The traumatic generational change in Spanish politics

There are several reasons that explain why, in recent weeks, a few traumas that are difficult to manage have emerged in Spanish political life.. The first, and most obvious, has to do with Pedro Sánchez's policy of alliances and his concessions to Catalan nationalism to be sworn in as president.. But there is another one that will last longer than the negotiations with Carles Puigdemont or a hypothetical electoral repetition. This is the complex generational change that is taking place in Spain.

The Transition Generation

Between 1975 and 1982, the generation that led the Transition gave Spain a democratic and stable political system. Furthermore, over a much longer period, it promoted a profound modernization of all aspects of public life.. Thanks to their work, Spain not only became a country whose form of government was democracy, but also one that had a system of moral, civic and ethical ideas very similar to that of the rest of Europe.. It was an almost unprecedented achievement..

However, as perhaps happens with all generations that carry out transformations of this magnitude, the one that today we associate with Felipe González, Fernando Savater or Juan Luis Cebrián, is demonstrating that it too had a blind spot: it is managing its progressive but inevitable abandonment of the central stage of public life.

There are deep motivations for this.. Some are logical: their members believe, rightly, that we can continue learning from them and their experience. Others are simply human: it is difficult to leave the spotlight when they have illuminated you for half a century.. But there is one that is, in the current situation, more important: when reading their public opinions or listening to them in informal forums, one has the feeling that this generation, and especially its most prominent left-wing members, greatly distrusts the ability of the next to keep democracy and the liberal social contract alive.

A rhetoric that has stopped serving

There is no shortage of reasons. Most of the current political leaders are under fifty years old, and it cannot be said that their performance—from Sánchez to Santiago Abascal, passing through the already defenestrated Pablo Iglesias, Albert Rivera or Pablo Casado—is being exemplary.. Perhaps something similar could be said of the new intellectual or journalistic leaders.. But the distrust of the elders towards their successors goes further. It is as if, after decades of dedication to Spanish public life, they wanted to freeze their achievements in time. Or they will refuse to accept that, if Spanish politics has changed, it is because enormous social transformations have occurred that make it inevitable.. All political systems, and their ideological frameworks, end up fading over time. And today, the appeals of some veteran leaders of the PSOE to milestones such as the harmony of the Transition, the memory of the negotiations that made the Constitution possible, or the recourse of the old right to figures such as Adolfo Suárez, ring hollow to a very large, and growing, part of the population. And they have no useful political effect.

I don't say it with joy. Some of us are uncomfortable with the way in which all that has been left behind for many Spaniards. For me, it is impossible to see Bildu, especially with Arnaldo Otegi at the helm, as a simple left-wing coalition; It will always be a party that was complicit in terrorism. It is astonishing that the word “communism”, now commonly used among the left, has ceased to be associated with some of the worst political tragedies in recent history.. Not to mention Francoism.

However, these changes in perception are real. Surely, they are bad. They are probably irreversible. And they will mark the next years of Spanish democracy. It is very possible that young people are much more concerned with issues linked to morality, consumption and lifestyles than with the nuances of the territorial organization of the State.. It is credible that, for them, terrorism and dictatorship are historical issues unrelated to personal and even family experience, and, therefore, to the voting decision.. We might think that this is due to a general decline in democratic principles.. But it's not about that. It is that the perception of which are the greatest risks that Spain faces has changed. A typical PSOE voter belonging to Generation Z may believe, unlike González, that an amnesty does not put Spanish democracy at risk.. You probably think that the possible reduction of the rights of sexual minorities or an insufficient redistribution of wealth are much more dangerous for democracy..

Threat perception changes

The amnesty of the leaders of the process who committed crimes or the pacts with Bildu continue to be a bad idea, although a new generation does not see it that way. In the same way, Spain is leaving behind a good part of the ideological and cultural frameworks of the Transition, although many of its protagonists find it difficult to recognize it.. Generational change should not make us renounce the old certainties of liberal democracy. And, of course, the fact that other concerns become more relevant among young people does not mean that old ones don't matter.. Sánchez, for example, could govern for the new generations without needing to kick Nicolás Redondo out of his party..

But the political cycle initiated by the Transition generation is experiencing its twilight. This is not only due to reasons of age, but also to changes in the party system, the rise of new technologies, the transformation of intellectual leadership, a rapid mutation of values, the international situation—what is told here is also applicable to countries like the United States or Germany, among others—and the feeling that democracy as a system is the new default. That would not have to imply the end of the Constitution that gave birth to that generation. Nor do we put at risk the greatest period of political stability in modern Spanish history.. But for an important and growing part of our society, the risks we face are different.. It is normal that the generation that gave birth to such a successful cycle finds it strange. It is even for me. And it's not even clear that it's good. However, this had to come sooner or later. It has arrived, in a traumatic way, just now, and we cannot act as if it were not like that.