For some time now, Podemos has settled into one of the commonplaces of anti-politics: the worse, the better. It's a classic of the left's losing repertoire, and also of the independence movement: it consists of blaming those with whom one shares political and ideological space (and, therefore, those with whom, in theory, one should have greater affinities and the capacity to establish dialogue and alliances) for the failures oneself prepares. Politicians and parties that act this way don't start from reality, but from what they now call the narrative, but which we could just as easily call the farce. Let's see how it works.
Podemos's sham is that Junts is a far-right party, as racist and xenophobic as Vox or the more extreme PP. From there, the sham also suggests that the Spanish government has kowtowed to Junts with intolerable racist concessions, when in reality what they're talking about is the transfer of a power from the state to an autonomous community. What's interesting for Podemos is that the PSOE and, above all, Sumar, their real target, are in the government. They've calculated that by harming the two parties in the coalition government, and especially Sumar, they can benefit themselves. To achieve this, they believe they must pound their chests and use insulting, bar-room language: it's all tense, sloppy, and childish gesticulations. We must add, if that weren't enough, the personal grudges: Pablo Iglesias, who acts as an ideologue, resents Pedro Sánchez and Yolanda Díaz, not necessarily in that order, and Irene Montero and Ione Belarra pick up on this resentment and turn it into (bad) political practice. Iglesias began the political year by going on talk shows warning that if the current Spanish government falls, it won't be Podemos's fault. Creating a rumor about yourself and then denying it yourself is another practice typical of the politician who subscribes to the worse, the better.
This tacticism is based on certain facts that are magnified or distorted for convenience. For example, it's true that polls predict a significant, or very significant, shift of votes from Junts to the Catalan Alliance, and it's also true that Junts has repeatedly voted against Spanish government initiatives (reduction of the working day, rent regulation, etc.) alongside the PP and Vox: exactly the same way Podemos votes alongside the PP. Junts's gesticulations tend to seek to wear down ERC: the murga, in this case, says the Republicans have knelt before Pedro Sánchez, while the post-Convergents are stone-cold. The reality is that the possibility of Puigdemont returning to Catalonia necessarily depends on the current government in Spain remaining in power. The problem with overreactions, cheap bully talk, and infantilism is that they end up causing unforeseen collisions. And absolutely sterile, of course.
