Isabel Díaz Ayuso’s trip to the United States is for internal consumption. Although these visits are followed with interest in Spain, the US media hardly pay attention to them, as Fernando Peinado warned in the EL PAÍS Madrid newsletter: more likely that the reason is Real Madrid or Barça ”.
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But if Díaz Ayuso’s intention is to generate headlines in Spain and comments among our tweeters, he is certainly succeeding. For example, as soon as she arrived in Washington, the Madrid president scolded Pope Francis, expressing her surprise at the fact that the pontiff, “a Catholic who speaks Spanish,” reflected in a letter about the “sins” committed by the Church. Catholic during the Spanish conquest. It was thus confirmed that Ayuso was more papist than the pope, as pointed out by a few tweeters, including actress Anabel Alonso.
The fact that the president had to travel to Washington has also been sneered at for Telemadrid to interview her, something that could have been solved with a taxi. The graphic humor account Pascual Pánico showed Ayuso apologizing in English for his accent: “Quiet,” the journalists replied, “if we are from Madrid.” And @LaPiur compared Ayuso with those Spaniards “who leave Spain and are looking for a place to eat a paella.”
These comments may seem unfair to ayusers, that on Twitter are legion. After all, Ayuso has met with investment funds, has met with former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg (with a fan photo included) and is planning a meeting with some Hispanic congressmen this Thursday. It’s not that bad either, is it?
However, the warning with which we started the article is still valid: the important thing is not what is achieved there, which will not be much no matter how well it is presented, but the headlines that it adds here. And the risk is the one already pointed out by a good handful of tweeters: that of trying to sell an international and diplomatic success, but showing that the entire visit is a simulation to take four photos in a papier-mâché stage. You only need to remember the image of Pedro Sánchez running down a corridor next to a Joe Biden who did not seem to be very clear about who that man who was speaking to him was. In fact, The Today World he played with this comparison, with a headline that read: “Díaz Ayuso manages to tell Joe Biden about the Aztec pyramid project in a 100-meter long corridor.”
Along these lines, Daniel Castro, one of the scriptwriters of Vote Juan, suggested in a thread that Ayuso’s visit was for a series episode. The story he was proposing seemed like a cross between Veep and Mortadelo and Filemón: “Regional President makes a trip to NY but no one knows who she is there. He does not get meetings. Only the undersecretary of solid waste management receives it. She puts Spanish and US flags on the table, so that it looks like a summit ”.
It must be remembered that humor makes good use of everything that is solemnity and self-promotion. It is an infallible and cruel detector of the gulf between how we present ourselves to others and how they actually see us, no matter how much we try to pretend and hide. To put a daily comparison, we have all taken a photo in the Empire State Building and when we saw it years later we have verified that we came out with the face of Paco Martínez Soria in The city is not for me.