The two decrees

Ungovernable? At this point, the unusual situation with two decrees (two packages of measures that aspire to be voted on as decrees) competing with each other, so to speak, to be approved in Congress, is more of a snapshot of Spanish politics: fragmentary, tense, contradictory, difficult to govern. But also plural and diverse. The two decrees, or the two aspiring decrees, are, after all, a portrait in the form of a legislative rarity of what the majority that invested Pedro Sánchez is. A conglomerate of forces that ideologically goes from Junts to Podemos (neither of the two is far-right or far-left, by the way, but they do take pleasure in the role of uncomfortable partners and tough nuts to crack), passing through ERC (which tries to overcome post-process populism with Rufian-style populism), the Basque right and left (much clearer and more solid than the irritated, and irritating, Catalan independence struggle), plus another conglomerate, Sumar, which everyone knows has not worked, but which includes important parties within the Catalan Countries such as Compromís or Més per Mallorca. It is what the Spanish right usually ridicules as the Frankenstein, a majority made of many pieces, supposedly of political corpses (cadaverism related to the civil war is an ingredient very present in the patriotic recipes of PP, Vox and derivatives). Someone can also speak of frontism, of a left-wing front against a right-wing front.

But rather, it is about something else. One cannot speak of a “left-wing” front when it necessarily has to count on powerful and significant right-wing parties such as Junts or the PNV: rather, it is about the sum of forces that try to avoid or prevent the hegemony of the PP and Vox, because they know that it will constitute for them a very tough test of survival (also for Junts and PNV, as parties susceptible to being labeled as anti-Spanish by an ultra-nationalist Spanish majority). The polls predict a weak PP governing under the dictates of Vox, as is already happening in the Valencian Community, the Balearic Islands, Aragon, Extremadura, Andalusia, or Castile and León. The result in all these communities is a spectacular involution in social policies, a disturbing Ayuso-style/Vox-style conformism, and a completely unashamed vindication of the good old days of Francoism, when people did not need so many debates, so many rights, or so much nonsense to live happily. At the very least, this is the merchandise that the combination of the extreme right and the far-right sells (and applies).

Also in housing policy: the supposedly liberal (but not) recipe, consisting of lowering taxes, building a lot, and eliminating red tape to do so, instead of alleviating the problem, obviously multiplies it. It is like wanting to fight forest fires by spraying them with fuel. It remains to be seen where the path of the two decrees will lead, but for the moment what can be seen are the two Machadian Spains, in the middle of which the national and cultural minorities are left crushed, along with all the Maricarmens.