The discredit of the autonomous community

Beyond the quantified effects of the catastrophe, the floods and fires imposed by climate change also bring a more or less explicit challenge to the autonomous state. The right (both the unappealable and the fulminating) has plenty of substantial elements of the hallowed "democracy we have given ourselves." And this is one of the most unsympathetic. The shadows of jurisdiction and the social ignorance of how the system works (perhaps even its disdain) fuel the simplifications and the sense of its inefficiency and superfluity. Although it appears that the harassment is merely a tactical attempt to evade and divert responsibility, wearing down the central government, the stench of a comprehensive amendment is overwhelming. And it pushes for the rapid combustion of demagoguery and populism, taking advantage of the victims' desperation.

It could be that climate change has also brought about the thawing of the permafrost of Franco's regime, but, in a way, that style has been here for some time. It had broken the immune system of that refreshing democracy of the 1980s. The difference between rupture and transition was perhaps this. Once the carbon dioxide effervescence of the dictatorship was unleashed, and with some concessions for show, much of the same could be done as under the Generalissimo, even carrying out immediate national uprisings: state terrorism, the subjugation of justice, control of access to key positions, and the domination of power and public funds by an extractive elite that, beneath its Armani attire, conceals the rough plush of the usurious and landed oligarchy of Matesa and Sofico. And having arrived here, why dissemble, now that the Vox parade of bugles and drums advances in triumphal march and the PP sappers have already dug the graves?

The need to recentralize the state is pressing for the right, given the possibility that the ballot box will open the doors of Moncloa and the pages of the Official State Gazette (BOE). And then, with arithmetic (a LOAPA 2.0?), overcome the constitutional inconveniences to move toward a more plenipotentiary state and autonomous regions reduced to mere representative branches (inaugurations and events) and a similar distribution of resources for essential powers. That is, a self-government without sovereignty that, even against the interests of the territory it represents, leaves its powers to a higher authority (organic or not). In other words, a Provincial Council of Provincial Councils whose mission, apart from suffocating more or less identifiable organizations, is to go all out on fairs, festivals, and awarding contracts.

In that sense, the joint PP-Vox issue has already done its homework in the Valencian Community. And the truth is, with the institution discredited by a non-appearing , sophistic, and defeated president, who, when push comes to shove, takes the backseat of a retired general, what's the point of the Generalitat? With the Roig Arena as its categorical manager and the quorum of the AVE lobby, Hosbec, and the Port Authority, it's going all out. After all, the denaturalization of Valencian autonomy may simply be the return to reality of a fantasy fueled in the 1960s by the yearning for freedom and the frustration caused by the Franco government's disdain for the Valencians after the 1957 flood (you should read Víctor Maceda's Les Cicatrius de València ). A catastrophe gave it to us, and a catastrophe is taking it away. Back then, there were right-wing people deeply committed to their people, deeply involved with their own interests (not those of others), and with a strong sense of responsibility, like the director of Las Provincias , Martí Domínguez, and the president of the Valencian Athenaeum, Joaquín Maldonado. But of course, they came from the school of Don Luis Lucia, the leader of the Valencian Regional Right, and those of today come from the leadership of Eduardo Zaplana, convicted for corruption.