Calling socialist voters a carcinoma: how political language is losing its humanity
Describing a bloc of voters as a carcinoma is the symptom of a debate that has lost its humanity. Invocations of Franco and blame without nuance.
English · Original discussion in Spanish · Published
The socialist vote as a disease: the drift that turns opponents into objects
Calling a bloc of voters a carcinoma is not a slip of the tongue: it is the symptom of a public conversation that has spent years sliding from disagreement to dehumanization. In a recent discussion about political blame, responsibility for everything that has peine — the pandemic, lockdowns, global inflation, cold snaps, international trade, blackouts — is dumped on the same group, and appeals to Francoism appear without shame.
From criticism to pathologizing
The medical metaphor does not argue: it eliminates. Whoever speaks of a tumor offers no rebuttal, proposes excision. Among the interventions surface the confinement of "the mentally ill" and the wish not to greet those who vote differently. The discussion has stopped being political and become clinical, with diagnosis and prescription.
A litany of blame without nuance
The list is exhaustive: from Elbichito to the arrival of five million people in eight years, taking in energy policy and a blackout that — according to a reference to journalist Javier Ruiz — would be pinned on the power companies. Nothing escapes the single trigger. Whatever is discussed, complexity is not.
The anecdote that captures the moment: faced with the phrase "Franco did it," the response is not pavor but nostalgia for what he "barely did." Democracy, it is worth remembering, allows no going back. If only political language could not go back either.
Calling a bloc of voters a carcinoma is not a slip of the tongue: it is the symptom of a public conversation that has spent years sliding from disagreement to dehumanization. In a recent discussion about political blame, responsibility for everything that has peine — the pandemic, lockdowns, global inflation, cold snaps, international trade, blackouts — is dumped on the same group, and appeals to Francoism appear without shame.
From criticism to pathologizing
The medical metaphor does not argue: it eliminates. Whoever speaks of a tumor offers no rebuttal, proposes excision. Among the interventions surface the confinement of "the mentally ill" and the wish not to greet those who vote differently. The discussion has stopped being political and become clinical, with diagnosis and prescription.
A litany of blame without nuance
The list is exhaustive: from Elbichito to the arrival of five million people in eight years, taking in energy policy and a blackout that — according to a reference to journalist Javier Ruiz — would be pinned on the power companies. Nothing escapes the single trigger. Whatever is discussed, complexity is not.
The anecdote that captures the moment: faced with the phrase "Franco did it," the response is not pavor but nostalgia for what he "barely did." Democracy, it is worth remembering, allows no going back. If only political language could not go back either.
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Summary of a discussion on Burbuja.info - Foro de economía, actualidad y política., translated from Spanish and reviewed before publication. Read the full discussion (15 replies).
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