Spain's Woke Pendulum: A Decade of Excesses and the Bill

Spain's Proge Pendulum: A Decade of Excesses and the Bill

A paradox has defined public discourse in Spain over the last five years: those who imposed ideological mandates from ministries, newsrooms, and HR departments for fifteen years are now watching a cycle change they cannot control. Journalist Juan Soto Ivars summarizes this in an article for El Confidencial using a grotesque metaphor: a pyramid of doctrinal excrement collapsing on its builders. The thesis, fiercely debated, claims the pendulum has started to swing and that architects of hollow sarracena rigorism will have to swallow their own product.

The discussion generated by the text—more than 150 comments—reveals deep disagreement on whether that pendulum truly exists or is just desire disguised as analysis. Some see unmistakable signs of pogre exhaustion; others argue nothing has changed or things are worse, claiming talk of a shift is merely anesthesia.

What is the pendulum swing Soto Ivars describes?

The article starts with an uncomfortable confession: for years, contradicting the sermon led to shaming, labeling, and humiliation. The author says he saw company directors terrified by an intern’s political opinions and high school teachers agreeing with the loudest student, Cultural Revolution style. That antiestéticarful silence, he argues, was the breeding ground for the pyramid.

The central thesis is that the pendulum swings in the opposite direction and that the reaction to proge culture will be worse than Trump in 2016. The author claims to have warned about this in a book his critics allegedly didn’t read. He now sees his prediction confirmed by phenomena such as South Americans voting for Trump, anti-feminist Argentine women, flat-earth theories, deportations, memes, and teenagers shouting “Long live Franco” to provoke indoctrinated teachers.

According to the text, the collapse point arrived when imposed norms became too strict and intolerance soaked into public conversation. People began judging the inquisitors by their own standards: Justin Trudeau begging forgiveness for a blackface photo, defamation convictions against black widows of feminist activism, Equality ministers prematurely releasing rapists, and political commissars crushed by their own racist jokes dug up online. The pyramid collapsed.

The pendulum doesn't exist: immigration and money still rule

The most repeated rebuttal is that the pendulum is an optical illusion. “If you go out on the street, you’ll see everything is the same or worse,” one comment summarizes. Another adds there is no shift, but rather “a march forward in the enslavement agenda,” arguing cultural issues are accessories, mere distractions for the population.

Economic arguments appear early: as long as the printing press keeps running, nothing will change. It is noted that misery would need to touch everyone—from janitors with guns to bank tellers, to pensioners collecting barely contributed funds—for the system to wobble. Critics point out that the money funding the problem cannot be the same funding the solution, citing Sweden as a country that seemed willing to change but remains trapped in the same dynamic.

Some distinguish between the pendulum of social sentiment and the pendulum of power. In people’s feelings, on the street, the shift is perceived. In political, legal, and power structures, the pendulum hasn’t moved yet. It is noted that in the United States the movement has begun, but in the rest of the West, the dissociation between public opinion and published opinion is total.

The bill for institutional feminism and gender laws

One of the harshest currents in the debate argues there is no real pendulum swing while laws discriminating against men, false accusations, enemy penal codes, and socially sanctioned ruined men without proof remain in force. “All they’ve done is downshift,” summarizes a comment accusing centrists of trying to cover the moon with a finger.

The analysis extends to the judicial sphere. It is argued that gender violence laws were approved by male presidents, with parliamentary majorities of men, and with overwhelming majorities of men voting for and continuing to vote for those parties. The uncomfortable conclusion drawn is that no abstract paranormal entity needs to be sought to find the cause of men’s discrimination; the cause is at the ballot box.

Criticism of Soto Ivars’ article from this angle is fierce: he is accused of being an ally of institutional feminism who now says the pendulum swing harms feminism, when he was always one of them. “On top of being an ally, he’s a traitor,” one comment concludes. The underlying reproach is that the author fails to perform a mea culpa for journalists’ and politicians’ complicity in the drift of the last fifteen years.

The article's hook: insults without self-criticism

The paradox noted by several comments is that Soto Ivars’ text starts quite well—he is recognized for hurling insults at the ranks of proge, feminists, and zascandil of all kinds—but a mention of the complicity of JOURNALISTS and POLITICIANS is missing. It seems as if all that filth had nothing to do with them, when they are fundamental agents of the surreal drift.

The reproach extends to the author’s position: it seems to bother him more that the supposed pendulum swing leads to a triumph of the opposing ideology than the damage caused by his own ideology. It is the classic settling of scores by someone who wants to side with the future winner without having gotten off the pyramid in time.

Are there data supporting the cycle change?

The debate relies on scattered signals rather than statistics. Mention is made of a massive event where the crowd shouted slogans against Pedro Sánchez while two people fought in medieval armor, presented as a symptom that people are less afraid to say what was previously taboo. Also cited is the trial regarding Luis Rubiales’ kiss as a thermometer for how far the doctrine that an unconsented kiss is sensual assault goes.

The most cited temporal prediction is that of a pendulum taking seven years to reach the center and another seven to reach the opposite extreme. The warning is not to sell the bear’s skin before hunting it, because the enemy is real and underestimating it will give it air. Others believe the change, if it comes, will be a matter of months, not years.

The underlying skepticism is that people don’t understand anything. Neither left nor right. They are puppets in the hands of history that destroys them without warning. They don’t wake up until they are swept away. And one cannot count on the masses for anything.

The close: the question nobody answers

Doubt remains on whether the pendulum is a fact or a wish. The optimists see a base of reasonable people who had been overshadowed and punished, and who now will have more space for criticism and rationality. The skeptics see a society without survival instinct, condemned to leave one deception only to enter another.

Meanwhile, laws remain in force, debt continues to grow, and immigration is not mentioned in the article. Is the pendulum swing a real change or just the noise of the pyramid collapsing?