The shamelessness of power in Sánchez's Spain

A bad body leaves us with the disturbing intersection of the civil consecration of the Princess of Asturias with the announced exchange of amnesty for investiture. Shamelessness to power, listen.

With the constitutional oath of the heir to the Crown, it prostrated itself before the will of the sovereign people. Not the other way around. “I owe myself to the Spanish,” said Mrs. Leonor.. That is not shielding the monarchy, as those who (six groups, three ministers, two regional presidents) say call for its abolition and skipped the morning institutional act in Congress.

What happened yesterday means shielding the heir's embrace of a democratic Constitution inspired by such republican values as secularism, freedom, justice, equality, pluralism, separation of powers, decentralization of territorial power, etc.. That is the content of the social and democratic State of law in the formal envelope of a parliamentary monarchy.. Background and shape.

The event coincided with the dissemination of the story that justifies the prostration of the State before the demands of its enemies for the handful of votes in Congress (seven, to be precise) to shield the amnesty operation for investiture.. Namely: “For the good of Spain”, according to the acting President of the Government and leader of the PSOE, Pedro Sánchez, as a beneficiary of his party's furtive dealings with Carles Puigdemont, a fugitive from Justice whose mission in life is renounce Spain, destroy the State and denigrate the King.

What can go wrong in a power equation founded on bases as subversive as those, or those provided by Sánchez's remaining republican and plurinational supporters? All of them are supporters of the amnesty for the coup plotters of October 2017 in Catalonia. A party operation that perpetrates electoral fraud and divides society, attacks the principle of equality between people and territories, leaves the judicial power at the feet of horses and presents a frustrating asymmetry between the will to forget on one side and the the other's willingness to reoffend against the constitutional order.

The reply lives in the appeal to reasons of “public utility”, general interests, common good, what is convenient to improve coexistence between Spaniards. In other words, I insist, “for the good of Spain”, which is the expression used by the leader of the PSOE a few days ago before the leadership of his party.. And at this point I cannot resist the temptation to evoke the historical verbal lashing of Samuel Johnson (1709-1784) against those who decide the destinies of others from an office far from reality: “Patriotism is the last refuge of scoundrels”.

I explain:

The general interest is the theoretically rational version of everything for the country, which is the emotional alibi to justify anything. But since Dr. Johnson said that, political elites have brought the mantra of public utility and general interests to written constitutions.. If necessary, it would be the joke of those who make decisions without treading the dust of the road. As a last refuge from scoundrels? I stay in hiding from unscrupulous politicians.

See—hear—the very recent cry of Patricia Bullrich (third in contention in the Argentine elections) to justify her unexpected support for the atrabiliary Javier Milei in the face of the second round of the presidential elections: “If the country is in danger, everything is allowed.”

Well that. Sánchez has understood that the country would be in danger if the elections had to be repeated and the extreme right entered the Government. In those circumstances, everything is allowed.