Spanish democracy is only nominal by action of the PSOE and omission of the PP
Propaganda, the pandemic, fear, lack of freedom, disconcerted healthcare management, economic hardships, mass media serving the government all make it hard to see what lies ahead of us. Some think that they live in a democracy because they vote and the country is not invaded because no armed foreign soldiers are seen. In Spain today, the power’s violent usurpation, and neither restoring the overthrown legal order by legitimate force nor defence against invasion occur because the army has “its hands tied”: do you remember general Santiago’s statements? PSOE and separatists have spent two decades undermining patriotism, the army and security forces’ authority; a distracted PP lets them. Who will solve the Canary Islands invasion? Catalan and national democratic demolition processes are underway. Propaganda and mass media’s collaboration deceive the population by maintaining the formal appearance of elections. They make the most of ambiguities and legal gaps about violent acts and use force (in Catalonia), but do not appear to be rectified. Totalitarians use elections, the population votes, institutions nominally “operate”. Elected governments maintain the appearance of democracy, but empty all its contents; judiciary power is interfered with, democracy is overthrown with “legal” measures passed in Parliament, without control, without discussion, with a minimum majority. The “dreamed of” Catalan rebellion will return because impunity favours criminal reiteration. Criminals need enough aggressiveness to dare to outwit order and the required moral disconnection to sustain the weight of their conscience. When everyone else’s opinion is no longer important for them, we face a psychopath, who might be a serial killer or a dictator. Politicians’ lies corrode institutions, whose main function is to generate legal self-control among citizens. Public exemplariness is fundamental; no-one can trust a lying public manager, especially if it does not mind being discovered. Then we face a psychopath without limits, with no moral limits, that leads us straight to economic ruin and civil confrontation. The Spanish society has no mechanisms to substitute a psychopath in power because its electoral and parties laws convert a party leader into a political boss. Political representatives are not accountable to citizens, but to the political boss who decides about closed and blocked electoral rolls. How can a totalitarian be identified before coming to power? A public representative can never treacherously lie to rule; the red-handed lie ethically disqualifies. Changing opinion is not lying, and one can even do the opposite of what is planned given the circumstances, but it must be explained. Felipe González did this with the 1986 NATO referendum.
No false words or actions are tolerated in mature democracies; plagiarism for example. The public message about citizens not attempting this comes over. If Spanish politicians’ red-handed lies were electorally penalised, we would have more robust institutions, and less black economy and corruption. In Spain, political lies are trivialised with the required collaboration from the public-private mass media that serve governments.
The permanent will to confront citizens; prioritising propaganda over solving real problems; governing to favour a certain party; changing historic memory by inventing an official truth; leaving Parliament when the representative of the opposition is speaking; trying to eliminate the opponent by removing it from autonomic power with censure motions, kidnapping Parliament and passing emergency procedures for laws on education, euthanasia or disconnection; interfering with the separation of powers; cooperating with separatists; systematically disqualifying the opposition as extreme rightwing, and being allowed to attack it; attacking special and state-assisted education; intentionally discriminating the self-employed; permitting homes to be illegally occupied; being permissive with illegal immigration; anti-Spain indoctrination at schools; ...too many pieces of evidence for totalitarian behaviour. Do you think there are psychopath liars in Spanish governments? Those who vote red-handed liars are accomplices of democratic demolition because there is no freedom without sincerity.
Post published in Las Provincias