Trains into darkness

Sonia is at Tarragona station, desperate. The train she was supposed to send hasn't arrived, and she has a job interview. After passing two rounds of selection, today is the day of truth. Her future boss is waiting for her. Sonia won't make it because her train will ultimately be canceled. Stories like this have been repeated countless times during the railway (and AP-7) debacle. People have been unable to get to the doctor, to university—it's exam time—to work, to the airport, to their parents' house, and so on.

The unease is palpable. This unease adds another layer to the existing malaise that has been accumulating in the hearts and minds of a large part of society. It's a malaise mixed with uncertainty and an absolute sense of powerlessness and vulnerability. That dystopian, unreal world we experienced with the global financial crisis (the so-called Great Recession), the COVID-19 pandemic, and then the blackout, is gradually taking hold, becoming more and more present. The queues patients must endure for surgery, the prices of housing, subsistence wages, the feeling of insecurity, the chaos in schools, the lottery that social assistance has become... Yes, shadows are being cast upon the spirits of many people.

The tragic chaos of the trains is the latest chapter in an increasingly bleak future, one that has ceased to be what it once was. To make matters worse, the average citizen, the one who pays their taxes and struggles to make ends meet, finds that those who should be solving their problems—the government and politicians—are only making them worse. And that's if these same citizens don't become the easy targets of the groups that have decided to rebel: the train drivers who refuse to run the trains, the doctors on strike, the teachers' unions demanding action, the taxi drivers who are paralyzing the city, the suffocating bureaucracy... These days of chaos, of a country brought to a standstill, are pushing Sonia and so many others—young and old, women and men, from rural areas—to their limits. The feeling that nothing is going as it should, and that things are only getting worse, is overwhelming. Over the years, society has moved from surprise and bewilderment to indignation and anger, finally leading—I fear, this is where we are now—to decline and discouragement.

The world, the world outside, has also turned upside down. Not many years ago, the acronym BANI became popular to describe an increasingly unsettling context. BANI means fragile (brittleAnxious, non-linear, and incomprehensible. The rise of Donald Trump and his acolytes across the globe is another blow to tomorrow. And Ukraine, and Gaza. And climate change. The powerful of this world, including the tech billionaires, have decided to dismantle the written and unwritten rules built to try to stop so much war, bloodshed, and suffering. To destroy boundaries. Those to whom Giuliano Da Empoli They have dubbed themselves "predators" and have concluded that they are bothered by them and that it is necessary to return to the law of the strongest. And they are the strongest. And so they do, brandishing the chainsaw and to the rhythm of "no future, no future, no future for you"of the Sex Pistols. To achieve this, they are demolishing the values ​​that until four days ago were fundamental: truth, justice, respect for freedom and the rights of others... The predators, of course, attack Europe, our home, because it embodies and symbolizes what they detest."

Sonia often gets the impression that, faced with this agonizing present and this unraveling future, the only thing that worries those in power and politicians is how it will all translate at the ballot box. How it will affect their parties and themselves. The unease that a few years ago gave rise, at least in part, to phenomena like Podemos or the rise of Catalan separatism was mixed with hope, a certain hope. Now, the feeling is different, and the unease has turned into death and resignation. That people—particularly young people—are opting for the far right and for the enemies of immigrants (or for abstention) is a way of denying their vote to the usual suspects in order to give it to those who, simply put, are not the usual suspects. It is a vote tinged with nihilism and anti-politics, indeed. And with a touch of contempt. A reaction against a political system that, they believe, has betrayed them.