At this point, the only interest of the political figure of the president of Madrid, Isabel Díaz Ayuso, is to personify the idea of banal power: raw power that has no other objective or purpose than to keep power itself running –and to benefit from it, of course, herself and a circle formed by accomplices and usurers (to whom favors must be returned with interest)–. Her ideological positions are inconsistent, vague; even her anti-Catalanism is routine, a chapter from the same instruction manual that also includes Madrid nationalism, the exaltation of the “Christian roots” of Spanish culture (whatever it is that these people understand by Spanish culture), the vindication of Spanish colonialism in America, anti-feminism, or the denial of climate change and the pandemic.The Community of Madrid –an administrative and political artifact that should be discussed in depth, starting with its very reason for existing– has long since become an optimal gear of this way of understanding power, in which politics, finance, justice, and the media configure, in effect, a state within a state, with its own laws written nowhere but known to everyone. An oligarchy, if you want to call it that. The most forceful staging of the effectiveness and refinement achieved by this gear is the confrontation between the Community of Madrid and the government of Spain presided over by Sánchez and with the Generalitat presided over by Illa, as powers aligned within the socialist sphere. The most raw and spectacular episode –so far– of this confrontation has been starred in by Ayuso and her advisor Miguel Ángel Rodríguez, a character who completely contradicts the profile of spin doctors as brains hidden in the shadows or behind the scenery of power. Rodríguez, who is a loudmouth, is enthusiastic about cameras, microphones, and social media, and he allowed himself the luxury of announcing step by step the fall of an entire Attorney General of the State without the judiciary, which had to carry out the script that Rodríguez was anticipating –the Supreme Court–, having any hesitation at all when it came to carrying out such a clumsy and brazen move. On the contrary, there was clear self-satisfaction in it all.One of the most recognizable ingredients in this recipe for understanding power is impunity, which has intoxicating, stupefying, and aphrodisiac effects. Just as it acts as a state within a state, the power of the Community of Madrid also likes to act as a party within the party, and Ayuso and her circle have created the myth of having toppled a secretary general and presidential candidate (Casado), and of having the next one (Feijóo) in their hands. But lately, Feijóo has allowed himself to leave Ayuso alone in the penthouse scandal and at Friday's meeting of the Fiscal and Financial Policy Council, which was attended by all the barons of the Popular Party, in contrast to Ayuso's snub. Impunity is a substance that has powerful highs, but also sudden crashes.
