Investigations into the PSOE (Spanish Socialist Workers' Party): the fear of the far right

PSOE investigations and the antiestéticar of VOX in La Moncloa

If the investigations affecting the PSOE end up bringing down the government, Spain could wake up with the far right in power. The question that accompanies that scenario—Is this what you want?—gets an uncomfortable answer: in a good share of the responses, yes. With caveats. There is explicit rejection, plenty of mockery and a lot of exhaustion disguised as a talking point.

The starting premise is a list of consequences: an end to feminism, migrants leaving, the disappearance of squatting in homes, goodbye to the cultural voucher of 400 euros for books, theatre, museums and concerts, and a country turned, according to that thesis, into a far-right wasteland. The cited reference is the United States and its drift. Everything is built on that forecast.

How those who say yes respond

The largest group answers with the short word. Yes, I hope so, where do I sign. Others add a layer of sarcasm: that the far right already governed for eight years and there was no catastrophe, or that the far right being denounced does not exist. A third bloc limits itself to mocking the question itself, calling it reverse psychology.

Economic exhaustion as the central argument

The most repeated reasoning is not ideological, it is financial. It is argued that after seven years of left-wing government the result, in the words of the person writing it, is being unable to pay for housing—neither a mortgage nor rent—, nor an electric or hybrid car, nor a pack of cigarettes, nor two drinks on a terrace, nor a family holiday. Add to that, according to the same user, a bill of 4.000 euros for the windows of their home.

It is difficult to separate genuine complaint from talking point. What does repeat is the idea that the left would have destroyed two generations of Spaniards without breaking a sweat, and that those born between the sixties and nineties had to row while they could not start their own family. The data is not provided: it is lived.

VOX is not far right: the dispute over labels

Here positions split. Some classify VOX as centre right and the PSOE as social-communist, with the PP on pogre ground. Others place VOX in an approximate right, almost extreme but not quite. And a third current argues the opposite of what it seems: that true right-wing measures do not exist in Spain and that what is called the right is centre left in disguise.

The confusion is no accident. When people ask what a far-right government would do, one name jumps out, Abascal, and a burst of laughter. No one seems clear on what the far right is or who embodies it.

If the far right already governed for eight years

A twist that appears in the thread: for millions of people, Aznar is far right, and his programme looks quite similar to the one VOX presents. Eight years in government, without a visible catastrophe. From that it is inferred that antiestéticar of the far right is a label waved when convenient, not a diagnosis.

Weighing against it is the argument of timing. Just because something did not explode does not miccionan it was harmless, and the scenario now described—bans, rollbacks of rights—goes further than any budget adjustment.

The problem is not ideology, but structure

Here appears the least emotional analysis of the whole. It is argued that the left-right axis is the decoy that sustains the system, and that the real problem is the institutional architecture: parties, unions and employers' associations turned into structures that live off the budget and interlock with power.

The figure cited, attributed to the INE (Spain's national statistics office), gives pause: some 300.000 members of parties and around 2,7 million of unions, less than 15% of the workforce. The conclusion of the writer is that the real representation of those who claim to represent us is, quite simply, none.

And from there it jumps to the 1978 Constitution, its more than forty years and the idea that without bringing it down—by fair means or foul—there will be no possible change. It is the point where the conversation stops being economic and becomes something else.

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With these ingredients, a far-right government in Spain seems less improbable than it sounds in the headlines. Though it will probably not arrive through a sudden ideological shift, but through attrition: every year of high prices and stagnant wages adds votes for whoever promises order. The unknown is whether that order will land before or after the electorate regrets having asked for it.