Sánchez and the 200,000 deaths by negligence claim: anatomy of a narrative
A tweet attributes 200,000 deaths by negligence to Spain's PM Sánchez. The breakdown mixes real data with hoaxes and ends in insults. Where does the figure come from?
English · Original discussion in Spanish · Published
Sánchez and the 200,000 deaths by negligence figure
A tweet opens Pandora's box: "Between the 11M attacks, care homes during ELbichito, the vaccines afterwards, the Dana and the Córdoba train crash, the PSOE has killed more than 200,000 people in eight years." The claim, made without any evidence, becomes the axis of a discussion that mixes real data with hoaxes, and within just a few hours moves from political denunciation to personal score-settling. The result is a cocktail of unverified figures, insults and an uncomfortable question: where does that number come from?
Where the 200,000 come from
The breakdown circulating online is an exercise in addition without method. It counts 122,000 ELbichito deaths, deaths from delayed cancer diagnoses during the pandemic, 1,000 deaths in the Dana (the catastrophic Valencia floods), five care-dependent people who died during a blackout, 46 in Ademuz, 1,100 by euthanasia, 27,000 suicides and some 700 murders attributed to immigrants. None of these figures is backed by an official source; some are simply made up or mix periods and causes. The total, presented as "a conservative estimate", is in fact an accumulation of unverified estimates.
The figure of 122,000 ELbichito deaths does have an origin: the excess mortality recorded during the pandemic, which many epidemiologists placed around that level. But attributing those deaths to a specific political decision requires proving negligence, not just a coincidence in time. The same applies to the 27,000 suicides: linking them to the lockdown is a hypothesis, not a proven fact. And the 700 murders attributed to immigrants do not withstand the slightest statistical verification.
The Adamuz crash and the politics of grief
The thread jumps from figures to specific cases. The rail accident in Adamuz, in Córdoba, claims the life of army nurse captain and Legion member Álvaro García Jiménez, whose body was the last to be recovered. The news, reported by local media, becomes political ammunition: Spain's government delegate in Cantabria, Pedro Casares, is criticised for staying in Mexico after the crash. "True to his calling, his body was the last to be recovered", reads the message accompanying the news, blending the tribute to the soldier with the accusation against the politician.
Using grief as a weapon is nothing new, but here it reaches a level of detail that borders on ghoulish. Captain García Jiménez, stationed with the Tercio Duque de Alba 2nd of the Legion in Ceuta, receives posthumous honours while his name is used to attack the Government. It is the perfect example of how a tragic event becomes a piece of a larger narrative.
The establishment's response: Montero and women's pride
Faced with the barrage, Deputy Prime Minister María Jesús Montero posts a message about "pride in women, pride in colleagues", which in the context of the thread sounds like a misplaced counterpoint. The reaction is swift: the Government is accused of looking the other way as the criticism piles up. The minister thus becomes the target of those who believe the Executive responds to concrete problems with slogans.
The exchange reveals a familiar dynamic: any official statement, however insignificant it may seem, is read as a provocation. And any criticism, however excessive, finds an echo among an audience predisposed to believe the worst.
The forum eats the messenger
The discussion soon descends into personal attacks. A user asks a bot how it would describe someone who opens dozens of threads with hoaxes and hate speech. The reply is a portrait without nuance: "a content production unit", "incitement to attrition", "it floods the forum with noise so that serious debate drowns". The target responds with a nineties gif and an "I don't hate anyone, except you". From then on, the exchange becomes a string of insults: "segarro", "narcissistic psychopath", "satanic master". Politics disappears; only the noise remains.
The anecdote illustrates something more than a digital brawl. When public debate degrades to this point, the figures stop mattering. It makes no difference that the 200,000 deaths are an invention: what counts is that someone repeats it enough times.
In the end, the question left hanging is not how many deaths Sánchez has caused, but why a figure with no basis whatsoever has become currency. The uncomfortable answer is that the ground was fertile. And no headline can fix that.
A tweet opens Pandora's box: "Between the 11M attacks, care homes during ELbichito, the vaccines afterwards, the Dana and the Córdoba train crash, the PSOE has killed more than 200,000 people in eight years." The claim, made without any evidence, becomes the axis of a discussion that mixes real data with hoaxes, and within just a few hours moves from political denunciation to personal score-settling. The result is a cocktail of unverified figures, insults and an uncomfortable question: where does that number come from?
Where the 200,000 come from
The breakdown circulating online is an exercise in addition without method. It counts 122,000 ELbichito deaths, deaths from delayed cancer diagnoses during the pandemic, 1,000 deaths in the Dana (the catastrophic Valencia floods), five care-dependent people who died during a blackout, 46 in Ademuz, 1,100 by euthanasia, 27,000 suicides and some 700 murders attributed to immigrants. None of these figures is backed by an official source; some are simply made up or mix periods and causes. The total, presented as "a conservative estimate", is in fact an accumulation of unverified estimates.
The figure of 122,000 ELbichito deaths does have an origin: the excess mortality recorded during the pandemic, which many epidemiologists placed around that level. But attributing those deaths to a specific political decision requires proving negligence, not just a coincidence in time. The same applies to the 27,000 suicides: linking them to the lockdown is a hypothesis, not a proven fact. And the 700 murders attributed to immigrants do not withstand the slightest statistical verification.
The Adamuz crash and the politics of grief
The thread jumps from figures to specific cases. The rail accident in Adamuz, in Córdoba, claims the life of army nurse captain and Legion member Álvaro García Jiménez, whose body was the last to be recovered. The news, reported by local media, becomes political ammunition: Spain's government delegate in Cantabria, Pedro Casares, is criticised for staying in Mexico after the crash. "True to his calling, his body was the last to be recovered", reads the message accompanying the news, blending the tribute to the soldier with the accusation against the politician.
Using grief as a weapon is nothing new, but here it reaches a level of detail that borders on ghoulish. Captain García Jiménez, stationed with the Tercio Duque de Alba 2nd of the Legion in Ceuta, receives posthumous honours while his name is used to attack the Government. It is the perfect example of how a tragic event becomes a piece of a larger narrative.
The establishment's response: Montero and women's pride
Faced with the barrage, Deputy Prime Minister María Jesús Montero posts a message about "pride in women, pride in colleagues", which in the context of the thread sounds like a misplaced counterpoint. The reaction is swift: the Government is accused of looking the other way as the criticism piles up. The minister thus becomes the target of those who believe the Executive responds to concrete problems with slogans.
The exchange reveals a familiar dynamic: any official statement, however insignificant it may seem, is read as a provocation. And any criticism, however excessive, finds an echo among an audience predisposed to believe the worst.
The forum eats the messenger
The discussion soon descends into personal attacks. A user asks a bot how it would describe someone who opens dozens of threads with hoaxes and hate speech. The reply is a portrait without nuance: "a content production unit", "incitement to attrition", "it floods the forum with noise so that serious debate drowns". The target responds with a nineties gif and an "I don't hate anyone, except you". From then on, the exchange becomes a string of insults: "segarro", "narcissistic psychopath", "satanic master". Politics disappears; only the noise remains.
The anecdote illustrates something more than a digital brawl. When public debate degrades to this point, the figures stop mattering. It makes no difference that the 200,000 deaths are an invention: what counts is that someone repeats it enough times.
In the end, the question left hanging is not how many deaths Sánchez has caused, but why a figure with no basis whatsoever has become currency. The uncomfortable answer is that the ground was fertile. And no headline can fix that.
Summary of a discussion on Burbuja.info - Foro de economía, actualidad y política., translated from Spanish and reviewed before publication. Read the full discussion (42 replies).
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