When the right wins

Since the right will win, the best possible scenario for Catalonia in the upcoming general elections is a Congress where Junts' votes are decisive for legislating. In a tight Parliament, both Mr. Feijóo and Mr. Abascal would stop clouding the Catalan world with their murky words and would begin to recite poems by Pere Gimferrer from their seats. I am not optimistic, however. I doubt that fortune will ally itself with arithmetic, as it did three years ago, after having been the fifth political force at the polls.

I fear that Junts will once again, as far as the general interest of all Catalans is concerned, be an irrelevant force in Madrid, but this time without wanting to. However: if the flute were to sound (which it will not), my hope is that, on this occasion, what was once my party will truly regain its common sense and, even if reluctantly, will assert its unexpected power, as it has not done in this legislature that is coming to an end.

Whatever happens, nothing will happen. I say this because, thank God, things are difficult to change, even the good ones. You have to know a lot to be capable of destroying the pension system, the public healthcare model, or that of universal education. It costs as much to correct and fix them, because the inertias are extremely powerful and there is a thick web of interests that no scalpel can cut through. Since it is not to be expected that any party will sweep the upcoming contests with its votes, what we must expect is an insignificant capacity of governments to change things. Gradualism and little else, fortunately. It is clear that they can inflict painful wounds, but nothing that cannot be healed by voting them out.

With the 'Procés' buried, you can expect from Junts more barren gesturing and sterile arrogance in their forms, sadly this is part of the party's character, but surely also a bit of flexibility so as not to go down in history as a ragtag bunch, because they are not.

In the same way, however the elections go, do not expect a Vox that passes bills to burn down mosques or to imprison dissidents. As we are seeing where the populist gale began to make its way twenty years before it did here, if democracy holds, the ebb comes. The key is that the institutions do not collapse.

Unless a deranged messiah appears one day capable of leading us to perdition by guiding us towards Valhalla, and we believe them, every four years there will be elections and, if you do not like those in charge, throw them out. It has happened in Brazil, Serbia, Hungary, or Poland. If all goes well, it will happen in France and Germany when citizens grow tired of discourses that, when they land, go nowhere. We will also see it in Catalonia, if Aliança ever manages to govern with the votes of the post-convergents. I have no doubt: when the moment comes, the 'juntaires' will say that it is not such a big deal, while they invest her. And deep down, perhaps they will be right. Do not worry that nothing will happen, because reality is stubborn, democracy is strong, and the majority of professional politicians –including Mrs. Orriols– simply want to make ends meet.

And what do we see, wherever those to the right of the right are in charge? That the wolf, when he finally conquers Little Red Riding Hood's house, continues to be disguised as a grandmother. He shows his teeth and spits fire from his fangs, lest it be said that he lacks spirit, but he never imagined that it would be so cozy inside the house, rocking in an armchair shaped like a parliamentary seat. The jingling of millions of euros in Mrs. Von der Leyen's purse has become in Meloni's Italy a piece of music more European than the Ninth Symphony. In Argentina, Milei has left the chainsaw in a closet and has picked up pruning shears so that he isn't accused of not wanting to make any cuts. Even in the United States, people are starting to see that half of President Trump's strength, which the McDonald's hamburgers give him, escapes through his mouth.

I am from a generation that saw the last gasps of a dark and truculent regime. I have grown up in a time when democracies have spread everywhere, the world has become small, and I have seen appear in my heart something that I did not even know existed: the consciousness of being European.

I have seen my country change so much that, if I were to return to the Badalona where I was born and raised, I would not recognize it. While this has been happening, we have become strong. We hear chilling warnings, coming from all sides, about what will happen to us if Vox, the PP, or Aliança become strong in the hemicycle. I am calm, I tell you truthfully, because I do not see anything that would make me think, sincerely, that democracy is in danger.