It is the third time that I write about Vox and there are those who will say that I am fattening myself, but the truth is that I feel obliged to do so carried out by the course of events. In a week, the ultra-conservative party in A Coruña had gone from the paroxysm of Palexco, where it filled to the brim, to total disenchantment on election night, where the scheduled celebration at the Hotel Plaza was reduced to absolute nothingness, where the national flags had no occasion to be waved. Rise and fall, as they say. And I was there. Well, technically not: it turns out that I was banned from the hotel, despite having been accredited. They didn’t even give me an excuse, like I couldn’t go in with sneakers, but I suspect it has to do with an article I had written that contained the odd joke about Vox and that the provincial head of the list, Miguel Fernández, had disqualified assuring that it had a “style of third of EGB”.
As it happens, I personally knew the guy who stood in my way, I had even written a blog post about him, because he had confessed to me once in a bar that his goal in life was to terraform Mars. Later, each time I met him, his projects became more modest: during 15M, what I wanted was to found a Young Party. Then I wanted to create videogames and, finally, take some FP. And there he was, at the foot of the stairs, with a folder in his hand, from pioneer of Mars to lover of the homeland in ten years. Perhaps he thought that, with Vox, Spain would have its own special program, but I take it for granted that Abascal would be viscerally reluctant to step on a red planet. Next to my acquaintance was what I suppose was a vigilante, a muscular-bodied man with a tribal tattoo on one forearm, tanned from a solarium, a beard, and his hair spiked forward. He looked at me attentive to any movement, but I was not going to enter without permission, if only because I sensed that Vox had a choice when it came to security experts.
In addition, Miguel Fernández was not in the mood to make statements, disappointed as he was for not having been able to add a Coruña seat to the success of the 24 that his training had achieved. I did not share their disappointment, although I did share their surprise: I had also been in Palexco, when the palace was so crowded that half of the attendees had had to stay outside. Grateful for their enthusiasm, Abascal went outside to address them at the top of the stairs, to tell them about living Spain, about Feijóo, that he did not have to ask for forgiveness or permission to come here, about the Reconquest and national pride. . While I was listening to him, I could swear that I saw inside another subject that I had also written about on the blog, a retired ex-driver of a Franco general who was dedicated to waving the national flag on the roads of Oleiros. At that time the colors were also waving: the patriots waved the red flags and on the other side of the fence, between the Provincial Council and the Post Office building, behind a police cordon, 200 protesters called by Anti-Franco Action A Coruña waved their banners. communists.
With the flags, the old ghosts were also waving. Those kids (most of them would be under 20 years old) felt like the Fifth of the Bottle facing the national side and issuing death threats. Abascal referred to them as “totalitarians who dare to show the hammer and sickle, a banner under which some of the most heinous crimes against humanity have been committed.” This was unbeatable, so I had no choice but to nod covertly, raising my eyebrows. The leader of the living Spain continued with his speech, alluding to the manipulative press, and to a column in a national newspaper that had described Vox as “the party of the fourth gin and tonic.” I bit back a laugh. On the other side, those of Antifascist Action continued chanting slogans, already half hoarse. I remembered that in other anti-system protests I had heard them shouting slogans against the press, for being manipulative. It was a curious parallel that of those two groups full of opposing ideals who loved flags and hated newspapers alike, such as waving with the right hand in front of a mirror and having your reflection respond to you with the left with the same and exact movement.
The media always have to be … well, in the middle, whatever our ideas are, and for people like them it is either too much or too little. A group of protesters turned around and showed their butts where the Spanish flag had been painted, an eschatological metaphor for the breakdown of Spain, split right in the middle. When I saw that, I thought two things: the first, that not only Franco had a white ass. The second, that being in the middle also sucks.
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