Suddenly, signs appear that give reason to think that the fabrications that led to the regressive phase of the transition from liberal democracies to post-democratic authoritarianism are beginning to decline. It was Milton Friedman who said that "the invisible hand of the market is superior to any other institution that regulates economic life" and that, consequently, the "social responsibility of business is to increase its profits," when the rise of capital was unfolding against the post-war mixed economy. This logic has been imposing itself at the same time that liberals and social democrats were disturbingly blurring.

Definitely, the authoritarian delirium that threatens democracies has moved to Europe. Meanwhile, in the United States, Donald Trump, with polls clearly on the decline, is losing his cool, probably unable to understand that the continued display of his indecency has ended up discomforting some of his own. There are reasons to think that Trump—despite still having two years left in office—has entered a downward slope. We will have objective data soon, when the midterm elections arrive, which, if the polls are not wrong, augur a serious defeat for the Republicans.

Now, the Catalan national right is turning the page. It seems that the hangover from the Procés is considered over. If President Illa captured the need for detente that existed in Catalan society when independence movement hit its limits, it now seems that conservative Catalanism sees that the time has come to reconfigure the traditional dialectic between right and left (with the national question in the background), before melancholy makes them lose their footing, opening the way for alternatives outside their control.

President Illa has decided to break the monotony, conscious, perhaps, that it was trapping him. His restrained tone was rewarded during the bewilderment of the 'Procés' aftermath and, by making a virtue of calm, he grasped the country's need to lower the tone and take a pause. With this criterion, and with his rejection of shrillness, Illa has been making progress, at a time when the exercise of conjuncturally assuming the framework of the possible seemed to be imposing itself.

Last Monday, King Felipe VI received the Minister of Defense, Margarita Robles; the Chief of the Defense Staff, Teodoro López Calderón; and the Commander of Ceuta, Luis Fernández Herrero, at the Zarzuela Palace. The Palace's communication services immediately released a solemn image in which the King and the two military commanders were seen dressed in military uniforms. A detail that did not go unnoticed and which triggered speculation due to the absence of President Sánchez, who is responsible for setting and directing governance strategies. The military power, therefore, wanted to make its presence felt, and the Head of State offered them the opportunity, amidst rumors about discrepancies between the President and the Minister. And it is hard to believe that the image was innocent. In a country that comes from where it comes, the staging is, at the very least, unsettling. What is the reason for this militaristic gesture in the face of a crisis of considerable complexity that does not admit dysfunctional gestures, much less of this character? The monarch staging the army.

For the first time since the defeat of Nazism, the AfD, the far right, could govern a state in federal Germany. In other words, the taboo of Nazism is collapsing overwhelmingly: with 44% of the vote and 39 seats, while the CDU goes from 40 deputies to 16. The humiliation of the German Christian Democrats is so resounding that submitting to the adversary would be a definitive surrender in the current times, with the risk of being absorbed. And paradoxes of history, everything will depend on the BSW, an eccentric and marginal left-wing party opposed to immigration, willing not to contribute to blocking the far right. A gesture that would not cease to be indicative: a left-wing party would join the growing trend on the European right of giving recognition to neo-fascism. That is to say, the reactionary impulse crosses borders: it has already swept enough on the right, now it only remains for the left to join in. In any case, whatever happens, one thing is certain: the taboo of Nazism, which had been established in the postwar period, is dissolving in Germany, which would thus join the shift towards the far right like almost all of Europe.

These days we are seeing how the Ceuta crisis is causing Pedro Sánchez to collapse. The Spanish president had found a tone and a profile that allowed him to take advantage of the gaps produced in a Europe that is brazenly shifting towards post-democratic authoritarianism. This had worked for him in Spain and abroad, at a time when the left is rapidly blurring. Management—and it was noticeable day by day—wears you down, but a certain sense of anticipation and a style contrasted with the permanent state of irritation of the right gave the president some leeway.

“Liberty and democracy are incompatible”. It was Peter Thiel, the superhero of Pay Pal and Palantir Technologies, who thus gave meaning to the offensive against democracy that has been circulating in the United States for some time and that Donald Trump is putting into practice with systematic abuse of power, permanently disregarding the legislative and judicial branches. The ball has been inflating. The ideologues of the government, with Vice President J.D. Vance in the front line, have joined in. And the anti-democratic flood has continued to prosper, in the USA, but also in Europe.

It seems as if nature, irritated by humanity's insensitivity in caring for the place where their experience is made flesh, had raised the degree of difficulty in inhabiting it. And wanted to put us up against the wall. In reality, nature has been mutating with all its might since always, but in recent times it has received the impact of accelerated human aggressiveness that has contributed to making it more hostile to us. And man's hand has a lot to do with catastrophes, for example in the extension and destruction of forests or in the permanent generation of energy that causes natural mutations, starting with the climate.

Why does Zapatero take the stage to play the sad role he played, with few concrete statements, half-truths, and the intriguing nuisance of the gifted jewelry? From a judicial point of view, he insisted on recognizing the judges' final say in valuing each thing, as could not be otherwise. And in fact, he was only emphatic regarding his actions for the benefit of Plus Ultra: "It's not that I didn't influence, it's that I didn't speak to anyone." A sentence that will pass the test of validation in the courts.

We are not used to the deployment of citizens in red shirts and Spanish flags in the streets of Barcelona with the relevant ritual chants. And it is shocking when you find yourself in it, even if it is perfectly predictable: it is the afternoon and evening when Spain wins its second Football World Cup. Sporting hegemonies play an important role in the economy of collective passions and often generate clichés that hide social complexity. The absence of a Catalan national team in international competitions has been capitalized by Barça, attributing to itself the role of the national team of Catalonia. With this logic of good and bad guys, the 'culer' religion has taken hold in such a way that it seems that the city (and the country) is its territory. But here it is that one day the Spanish team is proclaimed world champion and you go out into the street and you find groups of citizens with rojigualda flags and cries of patriotic enthusiasm, and your face shows that you don't know where you are. What is happening? Well, simply that societies – and people – are more complex than we think, that economies of desire are convoluted, volatile, and that just as they lead to confrontation, they can also lead to unexpected complicities.

The endorsement of the amnesty law by the Court of Justice of the European Union will test Spanish institutions and could expose the politicization of justice at the highest levels, which has long been sending worrying signals with the government majority in its sights. The president of the court, Belgian judge Koens Lennaert, highlights the purpose of "reducing institutional and political tensions, as well as facilitating a scenario of reconciliation." Do those who must ratify the law's application share this idea? From the judicial world, there has been an immediate move to distance themselves. For now, various judicial spokespersons have wanted to make three principles very clear: that the CJEU can have whatever opinion it wants, but that regarding the amnesty, it is the Spanish judges who must decide; that to interpret the Constitution we already have the Constitutional Court and there is no need for it to be done from abroad, and that there can be no automatic application of the amnesty. That is to say, calm and patience.

Spanish right-wingers have always had a certain complex regarding France. Seeing French national unity, apparently so well-tied, in contrast to a Spanish nation that has never been able to completely neutralize the peripheral differential facts, seems to make them feel inferior: why them and not us? It disturbs them to have as a neighbor a country that General De Gaulle left substantially structured after the war. If they had the dignity to think about who the reactionary forces entrusted with the structuring of the homeland (General Franco with a war) and to whom the French entrusted it, they would see that there is an abyss that should shame them, but they pretend not to remember. It is not surprising that when the Hispanic right-wing wants to build the nation, resentment emerges and the psychopathology of small and large differences flares up.

Any information that alters the perception of reality is news. A CEO poll has become an event because it attributes to Aliança Catalana an unusual jump from 2 seats to a range of 23-25 (third force). A punishment for Junts that has just been rounded off with ERC's conversion into the second force. The PSC, with a certain setback, continues to lead the situation. The left of the left, Comuns and company, remains in limbo.

1. We have seen ridiculous things in the history of football – a suitable territory for egos needing recognition to let loose – but Donald Trump asking President Infantino to withdraw a red card for Balogun, a forward for the United States team, and the order being immediately executed breaks records for frivolity and indecency. It's not surprising from Trump, because he has been showing off for years and prioritizing his conviction that anything is permissible for him, that there are no limits for him, but it seems to be a vice that contaminates. The anecdote comes at a time when the contradictions his uncontrolled ego has led him to are generating accelerated disrepute that is already directly impacting the United States, where awareness of the president's irresponsibility is spreading. The way he acts, doing and undoing, means that, for example, in Venezuela he today supports those he wanted to overthrow yesterday, or that in the Middle East the impasse his delusions have led him to is giving life to the totalitarian regime of the Iranian ayatollahs, who have abruptly curbed his excesses by exposing him for what he is.

What has become of European social democracy? It is shocking that Spain is one of its last strongholds. What is the reason for this generalized decline that is giving life to the expansion of the far-right and which finds no compensation in the space to the left of socialists, who are still experiencing this situation with even more bewilderment? Are we to understand that the role of social democracy was one of counterbalance during industrial capitalism, within the framework of European democracies of the last century, and that now it cannot find its place in the new financial and digital capitalism? It is evident that the meaning of words and things changes, and that the mutation of the criteria of truth and virtue that shape each moment has an impact on the ways a society organizes itself. But the role of social democracy was fundamental, and its weakness is noticeable. And what is disturbing is that, while social democracy fades, blatant forms of authoritarian impulses are gaining ground everywhere, with a clear shift towards right-wing radicalization that exponentially propagates neo-fascist impulses.

There are jokes that, besides being grotesque, are revealing. A recent example: Feijóo's claim that the party that wins the legislative elections should have a "bonus" reward in the form of receiving between 20 and 50 additional seats as a gift, which, if they had been voted for, would have been won by other parties. That is, to force an absolute majority by legal imperative, and thus save the winner from having to look for partners and make concessions.

"Dark Lights" is the name that Arnaud Miranda, a professor at Sciences Po in Paris, in a recent book, gives to the new neo-reactionary thought that threatens Europe and democracies in general in this epochal shift that is the transition from industrial to financial and digital capitalism.

Let's call a spade a spade: if at any point it is justified to demand the resignation of President Pedro Sánchez, it would be now. The Supreme Court ruling that condemns Ábalos and Koldo leaves the president in a compromised situation. Ábalos was the head of a ministry as relevant as Public Works for three years, repeatedly endorsed by the president, he handled the internal plumbing of the socialist party and Sánchez himself had pointed him out as the person to whom he entrusted the day-to-day management. It seems clear that there has been no link between the president and the facts ruled upon. That, therefore, the corruption scheme grew without him receiving any news of what was happening, which opens up questions about the Moncloa control systems. But a head of government is responsible for their actions; for example, for the appointments they make. And even more so when they are of the highest level. Faced with such a scandal – a corruption scheme at the government's highest level orchestrated by someone from the president's immediate circle – Sánchez cannot act as if nothing has happened. Something is wrong when at the highest level of power there is a case of this magnitude and the president finds out when it's too late.

In politics, grand pronouncements often last a short time. Eleven months ago, Feijóo pledged not to make a deal with Abascal. Generally, what makes the difference in leadership is knowing how to present and give coherence to one's own strategic options, which is what lends a certain credibility. It is true that these are different times, but Aznar's leadership in the PP represented the right's transition from dictatorship to democracy with a certain consistency. And, in fact, it is from that expansive moment that the PP, in part, still lives. Rajoy opted for continuity. And Feijóo, who has always been short on ideas, now sees himself closer to power, and is increasingly afraid of not being able to form a majority on his own. Beyond the Spanish conservative bloc, the right-wing parties in the peripheral nations are very different from the times of Arzalluz and Pujol, perhaps more ideological but much more practical.