Cradle the future

Have you been short? Me too. I have passedThe last six weeksIn another dimension of time. One where the clock is measured in shots, naps, lullables and diapers. Where the world becomes tiny – an armchair, a crib, a little hand that grabs your finger hard – and at the same time immense. Not that the rest does not matter, it is no longer the same.

I confess it, I have not completely disconnected. I blame, I’m incapable. With a newborn in arms it is even more difficult. In these weeks of paternity permission, while my daughter slept, I have not stopped following the news. Sometimes, with one hand from the mobile. In others, stealing a little dream that a baby leaves. I have not been able to avoid it: I think all the time about the disturbing world that will have to live.

At least I have achieved something in this permit: stop working, delegate to my team, trust the writing and not bother. Poor Neus Tomàs can attest; They have touched six very complex weeks at the head of Eldiario.es: Trump’s tariffs, the death of the Pope, the great blackout … and I think he has done so exceptionally – very much thanks, companion.

During this time I have read eldiario.es as one more partner. Without being at meetings, without access to drafts, without knowing what cover it would be the next day. And it has been an experience. I am so accustomed to living the information from within – talking directly with the sources, crossing data, deciding approaches – that at times I felt out of place. But it has also been valuable. He reminded me why we do what we do. Why journalism matters.

The day of the blackout, for example. It took me to find out what was happening. In my neighborhood, in the last month, we had several cuts of light for a breakdown in a substation and at first I thought it was another. I was surprised that the mobile did not work. I alarmed when I saw that the traffic lights did not. I went down to buy a portable radio – yes, I had also trusted technology too much – to discover that many of my neighbors happened to the same and had the same idea: there was a tail in the corner store and it was not much a long time to wait for your turn because neither radios nor piles left.

I went to the car. I turned on the radio and learned at the end of what was happening. Returning home, a partner of Eldiario.es who recognized me on the street approached me to ask me what was happening. I started telling him how little he knew and, after a while, he had half a dozen people around (“Look, she is the journalist who goes on TV”) asking me if it was true that the blackout was world how that moment would have been if all the media would also go out.

Although what has most alarmed these weeks has been another issue: Donald Trump. His great stupidity, his enormous pride, his even greater ego and certainty – I have no doubts – of the enormous risk that we all run while he is the most powerful man in the world.

These days, I have been reading the trilogy about his first term that Bob Woodward wrote, the veteran journalist who uncovered the historic Watergate scandal. There are three essays that I recommend, titled ‘Fear’ (2018), ‘Rabia’ (2020) and ‘Danger’ (2021). In the second of them, Woodward tells how much of his closest team was dedicated in that first presidency to stop a good part of Trump’s follies. He was hidden from documents, manipulated the information. Although still worries how the last days of Trump’s first presidency: what happened after his defeat against Joe Biden in November 2020 and his attempts to resist in power.

The third of these Woodward’s books starts with a dystopian anecdote, a telephone conversation between General Mark Milley – then head of the US army – and his Chinese counterpart, General Li Zuocheng on January 8, 2021, two days after the assault on the Capitol. The Chinese feared that, after that violent algarada, Trump would look for another way not to give power: a war escalation against China that justified a state of exception.

General Mark Milley, according to Woodward, tried to reassure the Chinese military, taking importance to his fears. But as soon as he hangs, he started to prevent something like that could happen. Milley contacted the other military in the nuclear button chain to ensure that no one was obeying Donald Trump, in case he ordered an attack on China. It seemed like a crazy hypothesis, but General Milley – nominated by Trump himself – did not want to rule it out.

These Trump’s first months again at the head of the United States are even more disturbing. With an aggravating aggravation: that there are hardly any counterweights in that administration. Trump has surrounded himself with a team of foolish balls that will not disobey him. These first months of their second term give dread: the harassment of the press and the university, the persecution of immigrants, the expansionist threats to their neighbors, the commercial war, its position on the Palestinian genocide … and has not even passed half a year since it recovered power.

Although there are also some good news that should be highlighted. There were those who wanted to interpret Trump’s arrival at the White House as the beginning of a new era, such as the beginning of a ‘anti woke’ reactionary wave that would sweep the world and take ahead to the entire world left, which would export magic madness to all Western democracies. But for now, with some nuances – like the local elections in the United Kingdom -, it is not exactly like that.

The Trump effect is what explains the loud defeat of the right in the last elections in Canada. The conservatives had been leading the surveys for months, but Trump’s threats have given an unexpected victory to the Liberal Party.

The same has happened a few days ago in Australia. The right -wing candidate started as a favorite. He trusted Trump’s impulse so much that he even copied a good part of his recipes: very hard hand against immigration and even a slogan to imitation of the “Make America Great Again”: “Let’s put Australia again.” The result? A historical defeat of the right.

The Spaniards are very different from the Australians, or the Canadians. But that Spanish right, which cries out for early elections every day, confident in a safe victory, would do well to take care of the disastrous influence of Donald Trump. Neither Alberto Núñez Feijóo nor – very less – Santiago Abascal seem to be aware of the threat that world and almost unanimous rejection supposes for his parties against the president of the United States. They have not yet learned, as their recent ‘no’ demonstrates in Congress to funds to alleviate the impact on Spanish companies of the US tariffs.

Even the recent conclave in the Vatican is also partly explained with that ‘anti Trump’ wave that runs through the world. Many feared that the progressive Bergoglio was happening a conservative Pope, following that ideological pendulum with which the Catholic Church has moved during the last and stormy two centuries. The result? Just the opposite. Among all the cardinals of that conclave, there was no more ‘anti Trump’ candidate than the new Pope, Robert Prevost. Just readThe tweets publishedBefore their appointment: almost all are critical of Donald Trump and his vice president, JD Vance. Especially with his inhuman treatment with immigrants.

I don’t know what world my daughter will find when questions begin to ask. But I am clear that, although there are dark days, there are always reasons for hope. That in the face of fear, lies or brutality, there are also those who resist. And it is worth continuing to fight, even with one hand, while with the other the future is cornered.

I hope you have a good weekend. Thanks for reading me. Thanks for your support foreldiario.es.

#Cradle #future