Spain's Ayuso, the dance and the shadow of Blas Piñar: a right that won't change

Ayuso's dance and the shadow of Blas Piñar

A video is circulating these days: Isabel Díaz Ayuso dancing at a concert. The scene, seemingly trivial, has been enough for part of the political spectrum to reopen an uncomfortable comparison: that of the Madrid regional president with Blas Piñar, the notary and orator of the most old-school right wing of Spain's Transition to democracy.

The criticism is nothing new. Critics keep piling up who see Ayuso as a mere update of that stale right: a BUP graduate (the old Spanish secondary school diploma) with a degree in Journalism and, according to the most sceptical sector, incapable of sustaining the image of a renewing leadership. The dance, clumsy and uncoordinated, thus becomes a metaphor for a politics that lurches forward.

The episode has also popularised the term "farmear aura", borrowed from video games to describe the contemporary obsession with appearing charismatic. A way of saying that Ayuso tries to rack up social presence points, as if leadership were an accumulable statistic. The expression, with its mocking edge, reveals just how far political marketing has become a game of resources.

In the background, the question is not whether Ayuso dances well or badly, but whether Spain's right can offer anything different from the Piñar model. The video suggests that, for many, the answer is still no.