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In recent months, politics has turned towards the morning, with leaders of all political colors taking advantage of every last second in the window. But the morning “Welcome” on Channel 13 went further and what until now was an expression of opinions and exchange of ideas was transformed on Friday into a humorous sketch with politicians as protagonists of the routine.
The segment triggered a wave of comments and outrage from some analysts, such as Alfredo Joignant. On Twitter, the sociologist, political scientist and Servel advisor interpreted the episode as “the degradation of politics, the indifference between legitimate adversaries and democracy as a circus run its course: when politics becomes irrelevant.”
This Sunday it was the turn of the analysis of the rector of the Diego Portales University, Carlos Peña, in his usual column in El Mercurio, this time entitled “The circus on fire.”
In it, the lawyer is lapidary and points out that “the participation of politicians in the morning as buffoons and journalists acting as a troupe (this Friday’s sketch was one of several) injures politics and journalism, two essential activities of democratic life “.
Specifically, Peña alluded to the routine starring the mayor of Las Condes, Joaquín Lavín (UDI); Francisco Vidal (PPD), former government spokesman; the former Minister of Education, Marcela Cubillos (former UDI); the former Minister of Finance, Nicolás Eyzaguirre (PPD); the ex-presidential Marco Enríquez-Ominami (PRO) and UDI senator Iván Moreira, who, jokingly, led to a parody of the October 25 plebiscite.
The staging was highly commented on on social networks, an episode that was added to a recreation of the “Embrace of Maipú” by Lavín and Vidal on the same morning, representing Bernardo O’Higgins and José de San Martín, a fact also criticized by Peña.
“A matter of the greatest gravity”
The rector of the UDP recalls that the transformation of morning hours and the disembarkation of professional politicians in these spaces dates back to last October, for the days of the social outbreak, when “the same characters who acted as light commentators on the lives of others and local show business became detectors of social injustice and promoters of equality, people who drip simplicity and good humor, ”alluding to the hosts of these programs.
“It wasn’t long before mayors and some temporarily unemployed professional politicians were added to the show. They, plus two or three doctors – adorned with a perpetual gesture of kindness that in the clinics they disguise as pride – complete the cast “, he added.
In the academic opinion, this has several consequences for public life, starting with “the total trivialization of public problems”, since politicians appear in a space lacking “any critical sting”. By the way, “the role of the journalist is also blurred until it becomes unrecognizable, the one who suddenly transitions from being someone who investigates the actions and sayings of the professional politician, in the mere comparsa and consueta of the latter”.
Peña adds that one of the effects of the pandemic “is that it has tended to erase lines that separated incompatible activities,” such as work at home and family at school. “And one of those lines that the pandemic has blurred is the distinction between entertainment that satisfies the hunger for news and scrutiny of public affairs,” he remarks.
The issue is not minor, warns the rector of the UDP. “The problem is that the phenomenon of the morning sessions turned into substitutes for the public forum is not at all light (if it were, it would not deserve a single line), but rather it is a matter of the greatest gravity, since under
Peña concludes by concluding that “all this is bad, except, of course, for those who play the role with talent that the morning director assigns them: Francisco Vidal has just announced while cleaning his makeup and taking off his costume -as who communicates the next role that he will choose – that he is deciding between being a presidential candidate or a regional governor ”. In fact, the former spokesperson reaffirmed it very seriously in an interview with Third, published on September 18.
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