Ana Iris Simón: From Progressive VICE to the Far-Right Debate

From Writing for VICE to Criticizing Immigration on Telemadrid

Ana Iris Simón is no longer just the columnist who wrote pieces for VICE and Telva. In a debate on Telemadrid, she criticized immigration and stated that she found it "inconceivable" that so many evangelical churches were opening in a Catholic country. Earlier, on a travel show on Onda Cero, she had summarized her shift with a phrase: "To reproduce, I'm a fascist." The problem isn't the change. It's the suspicion that it's a change of convenience.

Is Ana Iris Simón an Ideological Weather Vane?

One line of analysis holds that Simón is the textbook weather vane: yesterday she wrote pogre pieces, today she poses as far-right wherever necessary. The reproach is not against her new ideas, but against the old ones, and against the ease with which she changed them. For others, however, she isn't posing as anything: she says out loud what many people comment on privately — that healthcare and education are degrading — without the media picking it up.

The Test Set by the Most Demanding

Some demand much more from her to grant her the "card": that she call feminism and a certain ideology a "social cancer," that she call for the repeal of the gender violence law. As long as she doesn't say it, they argue, she remains one of them. The bar for conversion, as almost always, is set by the already converted.

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The anecdote that throws things off: she has two children and, according to her own account, it was motherhood that pushed her to that side. Personal trajectory as a political argument is always suspicious. And it's always effective.