One of the reasons why both the PP and the PSOE have great difficulties in conveying their proposals and political convictions to the citizens, even in electoral campaigns, is the cultural war promoted by Sumar and Vox, which has occupied all the space and the attention of public opinion.
Issues such as the family, the impact of climate change, the type of education, the role of religion, new social rights, the regulation of migration, the role of the State or security, which were previously addressed by politics through of the public debate and in Parliament, are now raised within the framework of the social dispute and in the media.
A cultural war between those who want to re-establish order, a position defended by Vox, which implies returning to a society of obedience and submission, and those who seek a radical change in the role of institutions and the system, a position it postulates some of the political forces that are integrated in Sumar, to undermine the capitalism that enslaves citizens.
This cultural war, started in the United States, has turned public debates into civil war, seeking to divide society and turning the exercise of democracy into a fierce contest, where there can only be winners and losers without the possibility of giving political nuance.
This political conception has taken root in Spanish politics. The two main parties, PSOE and PP, which had managed to be retaining walls against such practices, are now being forced to assume their postulates as their own. This dynamic is weakening the political space of both parties to the point that, despite winning the elections and being able to govern, if both parties wanted to, without the need for political support from Vox or Sumar, they end up assuming the framework of war culture they have established.
The large amount of political energy that the PSOE and the PP must allocate to debating issues unrelated to the needs of the country will be accentuated, to the extent that they succumb to the dangerous game of addressing the great challenges that Spain has from the public morality defined by Vox and Add.
Both the PSOE and the PP have grown politically since the transition, promoting the necessary reforms that Spain needed, with a conservative or progressive vision, to consolidate democracy, enter the European Union, address the great social consensus such as the pension pact or deploy the Spain of the autonomies.
Beyond their political differences, the approach of the PSOE and the PP was to establish a solid consensus on the past, a strengthening of their conservative social democratic and liberal ideological framework to offer a space for coexistence for Spaniards and keep moral issues away from the political achievements. Reason prevailed, and not emotions, to decide what could or could not be done. This political vision and action is now in jeopardy if both parties fail to get rid of the culture war and if they fail to focus on the great challenges that lie ahead for Spain.
The culture war is forging sectarianism and trenches. It transforms public space into a battlefield and is extolling intolerance and prejudice. It supplants real politics and imposes the dictatorship of what is supposedly moral or just.
The electoral campaign that we have just experienced has highlighted the danger that all public debate is left in the hands of the cultural war, where, under a possible just cause, dishonest propaganda is hidden to achieve political ends.
All parties, without exception, should move away from the culture war that is dividing society. Getting rid of the cultural war implies resolving problems in institutions, both public and private, restoring the ideal of political stability and recovering the capacity for understanding between the different political forces, even if they are not ideologically related.
After the electoral results, the new political stage that is opening asks whether the PP and the PSOE decide to govern or to oppose, prioritizing a political agenda for Spain far from the cultural war or, on the contrary, if they are subordinated to it, to the waiting for one of the two fronts to definitively win the contest.
