Spain goes to the polls to decide its next government on Sunday, and a hard-right coalition is looking likely.

The most likely government to emerge - most analysts predict - will be a coalition including a hard-right nationalist party for the first time in Spain since the death of fascist dictator Francisco Franco in 1975.

More left-leaning Spaniards are frantically texting contacts, urging them to make sure to vote - despite the heat and it being holiday time for many - to “stop the fascists” in their tracks.The rhetoric this election season has been toxic, with voters becoming increasingly polarised.

It’s a fight over values, traditions and about what being Spanish should mean in 2023.

This kind of heated identity debate isn’t peculiar to Spain. Think of Italy, France, Brazil or the post-Trumpian debate in the US.

At EU HQ in Brussels, there are huge concerns about a resurgence of hard-right nationalist parties across Europe.

    • @[email protected]English
      12•1 year ago

      That stinks, I know, but there are no alternatives…

      There’s always an alternative to fascism, and it’s always better.

      • @[email protected]English
        -1•1 year ago

        When society takes collectively a direction, it’s like trying to swim upstream. You can only if you are strong enough.

      • @bouhEnglish
        -2•1 year ago

        If you means liberalism that is becoming fascism too, I don’t think it’s a alternative…

    • Riddick3001OPEnglish
      4•1 year ago

      that left wing parties failed to manage the situation in the latest years (inflation, pandemics, etc.)

      I can’t say much about Spanish politics. But tbh, I’m not sure how to compare. But the pandemic and the inflation are world phenomena. Not saying they couldn’t have been better managed in Spain ( or elsewhere), but here they say the same about our Gvement and they were right- centre.

      • diprount_tomatoEnglish
        1•1 year ago

        The measures the government took during COVID were just inefficient, delayed and too strict at the same time, he formed a coalition government with separatists and former terrorists after explicitly stating he wouldn’t and he has tried to increase control over the judicial power, weakening even more the separation of powers (which is very weak in my country).

        There are also controversial laws passed by coalition members like the “only yes is yes” law, which ended up severely reducing charges to rapists and pedophiles, and it took a lot of time to get it fixed due to sheer stubborness of politicians, instead accusing the judges for “being sexists and fascists”, when law must always act in favour of the guilty (Right to the non-retroactivity of the law)

        It’s expectable to think a sizeable amount of people would vote the opposition

    • @bouhEnglish
      4•1 year ago

      I don’t know the specifics of Spain politics much, just that there are specifics like Catalonia and Gibraltar on top of the rest.

      Meanwhile everywhere in the world the left parties are failling at the same time media are taken by hard right activist. Propaganda works at full force, and liberals (in south Europe that’s center right) are siding hard with the fascists to decrease the influence of the left.

      Left is not without its own failings. Ironically the fights for societal freedom and ecology are quite liberal in their execution and not very inclusive. Many people are left behind with climate change and the fight for women and sexual rights is frontal and basically tell people to agree or gtfo. Well, they do gtfo then to the other side that talk to poor people: fascists.

    • iByteABit [he/him]English
      3•1 year ago

      Except if you happen to be in one of the minorities they are targeting.

      Here is a quote that will probably go over your head, but I’ll post it regardless in the hopes that you’re better than the rest of the far-right voters:

      First they came for the Communists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Communist

Then they came for the Socialists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Socialist

Then they came for the trade unionists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a trade unionist

Then they came for the Jews
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Jew

Then they came for me
And there was no one left
To speak out for me
        • @PiersEnglish
          0•1 year ago

          God knows why.

          Because of the things you said and how you said them. Self-evidently.

          In this comment you represent that your original statement is moderate and has wide agreeability.

          Your original statement does not. If it was intended to, then you need to attend to the fact that you have not represented your views on the matter effectively and people are responding to you as though your views were other than they are.

          If the original comment when read by people who aren’t you means what you meant it to mean, then this second comment is horseshit and you should either stand by what you said and accept that others find it repellent, or perhaps, reconsider your position.

          To be clear: Your original comment is unambiguously saying that you support the rise of a fascist state that would intentionally harm minorities. It does not matter if your intention was otherwise and you’ve just not made yourself sufficiently clear. We only know what you actually said. What you actually said is that you are in favour of this. By all means confirm that you are and own it, or, if you are not in favour, just fucking figure out what you need to change for the comment to reflect your actual values and edit it (possibly with a footnote explaining you needed to edit it because it didn’t quite express what you meant originally.)

          Don’t just throw your hands in the air and complain that people are responding to the things you said as though they are what you meant. And if they are what you meant, then fuck right off with trying to figure out how to soften it just enough to get people onside with you.