Politicians against politics

Following his disheartening appearance before the Congressional committee on the Valencian Community's devastating floods, the deputy leader of the People's Party (PP), Feijóo, complained that left-wing groups had "politicized" his testimony. Given that it was a politician appearing before a committee of politicians to answer for the handling of a catastrophe that has dominated the political agenda for a year and three months, it seems quite logical that the matter would be "politicized." Meanwhile, the PP's general secretary in Catalonia, Santi Rodríguez, announced a change of heart on Monday: his party will not participate in Saturday's demonstration called by the Network of Train Users' Platforms in Catalonia to protest the situation on the commuter rail network (another catastrophe, of a different kind), organized by the Cultural Leonesa football club. They can always attend the ANC's demonstration, since Catalan separatism has reached such a level of solemnity and patriotism that it is no longer even capable of jointly organizing a demonstration about the functioning of a public service.

This topic of the supposed "politicization" of events with clear political content is typical of a certain type—redundancy intended—of politicians: populists. Or the most populist ones, if we start from the fact that the vast majority of politicians display a more or less marked populist bias at some point. But those who are most populist play this perverse game that the People's Party (PP) has recently embraced as well, imitating Vox (and, before that, Ciudadanos): pretending to join in the discrediting of politics in order to present themselves as people who "don't play politics," but rather are concerned "about people's real problems." And not just any politicians, but leaders of what remains the most important party in the Spanish political system, a governing party with aspirations to govern.

The trick of the politician who wants to pretend he's not doing politics is also used by Trump, a measure of the global right wing, even from a position like the US presidency. But in each country, it takes on local specificities. During his appearance, Feijóo starred in several moments that caused secondhand embarrassment, especially due to the absolute lack of respect he showed both to the victims of the DANA storm and to the intelligence of the citizens. However, there was one of those moments that could have been comical if it weren't for its tragic undertone: from the table where he was answering questions, Feijóo pretended to confront the Bildu deputy Oskar Matute, telling him that he "wouldn't be intimidated": the pantomime meant, deep down, that he was a patriot who wasn't afraid to stand up to him, as if it were a confrontation within the saloon between the good and the bad of a westernSeeing scenes like this is objectively unpleasant, but what's truly disheartening is understanding that they do it because they've found it gets them votes.