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Pedro Sánchez Isn’t Waiting for a Savior

At a recent summit, Spain’s prime minister gathered leftist leaders and warned of a new authoritarian world order.

After more than a decade of Trumpism, pathways to leftist victories can seem limited. Yes, the crushing defeat of Viktor Orbán in April’s Hungarian election showed that even entrenched authoritarians can be trounced when movements rise and opposition unifies. But Hungary’s new prime minister, Péter Magyar, is hardly a man of the left. So at a time when Donald Trump’s chaotic war with Iran threatens global economic stability and too many “leaders” offer inadequate responses, leftists find ourselves asking, “What’s next?” Well, Pedro Sánchez has just provided an answer.

In mid-April, Spain’s prime minister offered a hopeful alternative vision to the world. Without pausing for direction from Berlin or Paris, he hosted the Global Progressive Mobilization Summit, where remnants of the European left convened with leaders from the Global South to advance a bold program: defeat fascism through economic populism, reject military intervention, and fight the rise of authoritarianism.

“A new world order is emerging. A world in which a zero-sum mentality prevails,” Sánchez declared in his blistering keynote address. “We must combat that vision, because it only brings conflict, inequality, and injustice.” Rejecting the growing anti-immigration sentiment, he continued, “Spain is the daughter of migration and will not be the mother of xenophobia. Don’t be fooled.”

Context matters. A little over a decade ago, the Southern European left erupted with promise as Greece’s Syriza party under Alexi Tsipras and Spain’s Podemos under Pablo Iglesias offered rebuttals to the austerity imposed by the International Monetary Fund and Germany. Then Brexit set off a wave across Europe, empowering right-wing movements with their anti-immigrant populism.........

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