The most likely government to emerge - most analysts predict - will be a coalition including a hard-right nationalist party for the first time in Spain since the death of fascist dictator Francisco Franco in 1975.
More left-leaning Spaniards are frantically texting contacts, urging them to make sure to vote - despite the heat and it being holiday time for many - to “stop the fascists” in their tracks.The rhetoric this election season has been toxic, with voters becoming increasingly polarised.
It’s a fight over values, traditions and about what being Spanish should mean in 2023.
This kind of heated identity debate isn’t peculiar to Spain. Think of Italy, France, Brazil or the post-Trumpian debate in the US.
At EU HQ in Brussels, there are huge concerns about a resurgence of hard-right nationalist parties across Europe.
It doesn’t take to be a political sociologist to understand that left wing parties failed to manage the situation in the latest years (inflation, pandemics, etc.) and that people are now looking for alternatives. Had they managed to really defend the interests and welfare of the working class, they would have won hands down. The future won’t be hard for most of the people in the beginning, except if you happen to be in one of the minorities they are targeting. That stinks, I know, but there are no alternatives…
That stinks, I know, but there are no alternatives…
There’s always an alternative to fascism, and it’s always better.
Except if you happen to be in one of the minorities they are targeting.
Here is a quote that will probably go over your head, but I’ll post it regardless in the hopes that you’re better than the rest of the far-right voters:
First they came for the Communists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Communist
Then they came for the Socialists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Socialist
Then they came for the trade unionists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a trade unionist
Then they came for the Jews
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Jew
Then they came for me
And there was no one left
To speak out for me
Where did I say that I agree with this kind of policies? I think this is leveraging people discontent to gain power (and giving them fake enemies like minorities won’t solve the real problems). But I’m getting downvoted anyway, God knows why.
God knows why.
Because of the things you said and how you said them. Self-evidently.
In this comment you represent that your original statement is moderate and has wide agreeability.
Your original statement does not. If it was intended to, then you need to attend to the fact that you have not represented your views on the matter effectively and people are responding to you as though your views were other than they are.
If the original comment when read by people who aren’t you means what you meant it to mean, then this second comment is horseshit and you should either stand by what you said and accept that others find it repellent, or perhaps, reconsider your position.
To be clear: Your original comment is unambiguously saying that you support the rise of a fascist state that would intentionally harm minorities. It does not matter if your intention was otherwise and you’ve just not made yourself sufficiently clear. We only know what you actually said. What you actually said is that you are in favour of this. By all means confirm that you are and own it, or, if you are not in favour, just fucking figure out what you need to change for the comment to reflect your actual values and edit it (possibly with a footnote explaining you needed to edit it because it didn’t quite express what you meant originally.)
Don’t just throw your hands in the air and complain that people are responding to the things you said as though they are what you meant. And if they are what you meant, then fuck right off with trying to figure out how to soften it just enough to get people onside with you.
I don’t know the specifics of Spain politics much, just that there are specifics like Catalonia and Gibraltar on top of the rest.
Meanwhile everywhere in the world the left parties are failling at the same time media are taken by hard right activist. Propaganda works at full force, and liberals (in south Europe that’s center right) are siding hard with the fascists to decrease the influence of the left.
Left is not without its own failings. Ironically the fights for societal freedom and ecology are quite liberal in their execution and not very inclusive. Many people are left behind with climate change and the fight for women and sexual rights is frontal and basically tell people to agree or gtfo. Well, they do gtfo then to the other side that talk to poor people: fascists.
that left wing parties failed to manage the situation in the latest years (inflation, pandemics, etc.)
I can’t say much about Spanish politics. But tbh, I’m not sure how to compare. But the pandemic and the inflation are world phenomena. Not saying they couldn’t have been better managed in Spain ( or elsewhere), but here they say the same about our Gvement and they were right- centre.
The measures the government took during COVID were just inefficient, delayed and too strict at the same time, he formed a coalition government with separatists and former terrorists after explicitly stating he wouldn’t and he has tried to increase control over the judicial power, weakening even more the separation of powers (which is very weak in my country).
There are also controversial laws passed by coalition members like the “only yes is yes” law, which ended up severely reducing charges to rapists and pedophiles, and it took a lot of time to get it fixed due to sheer stubborness of politicians, instead accusing the judges for “being sexists and fascists”, when law must always act in favour of the guilty (Right to the non-retroactivity of the law)
It’s expectable to think a sizeable amount of people would vote the opposition
Unfortunately, this is a huge reality happening in almost all EU countries, at least those that accepted a ton of immigrants. I live in Spain, and I can tell you that right and hard-right winning is a no surprise at all. There’s a minor but loud immigrant that simply doesn’t care about anything but themselves: for example, go search the thefts crimes committed in Barcelona these few years: they increased by an alarming rate. In fact, the 60% of prisoners in Spain are foreigners. The overall crime rates have increased since accepting so much immigration. And this is a shame, because obviously not all immigrants are the same, but for the fault of those minor cases, they reputation is decreasing hardly.
And, before anyone crosses me out as a “nazi” or anti-immigration let me tell you: when I was born, my parents didn’t have the Spanish citizenship, so yep, my family and I were illegal immigrants. Also, my parents suffered from discrimination (for example, their university degrees were never validated, people were extra mean to them, insults (“return to your home”, “we don’t speak that language here”… you name it) but even with this discrimination level, they never, but never steal from anyone, they never raped anyone, they worked very hard and finally, after 20 years, we can say that we’re living a normal live.
Tomorrow is the election, and obviously voting those parties in my perspective is stupid, but I can understand why is happening.
The titles not being validated is not discrimination, there is a process for that. There is an standarization with education in Europe and just accepting any title would be troubleshome.
While I understand this, they were college degrees after all. Maybe this were my parents fault for not invastigating better, but even then, this doesn’t underestimate all the other forms of discrimination they (and even I) were faced against.
In my previous work there was this client with an African wife, a doctor, she obviously had the title but she couldn’t work in Spain without validating her title but doing some exams in Spanish, they were working on that.
I will bring my girlfriend from her country here and I told her she will need to do that in order to validate her academic titles. It’s a shame that someone that was top of her class won’t be able to use those academic results here.
It has nothing to do with discrimination, it’s about maintaining educational standards.
Attention Spanish bigots, choosing fascism isn’t going to stop climate change or make your lives better.
I am getting tired of liberals (in the European sense, not the American sense) clutching their pearls at the resurgence of the fascist right when they did everything they could to kill off the socialist left everywhere in Europe. If you shift the Overton window so that your corporate neoliberal asses are the left side of it, what the fuck do you expect to be at its right side?
they could to kill off the socialist left everywhere in Europe?
Yeah, if you put it that way, seems logical. You mean during Franco, Mussolini & Hitler?
But, after the WW 2 it was mainly Stalin that purged the Socio-democrats in (Eastern) Europe. In US there was a purge though.
And in the 60/70’s there was a major resurgence of socialist political parties in Europe, afaik. I think that the old political dynamics ideals and politics have changed quite a lot. To me, you have power mongering people, oligarchs or influencers on both side of the political spectrum. I therefore don’t take their political ideologies as a grand determination for their character, unless they are extremist ofc. Many polticians also often switch sides depending on the outcome, opportunistic .
I prefer to focus on if and how the power is (ab)used in real life. If the poltician is working for the will & good for the people, or for his own wallet and corruption.
Haha yeah, us Americans did that nearly a century ago!
sad late-stage capitalism noises
India did that about 20 years back and for the past 9 years we’ve (mis)governed by violent right-wing Hindu supremacism. :(
the Communist holdout of Kerala is the only state in India where the BJP does not have a foothold.
Pretty much what’s happening here in France. The majority sides with the hard right on a lot of decisions. It’s also happening in the EU parliament. We’re heading right towards very very hard times.
Ribbit
