In the hands of citizens

The extreme political experiences that characterize the mandates of Pedro Sánchez are lessons that no Spanish citizen, with little attachment to democracy, can ignore. Lying as a method and frontism as a tactic describe how Sánchez exercised the power he received through … a sum of wills purchased at the price of coexistence between Spaniards and the stability of our democracy. Citizens can see the consequences of what happens when democratic power falls into unfair hands while the rules of harmony enshrined in the Constitution are unfair. Without good faith, without confinement, without political prudence, there is no Constitution that can resist and only the existence of a well-configured judicial power can mitigate the disaster. The Spanish citizen does not lack analysis of the ills that afflict Spain, of the responsibilities of a selfish two-party system, nor of the option of rupture, revision and revenge of formerly constitutionalist socialism. We are living a period of destruction of democratic values, which does not go unpunished in elections, as we saw in Extremadura, but which does not seem to move the collective conscience of Spanish society, not at least to a sufficient extent to assume that its own regeneration is necessary as a political subject of democracy, as a true holder of its sovereignty. Changing government will be a necessary condition, but not sufficient, for what should be the great objective of a threatened democracy: to eradicate forever the causes of this return to the uncivil frontism that the left promotes and which has its roots beyond the appearance of Sánchez, all the way to Rodríguez Zapatero. Between the revanchist activism of some and the lack of energy of others, we have reached a state of affairs in which it is no longer enough to be angry at the government, but we must have civic self-esteem; It is no longer enough to vote against someone, but we must commit to the common good.

The process of political alternation is subject to the electoral rite, the only legitimate one for change in the ownership of power, but when a country experiences crises of all kinds – moral, political, institutional – as is the case in Spain, society, that is to say the group of citizens, has its own and inalienable duty, a burden that weighs on its exclusive shoulders and cannot be transferred to one party or another. Whoever governs, Spain needs a society that does not accept more liars in power, that does not accept more double standards, that does not accept the end that justifies the means and that does not accept more millstones to avoid the traps of the opposing ideology. Defeating sanchismo, a term which becomes more and more insufficient every day to express all the damage suffered by the country in recent years, requires that citizens increase their level of demands towards the parties for which they vote, so as not to end up becoming Paulov’s dog, reactive to the bait of their leader. But this change in voters’ attitudes towards the party will not be possible if citizens do not consider that what has happened to Spain in recent years is not a natural disaster, but rather the consequence of political decisions taken jointly with certain political parties.

Spanish democracy has become a battlefield that does not pit ideas but rather the past against the present, the dead against the living and citizens against each other pushed into a polarization fueled by the harangues of frentismo that Sánchez embodied on his wall, symbol of his vision of power. There is no deliberative democracy without confrontation of programs, that is obvious; But there is no democracy without elementary rules of respect within which this confrontation takes place. The Spaniards have before their eyes the effect of playing without rules, of stripping the given word of any binding meaning, of protecting corruption when it is practiced by their own and of insulting it when it belongs to others. Everything that is required of our politicians: honesty, common sense, firmness and moderation in their public functions, is also required of all citizens as a criterion of their civic commitment in favor of democracy. It is necessary to implement a sense of politics as a circuit of reciprocal demands between citizens and politicians, without more lies, without more deception, otherwise what sanchism represents could end up becoming a cyclical affliction for our country.