Sánchez's Darwinism

Darwin's theory has often been misunderstood: according to the English naturalist, the law of the jungle is not that of the strongest, but that of the most adaptable. The species that triumph are those that best adapt to environmental conditions. This has precisely been the essence of Pedro Sánchez's political survival, based on an extraordinary pragmatic capacity to take advantage of parliamentary arithmetic and the social and economic conditions of each moment, without falling into orthodox rigidities.

From the young social-liberal who wanted to make a pact with Albert Rivera's Citizens, he moved on to align himself with the left-wing forces that emerged from the 15-M movement and with Basque and Catalan nationalists, including the pro-independence forces that had their leaders imprisoned or in exile. Sánchez grew up in a classic Jacobin environment and has evolved to champion the plural Spain that has turned the page on the Process, with pardons and amnesty as his main gestures; in the end, however, he will have saved himself from the new financing and the FLA, two promises made with ERC. Catalonia, now governed by the PSC of his friend and loyal Salvador Illa, will be left without the millionaire prize. A lost opportunity. If the PP and Vox win, lost for a long time.

Because right now, the polls consider Sánchez to be washed up. A loser. Faced with the expected decline, once again the Spanish socialist leader has played hard at all or nothing. To flee from the migratory conflict—a playing field prone to the right—and to put the corruption in the PSOE in the background—the last especially lethal blow has been the fall from grace of Zapatero—, he has thrown himself fully into turning the housing crisis into his lifeline, marking once again the border between the two Spains of always: 21st-century civil-warring. He has also been pushed towards this scenario of confrontation by the media and judicial harassment to which the deep state is subjecting him, in the wake of the ideological unbridling of Vox and Ayuso.

With his enemies emboldened, Sánchez returns to the fray. And there are those who believe that, if the defeat is sweet, he will not throw in the towel and will already start thinking about 2030. Be that as it may, until now, amidst pandemics and wars, his pragmatism and great capacity for adaptation have kept him in power. And they have also turned him into the last great pillar of the stagnant European social democracy, and as such, the European politician who has most confronted the American president, Donald Trump. His eventual defeat would therefore also weaken a European Union in the process of coming to terms with the loss of its American friend.

Will the new Maricarmen pirouette work out well for the tightrope walker Sánchez? There is no doubt that global and local winds are blowing against him. But one cannot rule out a surprise when dealing with a politician who thrives on confrontation. And once again, many questions: Has Spanish polarization grown due to the leftward shift of Sanchismo, or is it a global movement to which Sánchez has adapted, in a new turn of Darwinian adaptation? What fate awaits Sánchez? What fate awaits Catalonia and Spain? The answers, on the night of November 29.