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The former US secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, has told an audience this Friday in Barcelona, where she was attending the 50th anniversary of the Centre for International Studies and Documentation of Barcelona (CIDOB), that she lost the electoral confrontation with the former president Donald Trump because "it was a battle against a demagogue". Clinton recalled that she won more votes than Trump, but that the Republican representative got more electoral college seats.
 

According to Hillary Clinton, Trump based his campaign on "dog-whistle politics", mobilizing his own electorate while preventing the rival party's voters from noticing. The expression refers to the whistles used by farmers with sheep dogs, which use an audio frequency above human hearing range. The former Republican president is an expert in this types of politics, she said. "He strives to create grievances against the other as a springboard for building his own political identity," she said. The woman who was US secretary of state under Barack Obama considers that the Republican Party "is unrecognizable" compared to what it was in the past. "They have all joined in the cult of Trump, and the result is that there is almost a post-truth," she concluded.

In her speech, she also warned of the risks posed by artificial intelligence for democracy. "How can we manage a democracy if we can't trust what we see on the screen?" she asked. The US politican listed this field as a new problem on top of the dangers of populism and she also spoke out about hate speech against women on social media. The former head of US diplomacy argued that Russian president Vladimir Putin's invasion of Ukraine and his inability to control the country have caused Chinese president Xi Jinping to "rethink" his regional policy and for the countries of the Asia-Pacific to ally and come closer to the United States again.

Xavier Trias Victoria Alsina CIDOB Hillary Clinton / Carlos Baglietto
Barcelona mayoral election winner Xavier Trias with Victòria Alsina at Hillary Clinton's CIDOB address / Carlos Baglietto

About 250 people attended the conference of the former US secretary of state, held in the chapel beside the MACBA art museum, in an event presented by the CIDOB director, Pol Morillas. Among the attendees were the current president of Catalonia, Pere Aragonès; foreign minister Meritxell Serret and social rights minister Carles Campuzano. Acting mayor of Barcelona, Ada Colau, was not present, but the acting deputy mayor Laia Bonet (PSC) was there. Also present was the possible future mayor of the city, Xavier Trias (Junts), along with Ernest Maragall (ERC), among others. The institutional welcome was given by the CIDOB president, Antoni Segura, who thanked Clinton for her presence in the city, and by the US ambassador, Julissa Reynoso, who said that the former secretary of state is the best figure for the commemoration of CIDOB's 50 years.

Catalan president Aragonès later evaluated Clinton's visit. "A pleasure to share a vision of the future with Hillary Clinton on global political challenges. Her reflections on the effects of the war in Ukraine and the fight against the rise of authoritarian populism are inspiring. Well done CIDOB. Congratulations on these 50 years!", he tweeted.