Pellegrini is a farce of Trump

The opinion below was written by our reader Chris Helton. If you write opinions, get in touch with The Slovak Spectator. Provided they’re good, they may appear in our Opinion section.

Though I am not a Marxist, upon the election of Peter Pellegrini as president of the Slovak Republic, I am reminded of one of Karl Marx’s most quoted aphorisms, “History repeats itself, first as tragedy, second as farce.”

I have now lived in Slovakia for 20 years. I remember the two terms of Gašparovič’s presidency. With the two miraculous terms of Kiska and Čaputová, I had almost deluded myself into hoping I would go to my grave without seeing another Gašparovič.

On April 6, 53 percent of the participating electorate proved me wrong.

Pellegrini is a farce of Trump and Gašparovič

Not that I was blindsided by Pellegrini’s election: despite some very cautious optimism after the first round, I had expected it. Humanity often disappoints me; it very rarely surprises me. Humans are the same as they have always been. When well-meaning journalists pointed out that all of Pellegrini’s talking points were fallacious–the Slovak president cannot unilaterally commit troops to war, the EU cannot overthrow the governments of its sovereign members–I wanted to shout, “Their supporters know that! They just don’t care!” We all talk of disinformation on the internet as if people were truly helpless sheep who eat it up without an ounce of credulity. What we often fail to realise is that many people desire to be fooled, desire to have a talking point–a talking point they know deep down is spurious–that they can revert to at the next family gathering as justification for voting for someone who they know is a nihilist giving voice to their deepest dissatisfactions and insecurities.

I know all of this because I have family who have fallen to the cult of Donald Trump, which brings me back to Marx. Pellegrini is not only a farce of Gašparovič: he’s also a farce of Trump. In 2016 and 2020, I watched in disbelief as American Christians, whom I had known personally and who had decried Clinton as an immoral sinner for his marital infidelity in the ‘90s, vote for a person who had openly flaunted his infidelities for decades, simply because he told them what they wanted to hear.

Blatant hypocrisy

The 2019 Slovak presidential election was practically a referendum on the “traditional family.” Most of us can remember the objectively terrible campaign video of Maroš Šefčovič awkwardly pouring drinks at a family table while his dutiful wife prepared schnitzel. Meanwhile, Madame Čaputová was derided as a divorcee. Now, the hard right has bet all their hopes on a candidate who has no traditional family to speak of.

Personally, I don’t think a candidate’s family, or lack thereof, has any bearing on what they might bring to their political office. What I object to is the blatant hypocrisy. Many people who voted for Šefčovič in 2019 on the basis of him being a “good family man” are now voting for a middle-aged bachelor. Why? Because he is giving voice to their deepest dissatisfactions and insecurities. Many Americans who clutched their pearls at Clinton’s adultery in the ‘90s voted for a proud serial adulterer in 2016 and 2020. Why? Because he gave voice to their deepest dissatisfactions and insecurities.

What of Fico, who engineered all this? As much space as I have devoted to a nonentity like Pellegrini, I find Fico hardly worth writing about. Like all of us, Fico’s time on earth is finite, and, when all is said and done, he will find at least one young man and woman to direct him to his resting place.