I remember almost nostalgically the days when US ambassadors would go to the presidential houses of Latin American or African countries to give sermons about democracy. That they had to hold clean elections, respect the peaceful transfer of power and such. They had some credibility.
But today, with the elections being held across the United States on Tuesday, the Latin American or African ambassadors in Washington are the ones who should be going to the White House, or perhaps better to the Republican sector of Congress, to beg them to behave with democratic maturity. The ambassador of Brazil could be one.
We thought President Jair Messias Bolsonaro, a retired military ultra-right, was the Brazilian Trump. We suspected that if he lost the election a week ago, he would be inspired by the example of the orange cow to reject the result, claim that there was fraud and incite his loyalists to invade government institutions. But we were wrong.
It turns out that the shamelessly racist, misogynist and anti-homosexual Bolsonaro has a greater sense of patriotic responsibility than the former – and perhaps future – president of the United States. Last Sunday, he lost to Lula da Silva by a much narrower margin than Trump lost to Joseph Biden in the 2020 election, but, albeit reluctantly, he conceded defeat. He gave instructions to prepare the transition to Lula's government team. Jair Messias, who professes to be a devout Christian, acted as God commanded.
In the political world of the United States the formula seems to be that the more Christian one says he is, the more inclined he is to flout the most elementary rules of democratic decency. For most Republican electoral candidates and their voters, the Gospel with the words they most believe is that of Donald the antichrist. One faith replaces the other and they fight for it with the same certainty of possessing the Truth as those who participated in the crusades of the Middle Ages, or as the jihadists today. Well, almost.
Consider the case of David DePape, the Trump fundamentalist who attacked the husband of the Speaker of the United States House of Representatives, third in line to the presidency, Nancy Pelosi. The police know what happened. DePape, 42, corroborated the version of his victim, Paul Pelosi, 82.
On October 28, around two in the morning, DePape entered the Pelosi home in San Francisco after breaking a window with a hammer and woke up the husband of the famous Democratic leader. "Where's Nancy?". Where's Nancy? he told her, echoing the macabre question Trump loyalists had asked when they stormed the Capitol on January 6, 2021. Much to the intruder's chagrin, Nancy was 4,400 kilometers, in Washington. Paul Pelosi was able to escape to the bathroom and call the police. When law enforcement officers arrived, DePape struck Paul Pelosi with the hammer, fracturing his skull.
DePape later explained to the police station that he did not run away when his victim called the police because "like the founders of the country with the British" his cause was just: "Fight against tyranny." He added that his plan had been to ask Nancy Pelosi to tell "the truth." If not, I'd break his knees. The truth, according to DePape, was the Trumpian article of faith that the Democrats stole the 2020 presidential election.
In a normal democracy, like the one defended by the ambassadors of the United States of old, the entire political world would have condemned the attack. That his "thoughts and prayers" etc. were with the hospitalized Mr. Pelosi. The Democrats of course did. Some Republicans, those who have not sold their soul to Trump, too. Republicans in Tuesday's election who won their nominations thanks to Trump's blessing either said nothing, made jokes about it, or hinted at the truth of the falsehood that made its way through the sewers of social media that DePape and Paul Pelosi were lovers discovered red-handed by the police. Donald Trump Jr. and the brand new owner of Twitter, Elon Musk, are among those who spread the slander.
Not only did Trump say nothing against DePape, just as he once said nothing against the invaders of the Capitol, but he added his grimaces to the lie of the homosexual encounter story. It goes without saying, obviously, how many pro-Trump commentators hailed DePape as a hero. Charlie Kirk, with millions of followers on social networks, proposed that "the patriots" give money to pay the aforementioned's bail.
One of the many curiosities of American politics today is that, unlike, say, the 1960s, the forces most vehemently opposed to the establishment are not from the left but from the right. Those who during the Cold War defended the status quo of "the land of the free and the home of the brave" and most fiercely opposed Soviet Communism are today doing the work of former KGB agent Vladimir Putin in its cold war – or in the case of Ukraine, its hot war – against Western democracy.
Stay tuned for Tuesday's election results. The governors of 36 of the 50 states and control of Congress will be decided. If the Republicans obtain majorities in the Senate and the House of Representatives, President Biden will not only see his ability to govern within the United States drastically reduced, but the continuation of military aid to Ukraine will be in jeopardy.
Much is at stake, primarily whether the aberration that Trump represents will eventually become America's new normal for good, much to the delight of Putin, Chinese leader Xi Jinping, Saudi leader Muhammad bin Salman, and others. members of the authoritarian axis that identifies democracy as world enemy number one. And one more thing: Trump said Thursday that he would "very, very likely" run for president in 2024. If the bunch of ignorant, cynics and lunatics who count on him to win on Tuesday, he will run for sure.
