Sánchez's physical wear and tear: dark circles, earlobes and the story of power

Dark circles, earlobes and the wear of power: how to read Sánchez's face

There is a scene that repeats every time Spain's prime minister appears on screen: the comparison with his own face from five years ago. A thread on a forum has turned that exercise into a small treatise on the wear of power, genetics and the conspiracy theories surrounding Pedro Sánchez. The trigger was a simple observation: pronounced dark circles, a tired look, and one specific physical trait, ears without lobes, which some linked to a supposed psychopathic profile. From there, the debate drifted into murkier territory: the amnesty law, the pandemic, climate change as an excuse for a global regime change, and the possibility, never entirely ruled out in certain minds, that the prime minister is actually a rubber mask or a hologram.

Physical wear as a political barometer

The first line of the thread pointed to the obvious: Sánchez is caked in makeup and yet the dark circles still show. The comparison with his image from five years ago is inevitable, and several posts agree that the aging has been accelerated. The explanations fork. Some point to the elbichito vaccine, although the very post suggesting it admits it cannot picture the president injecting himself with messenger RNA. Others attribute it to the poppers that, according to one comment, he takes to please his partner. And some maintain that power consumes: he arrived a cocky young hothead and will leave a little old man.

The earlobe trait got a chapter of its own. One participant confessed to having little lobe and being alarmed after reading that the trait is associated with psychopathy. The answer was blunt: the proportion of people with lobes is notably higher than those without, so seeing more ears with lobes is normal. Another settled the matter with irony: it seems like guesswork, the kind women do looking at men's fingers to guess penis size. The most repeated conclusion is that what tells you what a person is like inside is the face as a whole, not some genetic trifle.

From the ear to global regime change

The thread soon jumped from physiognomy to geopolitics. One post claims that the climate change drumbeat of recent decades was actually the preparation for a global regime change to lock up the population and take everything away from them. The Dubai summit, with the prime minister defending the European mandate to phase out fossil fuels, appears as supporting evidence. The connection to the pandemic is explicit: if he survived the plandemic, the amnesty won't kill him.

The most exotic theories also have their place. One participant says that at one point he considered the possibility that Sánchez was a rubber mask like Biden's, though he dismissed the connection as too weak. Another flatly asserts he is a hologram and that the real one is cryogenized in a public hospital in Washington DC. And a third declares: robotic reptilian. There is no proof of any of this, and the thread itself presents it as speculation, but the pile-up of theories says a lot about the mood.

The political calculation: does the wear benefit him?

Against the replacement theories, there is a current that reads the wear as the price of governing in a minority and with the opposition against him. He has reinforced his security detail, one post notes, and if you were in the crosshairs of many people you'd burn out too. Another argues he has shown real guts over Israel and is changing Spanish foreign policy compared to the Suárez era. We'll see if he survives the holidays, he adds.

The rebuttal comes from the other side: how they envy my admired Chadsanchez, one participant jokes, recalling that many would pay to look like that at 51. The most repeated counterargument is that the problem is not age but the transformation: he looks more and more like actor Tommy Lee Jones. And the cruelest: he is a living dead man, a zombie thirsty for power.

The backdrop: the amnesty, NATO and the job that never came

Underneath the debate lies a concrete political question: what will happen when Sánchez leaves the government. One post points out that he had every chance of ending up in a cushy NATO job. Another argues that those who make deals with dark powers lose everything, soul included. And a third declares that every pig meets its Waterloo, even if so far luck has smiled on him.

The thread closes, as it began, with his looks. Less handsome every day, one participant sums up, attributing the prime minister's bad temper to seeing himself wrecked when he gets up. The discussion about the earless lobes remains what it is: a genetic curiosity turned into a weapon. And the underlying question, whether the wear is physical or political, remains unanswered. Like almost everything in this country.