Spectacle for imbeciles
The decrees should have been approved. Now: I am not sure that Junts has made a mistake in electoral terms.
If Sánchez calls early elections, an electoral campaign marked by emotionality, hypocrisy, and grotesquerie awaits us. What we have heard in recent days at the Congress of Deputies is the culmination of years of degradation of peninsular political life. Rarely have so many empty words, so much grotesque gesturing, and so much fuss been heard. And the saddest thing, at least for me, is that most of this pyrotechnic arsenal came from left-wing parties. Progressive demagoguery is what makes it so that, today, many of us who are against Junts' actions have to say it with disgust, because the left has treated us like imbeciles.
I would have liked the housing decrees to prosper, because I believe the issue must be treated like the DANA, that is, as an emergency. Those who appeal for a change in the productive model and other luxuries typical of mature countries must understand that, while they think in the medium term, there are thousands of families distressed by their rent, or by the impossibility of accessing the real estate market. Unfortunately, President Sánchez is a frivolous person who lives day to day, who imposes decrees written in a rush, after seven years in government that have not meant any improvement in the housing issue. Sánchez, the man who has deceived his partners, who has covered up corrupt people within his party, is now preparing for his penultimate stunt, presenting himself at the elections as a superhero capable of facing off against vulture funds. Nonsense!
The great narrator of this story, the rhapsodist of the PSOE, has been Gabriel Rufián. He has stirred the masses with Manichean phraseology, evading his own party initials and what they signify. In his interventions, always in Spanish, pompous and showy, Rufián has lashed out at Junts, insisting that “their estelada is a 50-euro bill” and that he will dedicate “his entire political career” to ensuring that ERC and Junts “never make a pact again.” This, whether one likes it or not, means that Rufián will dedicate all his energy to preventing the independence of Catalonia. (And no, I do not believe he is an agent of the State’s sewers, as Turull said in an inappropriate tweet). As if that were not enough, Rufián committed the audacity of challenging Junqueras in public. ERC will face the elections with a major problem to resolve. And it is not a personal problem, but one that affects the soul of the party.
I have already said that the decrees should have been approved. Now: I am not sure that Junts has made an electoral error. They will be called all sorts of things, of course, and they will be blamed for every eviction. But at the encampment in Plaça Catalunya there are no potential Junts voters, nor small property owners. The real estate lobbies and the employers' association, which move enough money to influence an election campaign, are once again seeing Miriam Nogueras as a possible champion. And above all: despite the oversimplification of some, there are also center-right voters among the middle and lower classes who detest evictions... but they blame them on left-wing policies and uncontrolled immigration. If the right were only voted for by the rich, neither Vox nor Aliança Catalana would be aiming so high.
What is to come now will not be a calm and reliable debate about housing, but a stick-wielding dance in which some parties and others will throw immigrants and evicted people at each other's heads. A sad spectacle in which Catalonia –the idea of Catalonia– no longer plays a part, because the PSC is subrogated, Puigdemont will return as a supporting actor, and Colau and Rufián think exclusively in Spanish terms. All that is missing is the confirmation of the stormy irruption of Sílvia Orriols for the consensus that made October 1st possible –our moment of greatness– to be blown to pieces.
