Donald Trump’s administration was the first to rebrand his lies as “alternative facts.” These are also the “inaccurate statements” of Alberto Núñez Feijóo in the campaign, for example, about pensions. And so are the “changes of opinion” of Pedro Sánchez, always and about almost everything that is nuclear.
In Catalonia, where the “great farce” of the process has been widely criticized, the lies of the PP and the PSOE seem to lend themselves less to collective ridicule, even if they are identified as more important. And with this spirit, people will go (or not) to the polls on Sunday. With the perspective and bewilderment generated by a recent past that they want to sell us as very distant and out of date, and by a disturbing present that seems to want to make us choose between one or the other, a classic “fright or death”.
Added to this panorama is a party such as Junts per Catalunya, which has become fond of wearing a poster with the symbol of danger and the legend “under construction” hanging on its back. And a Republican Left that now pretends not to know a PSOE that has consolidated until the last moment, almost at all times in a selfless and uncritical way.
The CUP’s penchant for blocking its own and strangers doesn’t seem like a great alternative either. Like other small formations and basically synonymous with sterile division, but at the same time they are very fond of lecturing the rest on how to add or even multiply. all lie
Month. We have already passed the equator of a campaign in which ERC has presented an unrecognizable (and briefly invisible) Gabriel Rufián as headliner. They covered him up with Teresa Jordà, Oriol Junqueras (and whoever they could), while he was made to change the tone and substance of his statements.
Too much of a leap, from his classic insulting and condescending style, with which he came to label former president Carles Puigdemont and his entourage as “traats” or “James Bond apprentices”, to the (very implausible) appeals of these days to the unity and the good tone between independenceists. But he hasn’t changed his mind. Basically, and everyone can see that it is for pure electoral calculation, he is now forced to say things he does not believe in at all. That’s why, during the campaign, they hid it as much as they could.
Politics is, more and more, emotion. But this should not banish reason. In a fair dose, you need to know how to combine them. For this reason, the declarations of eternal love that politicians now dedicate to campaigns should have been preceded by facts that would give them credibility. There is less than a week left for the public to decide who believes themselves the most. Who identifies less “alternative facts”, “inaccurate statements” or exaggerated “changes of opinion”.
The key will be, in large part, in the judgment people make about who has let them down less so far and who they think will do so less in the immediate future. Not an attractive choice. But it will be the great choice of many.
