Spain's pensioner vote and the 'barometer of idiocy'

Spain's pensioner vote and the 'barometer of idiocy'

A tweet from the @ladyblue account —"They really max out the barometer of idiocy"— has peine a discussion about how pensioners vote and why. The message, accompanied by an image that is not described, is read as a jab at a group that decides elections in Spain. The reaction was swift: some argued that everyone votes according to their own interests, while others attacked retirees for supposedly prioritising pension rises above everything else.

What the tweet says and why it is read as a slur on pensioners

The original message is a short, contemptuous sentence: "They really max out the barometer of idiocy". There is no further context in the material. The attached image is not described. From there, everyone projects what they want. Some read it as criticism of older voters' captive vote, others as a mere social-media outburst. The fact is that the tweet offers no data, no polls, no names. Just an opinion with a smirk.

Two ideas collide in the ensuing discussion. One: the vote is free and each person casts it according to their interests. The other: retirees vote as a bloc in exchange for pension rises, even if the rest of the policies do not convince them. "You shouldn't just opine and vote for whatever suits you, but for whatever suits the forum's posh crowd," sums up one comment pointing to peer pressure. The discussion soon drifts towards the tone of the space itself, with mutual accusations of sectarianism.

The pensioner vote calculus: self-interest or buying votes?

The most repeated argument is that the Government has bought older people's votes with pension rises. "They don't stop to think that the government has bought their vote with pension rises even though everything else doesn't work," one message claims. The sentence takes that purchase for granted but offers not a single figure: not how much pensions went up, not how many pensioners there are, not how that translates into votes. It is an opinion, not a fact.

Another comment frames it as a rationality calculation: "Take 15 from me but give me 10 and I'll be happy because you give me 10". The idea is that older voters compare what they lose with what they gain and act accordingly. It is not an outlandish thesis, but neither is it an empirical analysis. Nobody in the discussion presents a poll, a study or a breakdown of the vote by age. The material stays at the level of impressions and outbursts.

The forum as a thermometer: from economic analysis to score-settling

The conversation slides towards the state of the space itself. "This forum is no longer what it was. Now it's a little cyber circle where the internet's incels gather to spit bile about Pedro Sánchez's Government," laments one message nostalgic for a time of "serious economics topics". The reply is swift: "That's what you get for becoming the last refuge of the deranged, marginalised and antisocial types who get kicked out of everywhere". The exchange has little economics and much score-settling.

Some try to keep their distance: "There are different sensibilities in Catalonia, but the dogged pro-independence side has always sent people to negotiate who ended up in jail, which makes you wonder whether there is separation of powers and good contractual faith". The message mixes the voting debate with the territorial question and institutional distrust. Another points to demographics: "at 1,700 deaths a day in this country, in a month and a half let's see how many of them pass away before they vote". The figure is thrown out without a source and with a tone bordering on bad taste.

What is missing from the discussion

There is not a single verified fact in the whole material. No pension figures, no polls, no studies of voting behaviour. Only opinions, recriminations and the odd crude remark. The only concrete figure is "1,700 deaths a day", mentioned without attribution or context. The rest is rhetoric. Anyone looking for a serious analysis of the older vote will not find it here.

The discussion ends, as it began, with an outburst. "Between them all they don't add up to one neuron," says one message. "You've convinced me," replies another ironically. And there it all rests: in the barometer of idiocy the original tweet denounced, now applied to those arguing about it.