Spain's elites and the myth of the country's disappearance

The story of Spain's sacrifice: what's wrong with the collapse thesis

A diagnosis is gaining traction: the elites have decided to sacrifice Spain and are making it disappear, with the complicity of a PSOE (Spain's Socialist Party) branded a incivil organization and of immigration said to be "flooding in." Anything goes for this narrative, even a quote attributed to Otto von Bismarck claiming Spain is the strongest country because Spaniards have spent centuries trying to destroy it without success. The only problem is that the former Prussian chancellor never said any such thing, as even the most unlikely corners remind us.

The sacrifice thesis does, however, have anchors in real problems. Competition in the exams for Spain's General State Administration and Social Security is getting tougher, and not only because of new candidates: pressure on public healthcare and pensions is cited as the next frontier of conflict. Those who share this diagnosis paint a dystopian scenario: civil servants and pensioners "competing for the feed" with the newly arrived, saturated clinics, and a State that cannot keep up.

Against this, the skeptical camp recalls that the myth of an external conspiracy serves to avoid talking about the uncomfortable. Voting for parties that promise to close borders, restore authority and "preserve ethnicity" is presented as a magic answer, while demographic aging, stagnant productivity and an economic model that fails to generate quality jobs are ignored. "The elites and the boomers," the most sarcastic sum up: a distraction that avoids serious analysis.

If the trend continues, there will be more competition in public exams and more tension in waiting lists. But the prophecy of disappearance still needs something that appears nowhere: data to back up the apocalypse. Spain is aging, changing and becoming more complicated; from there to someone "sacrificing" it is a stretch that not even the fake Bismarck quote can bridge.