliamentary deputy of the Conservative Party in 2010 and held several ministerial positions, including foreign cooperation. But he opposed Brexit, came to detest its leader, former Prime Minister Boris Johnson, and in 2019 he left his party and Parliament and went to teach at Yale University. He now writes books, has a successful podcast and is torn between the disgust that politics provokes in him and the respect that he feels for democracy.
What is clear is the following, expressed in a conference a few months ago: “I find that the job of being a politician is very, very bad for me. It's bad for my mind, it's bad for my body, it's bad for my soul. I ended up being a vain, slightly immoral person who stopped listening. Politicians don't listen... I became anxious. I stopped loving myself. I hated the fact that, on the one hand, I criticized the leaders of my party, but, on the other, I sucked up to them, treated them with extreme courtesy, driven by the hope of getting a good position, and, finally, I ended up hating myself. to myself".
These words are a poem, a requiem for a well-intentioned politician. Politicians who see themselves portrayed should follow Stewart's example and call it quits. I mean, those who are so moral and so sensitive that they end up hating themselves. Politics is not a country for cigars, as the enlightened Milei has come to understand during his electoral campaign, as he will irrefutably discover if he becomes president.
Ideological fanatics like him can function in dictatorships, but in a democracy, in which you have to negotiate with rivals and make concessions, it is complicated. If he wins today, he will experience disappointments and learn that, to move forward, he will have to get his hands dirty, like his Peronist rival, Massa, who got them dirty a long time ago and will never suffer the crises of conscience that plague guys like Stewart.
Stewart says today that he doesn't know if he's really useful for politics. Well, I'm telling you: no, it doesn't work. He entered politics, like so many, to improve the world, to strengthen a democratic system that he values more than the average citizen, because he has known first-hand the alternatives represented by theocracies, totalitarianisms and various tyrannies.
The paradox with which Stewart could not reconcile is that to advance as a politician in a democracy you have to back down sometimes, you have to sacrifice at least in part what were once your principles, you have to be open to the accusation of that you are a hypocrite, or a liar, or a cynic, or all three at the same time. If not, you will not reach the goal, as the President of the Spanish Government teaches us. In the style of his namesake San Pedro, Sánchez swore time and again that he would not make a pact with the devil, in this case with the Catalan independentists, but in the end he did and this week he achieved his goal. He is still in charge.
How do you justify it to yourself? How does he end up not hating himself? In a way that a pristine angel like Stewart couldn't. Acting on the premise that the best is the enemy of the good. That any damage to his reputation is worth it, as long as he avoids the greater evil of a regime that would include the extreme right represented in Vox, which he believes would have, among other things, inflamed Catalonia and brought it closer, no. less, to the dreamed secession.
What if vanity also plays a role? Ha! Of course. Here's another thing that Stewart and bona fide naïves like him lack. Without the driving force of personal ambition, do not get involved in politics. Feijóo would have betrayed his mother, or almost, if that was how he got the votes to set up a government. Nelson Mandela himself, who for me is the quintessential example of a great politician, did what Stewart found so unpleasant, ingratiating himself with people he didn't get along with – like Thatcher, Gaddafi, Castro, racist white generals – to come to power. and establish a true democracy in their country.
Yes, even the best have to get dirty. Therefore, let us be more lenient with our politicians. Let's not disdain them so much. The price of democracy is accepting concessions to ideological and moral turpitude. Politics is a dirty job, but someone has to do it.
