The parliamentary debates on the blackout recalled the classic differences between Catalan and Spanish politics. In the past, it was assumed that Catalan politics tended to be colder, more rational, and also more sane, while Spanish politics were expected to be more polarized and visceral. Last Tuesday, Salvador Illa faced a difficult plenary session, but it is true that he encountered an opposition that, despite not sparing criticism, made proposals—even if formulated in a more or less harsh tone—and maintained a constructive spirit. In the Congress of Deputies, however, a new government-demolition session was held, led by the Spanish nationalist right-wing bloc. From the first day of the blackout, it was clear that the PP and Vox would use the new dystopian calamity to ruthlessly attack Pedro Sánchez, a president around whom the Spanish right has built a wall of sentimental energy. They don't just wear Pedro Sánchez down; they also hate him: some just pretend, but many have come to truly hate him. They hate him as much, or more, than if he were a communist or a Catalan separatist. It's a sentimental way of approaching politics, and this is surely the reason for its failure. The hatred against Sánchez is a poor fuel that burns well the covens of the hard right, but prevents, for example, the PNV from considering joining forces with the PP on anything. This was repeated this week by Aitor Esteban, the new president of the Basque right-wing party: "As long as Vox is part of the equation, we won't even explore it." This is a way of saying they don't intend to join the sentimental politics of the Spanish right, in which Vox plays the role of fanning the flames of sentiment to the maximum. But the PP is also playing hard to get. Hate, hate, and more hate.
Junts likes to play with ambiguity and stay away from the Spanish front, and it enjoys playing the role of the disruptive right, but it also knows it can't build on the sentimentality of the PP and Vox without causing harm. The Catalan parties in Congress keep their sentimental outpourings to themselves, so that while Junqueras and Puigdemont occasionally stage gestures of goodwill, Rufián, Nogueras, and Cruset stage the mutual phobia in which the political capital of the 1-O referendum has foundered.
The supposed dilemma between nuclear and renewable energy is false as presented by the PP and Vox, and technically absurd. It is ideological, but not in the sense that the PP members are using the word incorrectly. ideological, as if ideology were the plague, but as a new metaphor for the Civil War hatred that the heirs of the war's victors tirelessly promote, because it fuels them. They accuse their adversaries of fanaticism, simply to excite the thousands, perhaps millions, of fanatics who find a reason to live their lives in hating Spain's enemies.
