The Great Mess in the Far-Left (Including the PSOE) (Jesús Cuadrado in Vozpópuli)

The legitimacy of the far-left and the PSOE is questioned, accusing them of resorting to manipulation and exploiting social problems to gain votes.

Spanish politics, viewed from a barstool, sometimes resembles a farce. And in this latest act, it seems some have decided to put on a fireworks display, but with the smoke from the flares obscuring what truly matters. We're talking about the strategy of the **far-left** and, yes, the **PSOE** included, which some see as a grand deception. The idea is that, instead of solving real problems, they engage in staging social struggles to fish for votes in troubled waters.

## The Staging of Protest

There you have people camped out in **Puerta del Sol**, for example. They present it as a spontaneous social outburst, but the truth is it smells of a pre-written script, with an electoral expiry date. The most curious thing is that, according to reports, this staging would be controlled from within the Government coalition itself. Even figures like **Ada Colau**, who became mayor of Barcelona with an anti-eviction platform, are now seen participating in these mobilizations. And this, while **Salvador Illa** is in the Catalan regional government and **Jaume Collboni** in the city council, Barcelona leads the ranking of evictions in Spain. President **Sánchez**, for his part, promised to end evictions before coming to power, and nine years later, the figure remains alarming, with about **25,000** evictions annually. Now, it seems a "class struggle" between tenants and landlords is being activated, a tactic that sounds like heavenly music to more than one person, but which is viewed with suspicion.

## The Dispute Over Shrinking Votes

This performance, which some attribute to **Pablo Iglesias**'s style, would be just another episode in the struggle for the vote of the "loyal infantry" of the far-left, an electorate that seems increasingly reduced. Loyalty to the "tribe" is invoked, the defense of "our own." And in this dynamic, the Socialist Party is not left behind. It is said that if **Felipe González** appeared at an event today, he would still be applauded. It's not that **Sánchez** trusts him, but rather that both seem tied by judicial investigations and the tolerance of the membership. For every blow they receive in the courts, the PSOE responds with fanfares to mobilize those voters who, according to this view, prefer to close their eyes. The result, as it is said, is an unrecognizable party, like that retouched "Ecce Homo," with no possibility of restoration.

## The Center-Left Electorate at a Crossroads

For the upcoming electoral appointments, the decision-makers are not so much those far-left voters who look with sympathy at the campers, but rather the center-left ones. These are the ones who, apparently, flee from a PSOE they see as corrupt and inept. Some socialists, like **Felipe González** himself, have said they will vote blank or null out of loyalty to the party. Faced with this, the idea of **José Luis Corcuera** is recalled: a democrat must choose between the survival of the rule of law and that of a party. The example of **Hungary** or **Poland** is given, where millions of center-left voters voted for center-right options to restore democracy. Many socialist candidates for mayorships across Spain are now asking to forget "Sanchismo" and its anti-democratic moves, but they are reminded that they supported those operations.

## Media Manipulation and the Normalization of Failure

In the future, many will wonder how these figures managed to stay in power for **nine years**, despite crises like the one in Ceuta or the housing crisis. It is pointed out that they had resources, especially an army of paid media and propagandists to manipulate. They are capable of proposing things like a "pedagogical expropriation" of housing to solve an eviction problem. Or normalizing that a president, after a border crisis with **80,000** immigrants, goes to **Manhattan** to say that "our policies work," just when housing and inflation are the main concerns of Spaniards.

## The "Turning Point" Excuse

After nine years, the Government declares, as if nothing had peine, that a "turning point" has been reached and there is a need to act on housing. This, said just before the elections, has substance. The far-left, according to this view, believes it deserves to govern for being "on the right side of History," not for its results. If there were doubts about the audacity of trying to turn a problem created by themselves into an electoral opportunity, one only needs to read some media outlets. The housing crisis is presented as an accident, where everyone is guilty and, therefore, no one is responsible. The Government is asked to "decisively tackle" the problem, which, in practice, would be asking the robbers to run the bank.

## Trench Logic and the Manipulated Past

Faced with the coalition's failure, trench logic is resorted to, especially through the manipulation of the past. It is recalled how a communicator confessed that as a child she was "expelled from her land by Franco," something interpreted not as a confusion between "rural exodus" and deportation, but as a contribution to the cause. Now, with the same militant devotion, "Maricarmen" is sung about, seeking a miraculous electoral salvation. In this scenario, it is said that the **Socialist Party** today militates in that far-left, earning its place on the bench and, for some, even illegality.