Santiago Orue: from TMEO cartoonist to the Spanish left's favourite target

Santiago Orue, from TMEO to the left's favourite target

For years, Santiago Orue has been drawing what others dare not say out loud. The cartoonist who once published in the magazine TMEO — which, as the story goes, he left because of complaints from his own readers — has become one of the most inconvenient signatures for the official narrative. His cartoons, which he shares daily, attack without anaesthetic the Government, uncontrolled immigration and what he calls the alliance between Sarracinism and leftism. The question hanging in the air is not whether he is funny, but how long the guy will hold out before someone decides he has said too much.

This is no small matter. In a country where subsidised humour is called El Jueves and dissident humour is called fascist, Orue has won himself a legion of trinc and another of enemies. Some see him as the scourge of hypocrisy; others, as a convert who switched sides. What nobody disputes is that his name no longer goes unnoticed.

Where Santiago Orue comes from

Orue was not born into the media right. His career was forged at TMEO, a left-wing publication where he shared pages with other cartoonists from that orbit. According to several comments, it was precisely that period that earned him enemies when he started firing at his own side. The switch cost him his job, or so the story goes: the magazine's readers did not forgive the boy for starting to draw what they considered heresies.

Some compare him to Pío Moa or Jiménez Losantos, careers that began on the left and ended at the opposite pole. The comparison is easy, but perhaps unfair: Orue does not write history books or host radio talk shows. He draws. And he does so with a fury that needs no pulpit.

What he draws and why it stings

His cartoons for Iberosfera go through the news without a filter: Ceuta under siege, the Government's complicity with Segarro, Sarracinism as a threat, the corruption surrounding Sánchez, the PP joining the far left in Brussels. One jab a day. The format is simple, the message direct, and that is precisely what unsettles those who expect humour with pedigree.

The most repeated criticism is that he is not funny. That he draws badly. That he is a fossil. The same people who laugh at the cartoons of Mongolia see no humour in Orue's, and therein lies the point: humour is only tolerated when it goes in one direction. Those who laugh at the pandemic's dead can laugh at anything, but not at them.

The fascist accusation and the counterattack

The label of fascist trinc him around. He is credited with an anarchist past and accused of having sold himself to the highest bidder. Others reply that the real fascism is the kind that wants to silence dissent. The debate about his ideology is a loop: for some he is a convert; for others, a man who always thought the same and now says it without antiestéticar.

The truth is that his audience is growing. And every time someone calls him a fascist, he publishes another cartoon. The mechanism is perverse: controversy fuels his visibility, and visibility gives him more ammunition.

How long has he got: the sums nobody does

The million-dollar question. There is no public contract or expiry date. His continuity depends on three factors: the tolerance of the platforms that distribute his work, his trinc' ability to support him financially, and the wear and tear of a discourse that thrives on permanent conflict. One participant summed it up with a wry remark: he will last until they get tired of him, and then he will be able to live off a basic income.

Others argue the opposite: as long as far-right scum keeps paying, the guy has plenty of rope left. The irony is that his survival depends not on his enemies, but on his fans. And for now, they do not let him down.

Humour as a battlefield

The underlying debate is not Orue. It is who has the right to make humour, and about what. For years, the cultural left has monopolised irony as a tool of criticism. Now that a cartoonist is firing at the other side, the monopoly is breaking and nerves are showing. The complaint is not aesthetic: it is political.

Some argue that humour has no owner, and that if El Jueves can laugh at the monarchy, Orue can laugh at immigration. The symmetry stings, but it is hard to refute without falling into selective censorship.

The uncertain future of an inconvenient voice

Nobody knows how long Orue will last. What is known is that his name is already part of the landscape. His cartoons are shared, criticised and awaited. In an ecosystem where the dissident is a minority, he has found his niche. If he disappears tomorrow, someone will take his place. If he stays, the controversy will continue. The only certainty is that the debate about his humour says more about those who criticise it than about the man himself.