Hate in the guts

The level of confrontation and hatred being generated in Spanish politics could end up ruining Spain's good situation. It won't be sudden, but it will be irremediable. There's a momentum that will still allow us to grow, but the next term could end up being a wasteland, regardless of who governs.

During the Transition, the economic situation was dire. However, there was a common project: the reconciliation of the two Spains. It's true that many things divided us: republicans and monarchists; left and right; centralists and federalists; workers and businessmen; rich and poor...

But despite all these differences, we were all clear that we didn't want another Civil War. We aspired to a common future in a democratic Europe that would provide economic prosperity for our children and a welfare state. So we got to work. We drafted a Constitution like the one of 1978, one that includes everyone and is on its way to becoming the longest-standing in our history.

The tone used by politicians and the media is increasingly dangerous.

That shared effort, that coexistence, allowed us to overcome the severe oil crisis between 1973 and 1976. It allowed us to join the European Union and enjoy the greatest period of peace, freedom, and progress in the history of Spain. Now it's the other way around. We enjoy a comfortable economic situation. We have the wind at our backs. We're a long way from the two wars, the one in Ukraine and the one in Gaza, a distance that favors us, as it did in the First World War. Immigrants, tourists, and foreign capital come from all sides. However, we're about to start a mess.

Instead of embracing reconciliation to confront the major geopolitical and technological challenges, we allow ourselves to be dragged down by confrontation and hatred. The tone used by politicians and the media is increasingly dangerous: "mafia or democracy." Veiled threats of imprisonment, attacks, coups, judicial persecution, discrediting institutions and law enforcement forces, not to mention the reported unrest in the barracks.

The result could very well be a loss of confidence in our economic future; a paralysis of the reform cycle; a weakening of institutions. Who ended the current economic prosperity? They all killed it, and it died on its own. As in Martin Ritt's (1970) film , *The Hatred* . Taking political or social action to its ultimate conclusion can lead to nothing good.

There seems little doubt that the governance model chosen by Pedro Sánchez seven years ago was the best. The "no is no" approach to preventing the party with the most votes from governing and then seizing power through a vote of no confidence based on the corruption of the PP has led us to the dead end we find ourselves in.