The Minister of Transport, Óscar Puente, the most traditional Trumpist in the Council of Ministers, has asked for the tone and aggressiveness of Spanish politics to be lowered. Pedro Sánchez’s head of works for the construction of the wall with which to divide Spain between good and bad has made it a condition that the PP be the one to take the first step in the armistice. Mr. Puente forgets that his primary condition is that of a minister, not that of a tavern patron emboldened after ingesting the third barreja. His misdeeds go far beyond political confrontation and operate with the logic of the most genuine sectarianism: pointing out, insulting and denigrating the media and journalists. Those who ask for peace with cannon fire are not credible. But let’s agree that he does his job extremely well. They chose him as minister to do what he does: dig trenches where only those of one color can fit.
Another government already totally corroded by Trumpism is that of Isabel Díaz Ayuso. At the Post Office, Steve Bannon’s manual is vigorously applied. If Trump makes t-shirts with the photo of his arrest, the Madrid president does the same when she converts her son of a bitch dedicated to Sánchez into a I like the cool fruit, but with the same meaning. Frightening and intimidation of the media and informants, including hoaxes about hooded editors trying to raid the president’s home, are also commonplace in her cabinet. Since Ayuso endorses these practices, they must be attributed to her even if they are carried out by others.
So much artillery fire is only intended to darken the sky until we are left blind. Yesterday we saw it again in Congress. At the reasoned request of Alberto Núñez Feijóo, to demand that Pedro Sánchez explain the relationship between his spouse, Begoña Gómez, and Globalia, the parent company of Air Europa, when this company was rescued with 616 million euros, the President of the Government responded with “Where are you going? “I bring apples”: let Ayuso resign.
It wasn’t enough. Next, the Minister of Finance, María Jesús Montero, the same one who openly proclaims the microfiscal data of taxpayers as if the Tax Agency were her farm, asked Núñez Feijóo’s wife to dance. She accused the popular leader of having diverted subsidies of 115,000 euros to the company where his wife worked when he presided over the Xunta. This information had already been denied in writing by the company itself, but what does that matter when what it is about is a tie in the mud. Are you talking about my wife? Well, let my ministers talk about yours.
The dance of boyfriends, wives and couples these days shows that the request for serenity that Minister Óscar Puente has cynically put on the table is a utopia. At least if the person who has to put it into practice is a political class corrupted by forms that a few years ago could surprise us, when we saw them in the United States, but that are now commonplace among us as well.
It is up to the rest of us to apply the story of calm. And applying it means informing yourself, evaluating and forming an opinion on each issue separately, without being seduced by the fruit salad that tends to mix all the ingredients. We have on the table, among other dishes, a case of alleged political and institutional corruption (Koldo case and derivatives), a case of tax fraud of an individual emotionally linked to a president of an autonomous community (González case) and some meetings of Begoña Gómez and Globalia that of course prove nothing, but that do deserve clarification to remove the shadow of the conflict of interest around the figure of the president for the sake of the transparency that is so presumed.
If nothing is the same, nothing should or can be judged the same. In the same way that a scandal or a suspicion does not evaporate the others. If in matters of marriage it is the law that one nail pulls another nail, in politics it should not be like that. Don’t get caught, even if there are many people hunting.
