Eviva España!

A visit to a foreign country leaves different impressions on different people. Some visitors to Spain will best remember its architecture, whether it is Barcelona's Gaudi or Andalusia's Arabic heritage. Others will enthuse about the tapas or the weather. And many will fondly remember a flamenco show or a bull fight. I enjoyed most of the above, but the one thing that truly awed me and stood above all the others was a sign on an otherwise unimpressive building across the road from the famous Prado Museum - El Ministerio de Sanidad, Politica Social e Igualdad.  

When I noticed it, I quickly pulled out my iPhone to check if "igualdad" really means "equality." Over the course of my life I have come across all kinds of ministries and departments, but I do not recall any that has the word "equality" in its name. Ministry of Equality.  Wow! I take that to mean that the government actually pays attention and works on helping all citizens enjoy the same quality of life.  Sure, we have the Equal Employment Opportunity law here and the U.S. Department of Labor has two agencies which deal with EEO monitoring and enforcement, but that's not quite the same. At least not in my eyes. The U.S. government works to prevent discrimination in hiring and promotion at work. It supports equal pay for equal work. It's about money. But Spain's ministry, according to Wikipedia, also is tasked with making suggestions and carrying out "the government policy in social inclusion and cohesion."

On this trip, a friend and I visited four very different Spanish cities: Madrid, Toledo, Granada and Seville. It would be difficult to make an accurate assessment of the Spanish quality of life after a two-week visit. But first impressions are not to be completely dismissed. For example, I did not see any beggars in the streets or any signs of homelessness. Instead, we were approached by an occasional flower-seller or an African immigrant hawking cheap goods while we sat in open-air cafés. In Granada, there were also women offering "free" rosemary sprigs and, we were told, insisting to tell your fortune for an exorbitant fee if you accept a sprig.

I compare this to Washington, where I have never entered or exited the Eastern Market metro station, a few blocks east of the Capitol, without being asked to "spare" a dollar or a few coins to help some poor wretch "buy a ticket to get home," "get some food" or just "help."  I have never yet lit a cigarette in the street without being approached by at least one person asking for a cigarette. 

In Spain, we ate and had coffee at a variety of places along the way and noted little or no difference in prices between modest neighborhood cafés and fancy tourist venues.  On a Sunday in Granada, I learned that it is impossible to exchange or use a 500-euro banknote. The money exchange kiosk will only exchange one currency for another, but not a big bill for smaller denominations, and shops do not accept large bills either.  I was told that not even a bank would give you change for 500 euros unless you have an account in it. Desperate to get some money to buy coffee and food, I told my friend, "the only thing to do is to find the most expensive hotel in town and have a lavish meal there."  

The dinner including a glass of champagne, cherry, top quality ibérico ham, gourmet tuna and a steak was only $68 euros and so the waiter balked at the 500-euro bill, but after consulting with two managers he was able to accept it and give us the change.  I am glad of the experience because it was an opportunity to see a place where some ordinary Spaniards come to enjoy their Sunday lunch. I cannot see ordinary Americans lunching at the Willard hotel where I was once invited to a brunch that cost more than $100 per person.

Tapas of octopus and cod in Seville

But mostly we enjoyed tapas, comparable to small dishes or starters in the US. They ranged from 2 euros to 4 euros and were most often the size of a main course. The two dishes shown above with two drinks came to no more than $12 altogether, including tax and tips. In my estimate the equivalent meal would amount to more than $40 in D.C. because the dishes would fall under the category of main course. Despite huge tips in Washington, many area waiters complain of not making enough money to live on.

Another thing that makes Spain (and other European countries) attractive is public transportation.  You absolutely never - ever - have to wait for a subway train longer than 3 minutes.  The Madrid Metro is clean, reliable and efficient.  It gets you everywhere - even to the airport.  

Museums set aside hours when everyone can get in for free. Seniors get huge discounts in theaters, cultural institutions and all other public venues that charge an entrance fee. 

It would take a serious analysis to figure out why a poor southern European country can offer all these benefits to its citizens. We know that Spain is almost bankrupt. But wherever we went in the country - whether it was Teatro Real in Madrid, a classy bar or a simple local restaurant in any city - we saw middle class people, no one standing out as looking either particularly rich or particularly poor. Bernie's campaign cry kept coming to mind: "we are the wealthiest nation in the history of the world, and millions of families are struggling day by day just to keep their heads above water."  The income gap in the United States is insurmountable.  "Unbelievably, and grotesquely, the top one-tenth of 1 percent owns nearly as much wealth as the bottom 90 percent," Sanders wrote in an essay titled American Poverty.  

Surely there are wealthy people in Spain - those who own a flat in central Madrid and a beach house somewhere on the Mediterranean coast, and perhaps a bank account in Switzerland. But the Royal Palace in Madrid clearly needs renovation. The white paint is peeling off from the shutters and the gray facade could use a fresh coat of paint. Maybe the king wants to identify with his people, or is lacking funds himself.  It's hard to tell.

All I know for sure is that we desperately need a Department for Equality here in the United States.

Washington, Las Vegas and Our Presidential Candidates

During a recent visit to southern France, many locals asked where I and my friend were from. When she said she was from Las Vegas, people would invariably get excited and wanted to have long discussions about her city while no one cared about my hometown - the capital of the United States and the western world. This now reminds me of the situation with Donald Trump: everyone wants to discuss him, but there is little genuine interest in either Hillary Clinton or Bernie Sanders.

Perusing European newspapers online these days one finds the US news sections flooded with stories about Trump. His every utterance and every move is recorded and discussed in detail, and if Sanders or Clinton are mentioned, it is mostly in relation to Trump. Like: Sanders agreed to debate with Trump after Clinton refused. It's a good thing President Obama went to Hiroshima, to provide a little diversion although even he could not come out entirely Trump-free. He must have been asked a lot of questions about the Republican presidential contender to warrant the statement "world leaders are rattled by him."

But what about Americans? Trump has not changed much in the past few months. Neither has his rhetoric improved. Yet from a candidate that was initially considered nothing more than a clown in the presidential campaign circus, he has become a serious threat to Hillary Clinton, a Democrat and seasoned politician who seemed to have the presidency in her pocket.

Pundits offer explanations such as Congress fatigue, fear of terrorism, loss of manufacturing jobs, Trump's TV popularity, his (dubious) business achievements, straight talk etc. I don't buy any of that. I think Trump's formula for success is the same one that gave power to Yugoslavia's Tito, Serbia's Slobodan Milosevic, Lenin, Stalin, Putin and, yes, even Hitler. They were the kind of leaders that could persuade masses, especially uneducated masses, that they had the strength to protect them from whatever. If there was no threat to the nation, one was invented.

As school kids in the communist Yugoslavia we were taught the locution: Yugoslavia is surrounded by troubles (BRIGAMA). The Croatian and Serbian word for "troubles" was an acronym made from the initials of the countries bordering Yugoslavia (Bulgaria, Romania, Italy, Greece, Austria, Hungary, ie. Madjarska and Albania). So from the earliest age, we were made to believe that our country was on the verge of an attack. Tito ruled uncontested for more than 30 years but after he died, the country he had built fell apart. Hitler's Germany went up in smoke, the Soviet Union disintegrated and the kind of Serbia Milosevic had in mind died before it was born.

Even though history proved Stalin to be a mass murderer equal to Hitler or worse, he enjoyed rising popularity after the Soviet Union collapsed and before Putin stepped in to take the role of a new "strong" leader. Some people still mourn Tito's Yugoslavia, and Hitler continues to fascinate the world albeit in a negative way.

About a decade or so ago, while I was driving my son to school, a local station was re-broadcasting the 1960 Kennedy-Nixon presidential debate on foreign policy. I pointed out to my son how sophisticated the discussion was in comparison with the contemporary presidential debates. I particularly considered Bush junior a poor speaker at the time. Now I could point out how sophisticated his debates were in comparison with the ones we've had this past year. Trump especially is a terrible speaker with hardly any complete sentence in his diatribes, and every word of phrase he deems "strong" repeated at least two or three times. 

Example from his Rolling Thunder speech Sunday: "Make America great again! Very simple. Make America great again! So, in riding over, there are hundreds of thousands of people all along the highways, and they can’t get in! In other words, you’re very good at real estate. You got in! Congratulations! Congratulations. " His vocabulary is very limited and the language he uses to describe his rivals - "crooked Hillary" and "lying Ted Cruz"- is beyond the pale. And yet it does not seem to matter at home or abroad.

The amount of attention, including negative attention, Trump gets in the news media gives him status and importance. In the eyes of many people that translates into power. Every nation wants a "powerful" leader, but the United States, to maintain its status as the world premier superpower must have one. Being cruel and obnoxious is more acceptable than being apologetic if it is serves to project the image of power.  

I am reminded of a classic Serbian tale by Radoje Domanović of a people looking for a leader to take them to the promised land. They think that a silent stranger walking with a staff must be the wisest so they pick him. They follow him through thorns and wasteland as he seems to avoid a strait road. When he falls into a chasm, they jump after him. Many die on the way. When months later three remaining families confront the leader, they learn that he is a blind man.

Although the story does not apply to the United States, it illustrates how important an image is for a leader.

With the statue of Abraham Lincoln looking down, Trump delivered his usual crude oration on Sunday, with Rolling Thunder bikers cheering him on. A Vietnam War veteran was quoted as saying “He’s an asshole, and that’s what we need.” Another one said “We need to retake America, because we’ve lost it.” Wow! I must have been asleep. I never noticed we've lost our country. But I noticed that we've lost class. It almost seems as if no classy person would want to run for president any more.  Certainly no one like George Washington who as a teenager copied by hand 110 rules of civility that he followed all his life.  The current crop of presidential candidates seems oblivious to them. Thus wrote Washington:

 -  Speak not injurious words in jest nor earnest; scoff at none although they give occasion.

 -  Undertake not what you cannot perform but be careful to keep your promise.

 -  Speak not evil of the absent for it is unjust.

But does anyone apply these rules in campaign speeches? In the past, leaders strived to sound educated, today they want to identify with the rude and the illiterate.  Maybe that's how they see the majority of voters. Europeans are commenting on Facebook: "America, you might call this an election, but the rest of the world is viewing it as your IQ test. And it's not looking good."

I have always believed (and been rebuked for saying it) that a nation has the leader it deserves. Especially in true democracies where the head of state is freely elected. This is not to say that every individual gets the leader he or she deserves. I tend to agree with de Tocqueville in that "a majority taken collectively is only an individual, whose opinions, and frequently whose interests, are opposed to those of another individual." Come January, a new U.S. president will be sworn in, one that many Americans will not have wanted: a president elected by the majority and imposed on everyone.

The rest of the world will have to deal with our president too. And not everyone will be annoyed if it is Trump. Judging by the amount of attention he gets in the foreign media, he is more attractive to a lot of people overseas than either Clinton or Sanders, sort of like Las Vegas is more seductive than Washington.