Oh, Captain, my Captain!

The expression Oh, Captain, my Captain , as you know, comes from a poem by Walt Whitman dedicated to President Abraham Lincoln . It is masterfully told by Robin Williams in the film Dead Poets Society (1989), as Professor John Keating , using its verses to inspire his students to make their lives something extraordinary. Whitman's poem is, above all, a symbol of leadership, loyalty and loss and that is what was experienced in the Federal Committee of the PSOE this past weekend . Even more so when President Pedro Sánchez expressed in an elegiac tone: "I am the captain and I stay to ride out the storm." Delving like other captains in the past into a universe that is a combination of admiration, sadness and loss, all of which reinforces the tone of mourning.

The trauma is severe. And it's evident in the president's gaze these past few weeks: the 1,000-yard stare. Lost, empty, in shock, he seems to be staring into the distance, yet disconnected from the present. What to do? We said it on day one: activate Article 112 of the Constitution and present a motion of confidence to Congress. Building strategy, power, and hegemony through actions, not narratives. Acting, not narrating. Concretizing and anchoring yourself in a political act. The motion of confidence is important because it gathers attention, allows for didactics, and is a liturgy of the same democracy that elevates it.

Every crisis has three stages: alert, response, and reconstruction. Sánchez remains in the alert phase.

Anything beyond Article 112 today indicates the exit door to a national project, Sánchez's project based on censorship, which has more assets than liabilities. Leaving everything, as the PP also does, to the great narrative industry as its main objective, with social media, digital media, those technologies that saturate and fail to specify, is the opposite of the art of political strategy and electoral communication. Because it means ceding the void to the current vector of discontent, which right now is exclusively the authoritarianism of Vox. One only has to look at the polls, which already indicate a direct transfer of votes from the PP to Vox of more than 10%, almost a million voters. The two-party system, far from gaining its prestige with this situation, is being destroyed.

All crises have three stages: alert, response, and reconstruction. Sánchez remains in the alert phase. The need to request confidence will be reaffirmed this Wednesday, July 9, in his double appearance in the House of Representatives. The President of the Canary Islands, Fernando Clavijo, formally requests it today in La Vanguardia . This is true political responsibility: presenting yourself to Congress, opening yourself up to criticism, and proposing reconstruction measures. That is the authentic overcoming narrative that allows us to move between stages. But first, we must accept that without an act that anchors and concretizes us, a crisis of this magnitude can never be overcome.

If the Prime Minister does not implement a vote of confidence, therefore, to overcome it, propose a social budget later and hold elections in 2026, if he does not restore confidence in members, deputies, and the Spanish people, everything will be a lifeless journey of the Captain without reaching port. This issue is also necessary so that the wounds on the left of the PSOE, a new candidacy, with a plurinational drive, and Podemos, can heal and find maximum results with a result of over three million votes they currently achieve separately. Without Article 112, this space will have no incentive to reset. In the same way, the demobilization of the PSOE's oldest voters will be consolidated and have an unlikely comeback. There are a million voters the left must mobilize and who cannot be left at the mercy of adversities. If the vote of confidence is not overcome, there will be an acting president waiting to see if there is a majority for a new president. Something that is far from clear.

Restoring trust is about this, even though the usual investiture partners don't want it and at the same time have no alternative. In Oh Captain, My Captain!, the poem's main metaphor is a ship returning victorious after a dangerous voyage, but whose captain (Lincoln) has died before seeing the complete triumph. The question of trust is precisely that. It can be won by losing, like that vote of no confidence (and sometimes it is won). And here the ship is not the PSOE but Spanish democracy, which must emerge strengthened from this episode and bring it to a safe harbor.

Next Week "Yes sir"

Curtis Yarvin explains with terrifying clarity the Trump hype at the NATO summit in The Hague. Yarvin says: “It all starts when you walk into a room and, broadly speaking, do what you want. You just say, ‘Do this, do that.’ You fire those who don’t. And suddenly, everyone else bows down and says, ‘Yes, sir.’ And that’s it: you’ve established your power.” With this, Trump demonstrated to all the authoritarian electorates of Western democracies how power is established and exercised. This is what they want to lead us to.

The Hawkeye 10 million votes

Wanting 10 million votes for "the center" while demanding Sánchez's imprisonment is something you can judge for yourselves. The three right-wing parties today don't exceed the 12 million they received in 2011. If we discount half a million for SALF and 3.5 million for Vox, they can at most repeat the results of June 23rd. It's one thing to want 10 million, another to leave the PSOE at 5 million, and another for Vox to fall below 2 million. It can't all be possible, simply because of generational and territorial factors. The PP wants to bring the past into the present, but without understanding that Vox has long been shaping the future.