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.

  • timicin
    21•1 year ago

    moderates are the reason why the extremist right groups exist per martin luther king’s explanation: https://letterfromjail.com/

    tldr: I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro’s great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen’s Counciler or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to “order” than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says: “I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I cannot agree with your methods of direct action”; who paternalistically believes he can set the timetable for another man’s freedom; who lives by a mythical concept of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait for a “more convenient season.” Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection.

    • @[email protected]
      1•1 year ago

      I understand Martin Luther King’s quote in its context, but I fail to see the parallel to the situation at hand. Can you elaborate?

      How are “white moderates” who tolerated racial injustice similar to moderate parties who suffer electoral losses to far right populist parties? I’m honestly not seeing how the situation is analogous.