The 'fascist sphere'

I bought a T-shirt with the "Fachosfera" printed on the chest at the People's Party (PP) Congress. This is an insult used by left-wing activists, as well as by Pedro Sánchez and the government, to refer to the political, media, and social right. Here, it's being claimed as merchandising at the stall run by the young PP members. The goal is to appropriate what is meant to be an insult to one's adversary in order to show pride in one's own ideology. The T-shirt has given me more leverage than I thought. At the Richelieu bar in Chamberí, other young people, these VOX members, are outraged that the PP members are selling T-shirts like the one I bought. "But the PP has put in its ideology that it's a reformist center! What kind of fascist sphere, or dead child, are the PP members going to be!"

Indeed, the PP is officially a reformist center party. This is what its unanimously approved political report states. Feijóo has published the definition that José María Aznar formulated orally in 1999 at the Seville Congress: the PP is the home of the political tradition of conservatives, Christian Democrats, and liberals. But this commitment to centrism, traditionally moderate in form, is accompanied by a great lack of inhibition in speeches and also, apparently, in the prints on T-shirts.

In times of extreme polarization, the Popular Party (PP) is betting, at least formally, on leaving the culture wars to lie fallow and letting others fight them. Yet another trip to the center. Although each regional viceroy then does his own thing, the political offer Feijóo has made for the national PP smacks, at least theoretically, of the project of Andalusian President Juanma Moreno. Let the effect be felt without the care being noticed. This is where the Galician believes the 10 million votes he has promised his parishioners in the next general elections lie. Ayuso works for Madrid, Moreno for all of Spain. Center, center, center.

Yesterday was a big day in Hall 10 of Ifema. But not because anything exceptional happened. Not at all. The People's Party congress was somewhere between boring and extremely boring. How can a political meeting where the political report and the statutes are unanimously approved not be boring? No, the fun, which was already abundant, was more due to what was happening just 8 km away, at the PSOE headquarters on Madrid's Calle de Ferraz.

Knowing that Pedro Sánchez's attempt to revive the atmosphere and morale in the PSOE federal committee had gone rather poorly—with his close collaborator, Francisco Salazar, thrown to the lions for harassment accusations at first light, and the president of Castilla-La Mancha, Emiliano García Page, calling for elections or a vote of confidence—those attending the People's Party congress were already certain they were in the best place in the world. The misfortunes of others are a great boost to one's morale. The PP feels invincible at this point.

Later in the afternoon, Alberto Núñez Feijóo took the stage. Perhaps there wasn't any hidden message in it, but the Galician took the stage to the punk chords of the Ramones' Blitzkrieg Bo: "Hey, oh, let's go!" Blitzkrieg, the lightning war with which the German army invaded and annexed countries almost without breaking a sweat. Although formally the PP claims to be prepared for the scenario in which Pedro Sánchez holds out until 2027, the truth is that the people questioned at IFEMA are absolutely convinced that the assault on the Moncloa Palace will end up resembling a Blitzkrieg offensive.

The political offer that Feijóo has made his own for the PP smells a lot like the Juanma Moreno project.

The Galician leader, like Moses, unfolded a ten-point list of commitments in a well-crafted speech. For a moment, it seemed as if the person addressing us from the podium was Denzel Washington, playing his role in The Equalizer saga. "First I fixed the game," Feijóo said, "and now I'll fix Spain. If he has time, perhaps in a future speech, he can promise us that he'll fix the world too." The Equalizer has had three installments.