IN SYNTHESIS
By Alfredo Cuéllar
Invented Emergencies, Real Abuses
The ’emergencies’ declared from power have become a political weapon. They are not genuine emergencies, but rather a rhetorical and legal tool used by populists and authoritarian regimes to justify excesses and injustices. Donald Trump embodies this dangerous strategy: he invokes fabricated crises to dismantle institutions, persecute the most vulnerable, and weaken the foundations of democracy.
Migrants Turned into Enemies
Speaking of ‘invasions’ by foreign gangs has served to legitimize mass deportations without due process. Social protests are presented as a ‘security emergency’ to deploy federal troops. The trade deficit is turned into an ‘extraordinary threat’ to impose tariffs on dozens of countries. The near-terrorist persecution of migrants is justified under this script: the emergency as a smokescreen to legalize abuse.
The Real Fire: Science and Knowledge Under Attack
The real emergency is not in the streets or inflated numbers. It is the national, international, and moral damage of an administration that attacks science, discredits universities, cancels research, ridicules data, and erodes independent bodies. A government that destroys knowledge to impose fear and obedience.
Judges: Humans Before Guardians
Micropolitics teaches that power is exercised in every space. Judges are no exception. Democracy has mythologized courts and the Supreme Court as impartial entities, but reality is harsher: they respond to interests, parties, and political gratitude. Although some rulings have pointed out that Trump’s emergencies lack legal grounds, decisions come late, are appealed, and by then, the damage is already done.
Democracy in Ruins
With an administration composed of loyalists instead of experts, the message is clear: the law is not respected. Legal manipulation has become the norm. Trusting that the ballot box will fix this deterioration is naïve: we already know that losers will once again cry fraud, and if justice does not favor them, they will simply ignore it.
Moral Emergency: Polarization as State Policy
The country faces a more serious emergency: moral degradation. Polarization has become official policy. Fear is manipulated, institutions are weakened, and democratic coexistence is destroyed. The damage goes beyond the United States: it fractures alliances, scorns scientific cooperation, and casts doubt on truth itself.
Washington No Longer the Reliable Axis
The politics of chaos have reshaped global geopolitics. The unthinkable happens: China and Russia seal strategic alliances; Israel maneuvers in a convulsive landscape; India reacts to tariff excesses. Brazil, Europe, Mexico, Japan, South Korea, and Canada maintain diplomacy but no longer trust Washington and seek new directions.
U.S. populism, far from strengthening the nation, has opened the door to a global realignment that benefits its strategic rivals and undermines international trust. That is the real emergency: a weakened democracy that, in the name of power, threatens to redefine the world order.
