An old English proverb says: never fear the day you have not seen. But fear is a factor that feeds into campaigns. In fact, it is a persuasive tool of political discourse. Or better yet, a must-have strategic operator. Cicero was one of the first politicians to realize that people are moved more by the fear of evil than by the hope of good.
In these elections, the PP has fostered fear with the slogan “Sánchez or Spain”, by the same author of “Liberty or Communism” that Isabel Díaz Ayuso conned. While the PSOE, shortly after the electoral progress was announced, launched a tweet where it was invited to choose between “the Spain of the right or of the right”.
In any case, the most surprising thing is that the PP has calculated that the fear of pacts with Vox will not punish it at the polls, so it has had no problem staging the alliance with the formation of Santiago Abascal in the Valencian Community, although he has had the temerity to remove from any position his list leader, Carlos Flores, convicted of sexist violence.
The populists have seen in their polls that the pact is something that their voters understand, especially when Vox won 119 regional parliamentarians and 1,700 councilors in the May elections. The ultraconservatives have won the vice-presidency of the Generalitat and the presidency of the Valencian Courts thanks to the strength of the 300,000 votes they have had in the region. Bleaching has completed successfully.
With the quick agreement with Vox in Valencia, the PP normalizes joint governments. Castilla y León ceases to be a shameful anomaly and becomes another stronghold of this strategy that no one discusses in Genoa. Alberto Núñez Feijóo feels strong and thinks that his pacts strengthen him because they allow him to claim the votes of the more radical right for the people.
Miguel Delibes wrote in La partida the following dialogue between two individuals: “Tell me why if one knows how to swim he floats without moving and when he doesn’t, he sinks.” The other answers: “Because fear weighs”. Feijóo feels safe because he knows how to swim. Another thing is how much it will cost you to store your clothes.
