The “national majority” for which José María Aznar demonstrated a few days ago has a fairly exact precedent during the Republican period in the CEDA, the Spanish Confederation of Autonomous Rights, which was led by José María Gil-Robles —a character whom we would now unhesitatingly label as far-right— and which bore a large part of the responsibility for the construction of a suffocating climate, extreme polarization, and social fracture, in Spain in the thirties. Does this sound familiar? The CEDA was a conglomerate of right-wing parties, with a larger force that set the pace (Acción Popular, with a presence throughout Spain) and then a multitude of small forces that were of regional scope, focused on the dominance of rural areas (most of them bore the word "agrario" in their name: Acción Agraria y Ciudadana de Cuenca, Acción Agraria Riojana, Acción Agraria de León, etc). Afterwards, an amalgam or hodgepodge of reactionary forces with others of a more liberal or centre-right profile were added, mainly to obtain electoral benefits. Gil-Robles and his obscure clique formally accepted democracy, but deep down what they wanted was to overthrow it or turn it into a regime tailored to their interests and based on the lifelong system of patronage. They were convinced that the state was theirs (or rather: that the state was them), they felt a deep allergy to any form of diversity — especially linguistic and cultural diversity — and they had a motto that was a complete inventory of their priorities: "Religion, family, homeland, order, work and property". When the Popular Front of the left won the elections of February 1936, the CEDA actively pressured the outgoing government to declare a state of war and prevent the left from accessing power. They maintained that a left-wing government would open the door to class struggle and Catalan and Basque separatism, and that all of this was “anti-Spain”. The most direct electoral and ideological competitor that the CEDA ended up having, and where a large part of its electorate ended up, was the fascist party Falange Española y de las JONS.Does all this remind you of anything? LA CEDA got along well with a far-right party like Acción Española (led by José Calvo Sotelo, who was Minister of Finance under the dictator Primo de Rivera and uncle of the former President of the Spanish government, Leopoldo Calvo Sotelo) because they shared ultranationalism and national Catholicism (“For God and for Spain!”) and because they considered their political adversaries enemies of Spain who were leading it to perdition and ruin. Exactly this is the doctrine that sustains Aznar's national majority, in which, as a great novelty, elements from the "left" (they mean the PSOE) can find a place, provided they are like Emiliano García-Page. Aznar's (and Ayuso's and his dog Miguel Ángel Rodríguez's) message is that Feijóo is not on the right path, or does not have the necessary leadership, to build this national majority. As is often said, we will see what happens.
