Spanish elections and politics III / Pedro Sánchez faces a new term as PM

[Just the facts]

Are lockdowns very unpopular in Spain?  Madrid stayed open which some are saying helped PP yet Madrid has one of the worst infection rates?  Is Spain more a culture that puts freedom first or public health as some places lockdowns are quite popular (no one likes them but many see re-opening too soon as reckless).

I might be a bit cynical, but in my view Spain (and in particular the Spanish sociological right) has a fairly strong element of American-style "muh freedom", not as political doctrine but as socially respectable sociopathy.

Ayuso cunningly made regional identity politics out of that streak.

She also spent the pandemic accusing the central government of discriminating against Madrid, even accusing them of "giving away Madrid's vaccines to Andorra".

[Just the facts]

I heard to some analysts and tertulianos that replying that slogan with "fascism or democracy" was a mistake,  because in doing so the left entered in the conceptual mark established by the right.  In the same way, the campaign of Ángel Gabilondo promised not to raise taxes, onstead of campaigning on a fair tax system that funds decent public services for the people of Madrid.  The disturbing events involving hate speech, mails with bullets or the far-right candidate Monasterio ordering Iglesias to leave Spain have not created social alarm on the danger posed by fascism or neofascism. The only strategy that worked to some degree was the Más Madrid campaign, which avoided explicitly these clashes and focused on public services and the idea of a community ruled by empathy and solidarity.

Podemos replied to the Freedom vs Communism narrative doing what they feel more comfortable doing - Commie LARPing and Civil War reenactment - hence playing into their hands (where's Neurona when you need them?).

On the other hand, the Right set the Overton window all the way back to the days of anti-communist witch hunts, to the point where the very of idea discussing real problems as opposed to empty anti-communist grandstanding was suspect of Communism, so I guess there's little the Left as a whole could do.

[Just the facts]

Nothing like weaponizing your own people to show what a caring ruler you are.

[Just the facts]

Well, a 2nd part of the poll I mentioned yesterday dropped. The most interesting part is the part where they polled people on all of the prospective tax increases from Sanchez's government. And all of them are varying degrees of unpopular with the only exception of taxes on alcohol and tobacco.

If anything they are more unpopular than I thought! Hereis the full poll in Spanish; but for people who don't speak it here it goes

Tolls on highways: Disapprove+72
Eliminating reduced VAT on certain products: Disapprove+28
Gas tax hike: Disapprove+65
Alcohol and Tobacco tax hike: Approve+13
Coroprate tax hike: Disapprove+33
Income tax hike: Disapprove+75
Wealth tax hike: Disapprove+42
Inheritance tax hike: Disapprove+64
Self employed quota hike: Disapprove+78

The methodology is a bit weird since they didn't count "algo de acuerdo" as part of the approve group, but even if you include them many of Sanchez's tax hikes poll on the order of 25-75


They also polled the approvals of all the party leaders. None are good but surprisingly Sanchez no longer leads

Yolanda Díaz: 3.6/10
Pablo Casado: 3.6/10
Pedro Sánchez: 3.4/10
Inés Arrimadas: 3.3/10
Santiago Abascal: 2.8/10

Surprisingly close between all of them

Interesting, thought wealth taxes would be popular.  In Canada where I live they are super popular while income tax hikes, aren't they only on those making over 130,000 Euros and I know in the English speaking world tax hikes on rich quite popular.  Trudeau won in big part on taxing those with incomes over 200K Canadian which is around 130,000 Euros while in US, Biden's plan to raise taxes on those making over 400K US dollars quite popular too.  Off course raising income taxes on middle class very unpopular and in order to fund most things you have to do that thus challenge.

"Middle class" is a central concept to understand the stable support for the right-of center in Spain. It's a deliberately vague and flexible concept designed to create a common mental space that unites everyone from CEOs to minimum wage workers in an imagined community of "decent people who raise early to go to work" and who get fleeced by the Government who steals their money to give away to lazy foreigners on welfare. So every time there is a tax hike for the 1 per cent the center-right only needs to say "they want to raise taxes for the middle cass".

[Just the facts]

While everybody is in state of shock and looking towards Ukraine,  the regional government of Madrid admits that Ayuso's brother was paid 283,000 Euros by the enterprise of Ayuso's friend (just like Pablo Casado was claiming). The Madrid government claims such payments are not related to the € 1.5 million contract awarded to that enterprise, which sold Chinese masks at € 5 per unit during the worst stage of the pandemic

https://twitter.com/Guerraeterna/status/1496966360093663232?t=CO403svEL_vIZRB6fe...
Regardless of what Vox claims today, the Santiago Abascal party is the main ally of Putin in Spain. All the attendants of the "populist right" summit held past month in Madrid have links and share common ground with Vladimir Putin, save the Polish nationalists that fear Russian imperialism. As journalist Enric Juliana outlines in the tweet below there is not a common rightwing populist platform, but rather a shared view and coincidences with the Russian nationalist platform mentored by the Kremlin's ideologue Alexei Dugin ("Eurasian bloc" against the decadent America and the rising Islam). The most naive among the friends of the Russian leader has been the now discredited Matteo Salvini, who was photographed wearing a Putin Tshirt

https://twitter.com/EnricJuliana/status/1497156561902448654?t=LKTvgACHkjLLUWqwyY...
https://www.euronews.com/2022/01/29/europe-s-far-right-meets-in-madrid-for-two-day-summit-led-by-spain-s-vox

The two-day summit organised by Vox, Spain's far-right party that keeps gaining traction in the southern European country, gathered a strong lineup of the continent's nationalist, populist and illiberal politicians.

Some of the important figures attending are Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orbán and his Polish counterpart, PiS' Mateusz Morawiecki, as well as France's presidential candidate, Marine Le Pen.

The leader of Vox, Santiago Abascal, "the aim is to continue the work begun at the Warsaw summit [in December]," which he describes as defending "Europe against external and internal threats by promoting an alternative to the globalist trend which threatens the European Union by attacking the sovereignty of nations."  

Funny how Juliana forgot to mention Putin's links with Catalan independentism, which are far more direct that taking a picture with someone who's wearing a Putin t-shirt. Oopsie! Oh, by the way, the guy in the t-shirt...used to be goods pal with Catalan independentists.