The far-right takes positions to fill the post-process vacuum

BarcelonaThe latest poll published by ARA predicts an increase in both far-right parties, the Spanish nationalist and the Catalan nationalist. While Vox would obtain between 14 and 17 deputies, Aliança Catalana would multiply its representation tenfold (or more), obtaining a range of between 20 and 22 deputies. If we trust the survey, at the upper end of the range there would be more than a quarter of far-right parliamentarians in the chamber. These are serious figures that, before they become a political and social reality, require a rapid reaction from the country.

Until now, the thesis of “european equalization” had been put forward as a kind of consolation in the face of the arrival of the extremist phenomenon in our country. After all, like any (de)industrialized society, we share the elements that are usually cited to explain its global rise: growing inequalities, migratory movements, segregation, green policies, media bubbles, or anxiety in the face of globalization. And it is true.However, if we review the demoscopic projections, at least two differential elements stand out. On the one hand, the coexistence, and more or less separate growth, of two far-right parties of opposing national sign (although there could be voters who move between them). On the other hand, that the pro-independence fragmentation would quickly mutate towards a commitment to identity withdrawal proposed by Aliança Catalana, unprecedented within democratic Catalan nationalism, but without managing to achieve a majority within the movement. Di Cesare, Lefort or Ranciere have argued that the ill of European democracies is in reality a kind of void generated by the liberal logic itself. According to them, democracies falter because the founding myths of the great European states and their own political ideals have been fading away. It is a thesis with gaps, like all of them, which places the rise of the new far-right in the political will to fill the democratic void with new symbolic frameworks.Although it may seem audacious to transfer this theory to our country, it also seems that it can help to understand something. The emptiness inherent in post-process Catalonia is perhaps much deeper than that of any other democracy. The characteristics of the Catalan economy and its demographics are certainly enormously relevant, especially due to the lack of its own institutional capacity to face its challenges; but at the same time, the elephant in the room is the emptying of national projects in the post-process landscape. Neither the 2006 Statute, subsequently cut, nor independence, of course, but neither did staunch unionism or autonomism, have managed to impose themselves as stable political frameworks for more than two decades. The lack of horizons opens the door to a homegrown anti-politics, but also to a kind of survival instinct within Catalan nationalism.The "pure" Catalan identity

The political "normalization" proposed by the PSC would not seem to make it grow towards hegemony, it is not a clear project for the country. Furthermore, despite everything, it is also incapable of taming unbridled Spanish nationalism. And this emptiness is felt even more in the independence movement. Decapitated since 2017 by the path of repression, now without clear strategies and not even the leadership of the parliamentary opposition, there is room for the desire to "fill the void" by appealing to the symbolism of "pure" Catalan identity, as Aliança Catalana does. It is a strategy that paradoxically consists of renouncing the country, because it means reducing the people to a partisan national definition.Fortunately, surveys are a snapshot of a single moment, often distorted by imprecise projections. Be that as it may, if this is the demographic trend, as other indicators show, it would be advisable to take note of it. The political vacuum, as in physics, does not exist.