The tram car rattled as it lurched to another stop. It was our first morning in Lisbon, Portugal. Lisbon looks strikingly similar to San Francisco—there are old-fashioned cable cars, though slightly more dilapidated than those in the Bay Area, steep hills overlooking bright blue water and a red suspension bridge—its own Golden Gate—that connects the two sides of the city. I almost forgot I was in Portugal and not in the U.S., overlooking the Pacific rather than the Atlantic.
My mother and I were wondering aloud about which of the two biggest Portuguese cities—Lisbon or Porto—was the better one to visit.
“But of course, Lisboa is the best city!” said a young Portuguese woman in her late 20s. She wore a deep purple lipstick, jeans and a pink tank top and was sipping on a small juice. A nose ring peeked out from her nostril, hinting at her rebellious side. Her warm smile was something I found to be characteristic of the Portuguese people. Her name was Sara.
Twenty minutes later, the three of us were stepping off the tram into the heart of the historic district. Sara was pointing in the direction of the castle when she stopped midsentence: “You know what? I’m going to take you there myself. My vacation started today and I have no plans. I’m going to show you my beautiful city because I would love if somebody did that for me!”
And we were off. We spent the day climbing the castle walls, going to “miradoros”—stunning viewpoints overlooking the city’s red stucco-roofs and shimmering blue river. Sara bought us pineapple imported from the Portuguese island of Madeira, we rode in her best friend’s Tuk Tuk and toasted to our new friends with Ginjinha—a Portuguese liqueur made from berries and sugar. Sara led us to beautiful Portuguese porcelain shops and the oldest bookstore in the world. The day concluded hours later, with an authentic Portuguese meal of pork sandwiches and olive pate, at one of Sara’s favorite little restaurants.
Throughout our adventures that day, I found myself falling deeper and deeper in love with this tucked-away city—its friendly inhabitants, its antiquated buildings, its scents of frying fish and baking bread. I also found myself become more and more impressed by Sara’s knowledge of the world and its affairs.
I had to ask her, what did she think about the current state of the U.S. election? What did the Portuguese people think of it?
To begin, like many foreigners, she was not a fan of Donald Trump.
“We as Portuguese are a mixed race, so the things Trump’s trying to do are really offensive. We look at his ideas about immigration, people leaving the country and not belonging there, as similar to the Nazi ideas. Here, we believe that the world is just one. You don’t have the right to tell someone they can’t be there. Imagine that one day you have to expel your family? This is what’s going to happen. History repeats itself. We are going to end up in a third world war because Trump doesn’t have control of himself and wants to turn people against each other.”
The Portuguese—like Americans—are a melting pot of races: Greeks, Romans and people from the ex-Portuguese colonies in Africa, just to name a few.
As for Sara’s thoughts on Hillary Clinton—she was similarly unimpressed, but referred to Clinton as the lesser of two evils. “I think Hillary is a puppet, but she’s certainly better than Trump.”
What then, would such a foreigner think of Trump’s intensely devoted following?
In Sara’s opinion, Trump gives the illusion of having special powers—the ability to fix everything. But he’s not the first politician to have made that promise, is he?
As Sara and I sat talking in the shade of the São Jorge Castle, that’s when it hit me. The world—not to mention many Americans—is confused by why so many voters are die-hard Trump fans. After speaking with Sara, it seems Portugal is just as confused as everybody else. What’s the locomotive behind the Trump train? Why are educated, intelligent Americans voting for Trump?
In my mind, the answer is simple: they’re afraid. Why is that difficult for nations such as Portugal to understand? They’ve never had the fear that comes with the responsibility of being the United States of America, the world’s superpower. I came to this realization when Sara told me that Portugal had never been attacked.
Had I heard her correctly? Never?
Never. It was invaded by the Spanish in 1762, and its Turkish embassy was struck in 1983, but Portugal has yet to be bombed, be it by terrorists or armies, in the last 250 years. Portugal was neutral in World War II, it was not invaded and sent supplies to both the Allies and Axis Powers. Portugal is such a peaceful country that its 1974 military coup—to get rid of the Estado Novo dictatorship—is called the Carnation Revolution. This is because the revolution saw barely a drop of blood and red carnations were placed in soldiers’ uniforms when the dictatorship ended.
Sara said to me: “The politicians here don’t have the power to tell us to live in fear. But in the U.S. they tell you: ‘Do you remember Vietnam? Do you remember Afghanistan? These foreigners are going to kill your children and change your country!’”
Of course, Portugal is not the a superpower. In 2015, it was the forty-third wealthiest country with a GDP of $27,180.22 whereas the U.S. was the ninth-wealthiest country on the list, with a GDP of $57,045.46, almost twice that of Portugal. Yet this small little nation—which sent Vasco de Gama to India and Pedro Alvares to Brazil—helped the world better understand the Earth’s geography by creating maps and exploring the seas. Somehow though, it has remained out of the spotlight, for better or worse. It hangs on the fringes of Europe, into the Atlantic Ocean and harbors a peaceful atmosphere; no terrorist attacks, no invasions, no military fears.
And Lisbon—for a city that appears to be so similar to the American city of San Francisco on the outside—is drastically different on the inside. Its citizens are not spoon-fed our fears. There are neither parades of threats nor threats themselves. It simply lives, minding its own business, wondering how in the world we let both Trump and Clinton get this far in the election.
Katherine Berko is a Trinity junior studying abroad in Madrid. Her column, “how in the world,” runs on alternate Thursdays.
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