From the BCN GPM to the Mississippi victory

Some months ago, the Global Progressive Mobilization (GPM) met in Barcelona to discuss how to build an international movement to fight for democracy and progressive causes in the face of what seemed to be an almost unstoppable Global Trumpian International.

The GPM brought together several different strands of progressive politics. With traditional social democracy at its core, it also welcomed representatives from the left, such as Lula from Brazil and Boric from Chile, as well as all the different wings of the US Democratic Party. Intellectuals such as Gabriel Zucman and Mariana Mazzucato were also there to contribute intellectual depth and fresh ideas. Most of the speakers denounced what was happening in Gaza at the time, under the inhumane assault by Netanyahu's Israel.

At the time, it looked like a defensive movement. The Democratic Party was in opposition in the US, while Lula and the Spanish Socialist hosts were trailing in the polls. It was tempting for some to dismiss the gathering as a confederacy of losers.

But Lula has now defied the forecasts, and the Democratic Party has achieved a historic victory in the midterm elections, bringing a new generation of highly qualified and diverse leaders to the forefront, united around a progressive platform based on political and democratic equality. Mississippi, a key state in the pro-slavery Confederacy and the historical stronghold of the Ku Klux Klan, has seen an African-American senator overcome the weight of history.

Even Netanyahu has lost an election. Spain faces a general election on November 29. The Socialists are trailing in the polls, but, as in Lula's case, they are hoping to come from behind against a right-wing coalition closely aligned with the European far right and Trumpism.

The movement that gathered in Barcelona now looks much more like a Confederacy of Winners. An expanded social democracy is winning elections again, and with victory comes the responsibility to find solutions to the problem of affordability. But the priority was, and remains, to stop the advance of autocracy, promoted by a corrupt elite that has discovered in Trumpism and the European and Latin American far right an ideal way to persuade ordinary people to fight their neighbours rather than confront the deep-rooted injustices of their societies.