This week, we have the national conversation taken over by the heat and two summer snakes: Rubiales and Thailand. However, what is coming will be more lasting.. And also more dramatic.

There will be speculation and disqualifications, the hoaxes will be uncorked, the news will come to us tinged with reality television. We will see fog of war in the whole landscape of September.

But, despite everything, there will be a moment of truth: an investiture at a critical time for Spain. We will see efforts to water down its significance in the eyes of public opinion. The Sherpas of the ruling party are already leading the way, placing the epithet failed that Moncloa selected.

They will be followed by the Tertullian troop, with military enthusiasm and the additional task of continuing to whitewash the amnesty. And, meanwhile, from the digital side, will come the spread of all kinds of conspiracies around the PP.

The same authors who denounced —with great feigned moral scandal— the dehumanization of Sánchez script, shoot and project new and violent chapters in multichannel mode for the destruction of Feijóo. Populism is also distinguished by the victimization capacity displayed by the aggressor.

Speculations cannot be avoided. There are only three paths towards the viability of the investiture: four votes of the PSOE, the abstention of the PNV or the exit of the muchachada de Puigdemont. Everything seems to indicate that interest will be concentrated around the latter, who, for the moment, has not said “this mouth is mine” regarding the investiture of the popular.

The foreseeable thing is that he does not raise his cards until the end. His silence reinforces his position of strength. Sánchez is very demanding now, he has to accelerate to close his negotiation with the man from Girona before the Galician begins his investiture speech. The rest is Russian roulette.

And speeding up means giving up. Not signing where indicated in Waterloo is a high-risk move for those who have just seen death in the race to the polls. Seen like this, it seems clear that he has a problem. Seen in panoramic mode, the pressure of the separatists is a problem for our country. We are facing an all or nothing game.

Precisely for this reason, the first investiture will be a transcendent trance, because it will be systemic and the following will not. And the systemic or anti-systemic character of the next Executive will not be innocuous for our society.

When an investiture is systemic, a government program is presented that is basically structured around three pillars:

protecting democracy from deterioration while strengthening the cohesion of the country, protecting market freedom while expanding opportunities, and protecting the future while applies a series of reforms that prevent the obsolescence of the Administration.

It is at these three points that the central forces – social democracy, liberals and conservatives of Western democracies – meet. The alternation in the exercise of power between these ideological currents tells the story of progress after World War II, and the ability to understand each other marks stable political functioning in neighboring nations.

This alternation is not a mere game of nuances. It is very tangible. The differences between the consequences of government being one political color or another can be, and often are, enormous.. But always, always, they are irreversible consequences, because neither social democrats nor conservatives ever get out of what we have indicated as transcendental.

It is impossible for a Social Democrat to agree with the government program that Feijóo will present. Surely you will think that it is insufficient in terms of equality, or in the salary issue, or unambitious regarding the territorial. Now, you will not be able to argue that the PP is located in the space of the systemic —democracy, market economy and reforms—. So far, all normal.

The novelty lies in the fact that for that same social democrat it is intellectually impossible to classify the government program that Sánchez could present as a social democrat.. You will be able to use very respectable sentimental reasons to support it, but, rationally, you will not be able to justify it, because the roadmap will be genetically anti-systemic.

With regard to the health of democracy, its vital signs, a social democratic government does not dry up any path of understanding with the other central party, it does not violate the mechanisms of separation of powers, it does not seek legal shortcuts, it does not legislate ad hominem, it does not colonize institutions, it does not use public money in propaganda, it does not submit its action to the whim of minorities, it does not accept or listen to anything that could remotely resemble an attempt to erode or destroy the constitutional architecture. With the addition of Sánchez, all this cannot go less, it can only go more.

Regarding the market economy, a social democratic government does not take measures that impoverish the middle classes, it does not endanger legal certainty, it does not attack or threaten businessmen —or workers such as truckers, whom it insulted—, it does not crush the self-employed, it does not trigger public debt, it does not break the principle of intergenerational solidarity, it does not promote patronage of populists through subsidies that turn off social elevators, it does not buy recipes from the communists, it does not break the principle of equality between citizens of the same country, that is, it does not allow a kid born in Cádiz to have fewer opportunities than another born in Donosti. With the addition of Sánchez, all this cannot go less, it can only go more.

Regarding the reforms, a social democratic government does not deny the evident need for consensus, condemning society to block major issues, it does not obscure transparency when it is easier to increase it, it does not use health as an electoral tool when the need to update national scale, it does not instrumentalize foreign policy as if it were a catwalk, it does not give 180 degree changes as in Morocco without giving explanations in Parliament, it does not make Spanish an dispensable subject in the classroom, it does not admit that there are zones — as it happens with sports— which seem mired in corruption, does not tolerate even the slightest shadow of doubt about the security forces or the intelligence organs of the country, does not divide feminism by naming dogmatics that make their management the greatest horror. With the addition of Sánchez, all this cannot go less, it can only go more.

As a minor result of the previous evidence, whoever wants that sum without blushing intellectually can describe himself as an independentista, a nationalist, a communist, a populist or a sanchista if he prefers.

But, if only out of respect for the cause and even out of honesty, he should not define himself as a social democrat.

And as a major, transcendental result, we Spaniards are faced with the possibility of one or two investitures and with the certainty that only one will be systemic. With its shortcomings, sure. But democracy, economy and reforms.