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

BarcelonaThe latest survey published by ARA predicts an increase in the two far-right parties, the Spanish nationalist one and the Catalan nationalist one. While Vox would obtain between 14 and 17 deputies, Aliança Catalana would multiply its representation by ten (or more), obtaining a range of between 20 and 22 deputies. If we believe the poll, in the upper 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 for the arrival of the extremist phenomenon in our home. 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 about globalization. And it is true.However, if we review the demographic projections, at least two differentiating elements stand out. On the one hand, the coexistence, and more or less separate growth, of two far-right movements of opposite national sign (although there could be voters who move between them). On the other hand, that the independence fragmentation would quickly mutate towards a commitment to identity retreat proposed by Aliança Catalana, unprecedented within democratic Catalan nationalism, but without reaching a majority within the movement. Di Cesare, Lefort, or Ranciere have argued that the evil of European democracies is actually a kind of vacuum generated by liberal logic itself. According to them, democracies fail because the founding myths of the great European states and their own political ideals have been extinguished. 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 vacuum with new symbolic frameworks.While it may be daring to transfer this theory to our home, it also seems that it can help to understand something. The vacuum specific to post-process Catalonia is perhaps much deeper than that of any other democracy. The characteristics of the Catalan economy and its demography are certainly enormously relevant, especially due to the lack of its own institutional capacity to face challenges; but at the same time, the elephant in the room is the emptying of national projects in the post-process landscape. Neither the Statute of 2006, subsequently cut back, nor of course independence, but neither the entrenched unionism nor autonomism, have managed to establish 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 "españolismo". And this void is felt even more in the pro-independence camp. Escaped since 2017 through 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, polls 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. Political vacuum, as in physics, does not exist.