Abascal claims a Spaniard cannot be racist

Abascal: “A Spaniard cannot be racist” and the response from his own electorate

Can a Spaniard be racist? The question looks like a trap and, in part, it is: the answer changes depending on what each person means by racism, by Spaniard and by history. Santiago Abascal has taken a stance with a blunt thesis, “a Spaniard cannot be racist,” and the echo it has raised says far more about identity and narrative than about biology. The striking thing is not the phrase. The striking thing is who has rebutted it.

Because it has not been his usual opponents who came out to answer him. It has been his own.

Can a Spaniard be racist under the estatutos de limpieza de sangre (blood-purity laws)?

The first objection comes from within Spain’s own history. It is recalled that the estatutos de limpieza de sangre were in force for four centuries, a legal framework that filtered access to positions, colleges and religious orders according to ancestry. So much for egalitarianism. Those who argue this do not deny that Spain has been a land of mixing; they point out that it was also a land of legal classification of people.

The counterargument exists and carries weight: during much of the colonial period, being Spanish was defined legally and not by colour, and the societies of the time were organised by estates rather than by races. From there comes a second disagreement, over mestizaje: some maintain that mixing was seen as dishonour, others that the descendant of Spaniards was Spanish for all legal purposes. The discussion, therefore, is not whether there was discrimination — there was — but whether that equates to racism as we understand it today.

When was racism born as a category?

One line of analysis argues that racism, as a modern concept, was constructed in the 19th century with the backing of the science of the time, and that before that it did not exist as such. Projecting the current term onto the Spanish Empire would, according to this reading, be a textbook anachronism. The counter-reply is simple: blood purity did the same with another vocabulary. Selecting people by their origin and calling it decency is still selecting people by their origin.

The argument that does not mention race: unemployment and wage dumping

Much of the reply moves away from origin and enters the payroll. The reasoning is economic: with three million people unemployed, it is hard to understand what purpose is served by attracting labour that pushes wages down. Those who defend this insist that their objection is not ethnic but labour-related: they speak of wage dumping and of an economy sustained on precarious salaries. It is an uncomfortable diagnosis precisely because it avoids race and points to the pocketbook.

At the same time, a slogan circulates that sums up distrust towards the party: voting for Vox is equivalent to voting for legal immigration. The reproach is not that the party is soft, but that its proposal would be limited to managing the flow instead of stopping it. That is where Abascal risks much of his credibility among his own.

The demographic argument: 40 million are not enough

There are figures on the table. The comparison is simple and repeated: France has around 60 million inhabitants, Germany 80, Italy 60, and the fourth-largest economy in the eurozone would be running on barely 40. The corollary is always the same: without population there is no domestic market, no productive fabric and no political weight in Brussels.

• Germany: 80 million
• France: 60 million
• Italy: 60 million
• Spain: 40 million

The reply to that argument is not long in coming: there have never been so many people in Spain. From that trinc the opposite thesis, which holds that the question is not how many we are, but how we live, and that a country can shrink without ceasing to exist. It is the line that puts survival ahead of the size of GDP.

Spanish-speaking America as a market and housing as the bill

Into the discussion slips an argument of opportunity: if economies such as Milei’s in Argentina or Bukele’s in El Salvador take off, it is worth being well positioned in the region before European competitors. It is the friendly reverse of the issue, the one that sees language and historical ties as a commercial advantage rather than a problem.

In the final stretches, another topic appears that had not come up: housing. It is argued that demographic pressure makes rent more expensive and pushes young people to share flats, and that this cost is paid by the same people as always. The comparison with Japan, South Korea or Singapore also surfaces, presented as countries that, according to this reading, have not embraced the same social model.

The voter’s reproach: “sellouts”

The harshest criticism does not come from the left. It comes from those who consider themselves its natural voters and accuse the party of betraying the mandate they say they voted for. The reproach is recurring: that the party has become just another right, useful to the system, and that identity discourse serves as a lure while real politics barely changes.

To this is added a factor that distorts any forecast: the feeling, widespread in certain circles, that the percentage of voters born in Spain falls every year and that any party aspiring to govern needs to court a new electorate. The conclusion some draw — that this electorate has become captive to the State — is a hypothesis, not a fact, but it explains the demoralisation.

What can happen from here

On the future, the material offers no ending, only a mix of expectations and resignation. One part takes for granted that nothing will change: there will be no plan, no institutional actor that intervenes, no possible turn. It is the part of the story that has least to do with Abascal and most to do with the listener.

In the end, the Vox leader’s phrase will remain as what it is: a definition by negation. It tells us what a Spaniard cannot be. About what he is, we are still waiting.