Pedro Sánchez has done it again. I don't know if calculating a chess move in the five days he was confined in the Moncloa or resorting to a poker stroke at dawn on Monday. He has decided to continue, with even more force if possible, and the theatricality of the operation has confused those who wanted him out and those who implored him to stay and thus maintain their positions.
It is a crack that disorients the staff by overcoming real or fictitious adversities. It combines, following the subtleties of Machiavelli's The Prince, strength and cunning, fortune and audacity. He doesn't care about being loved or feared, what he intends is to hold power using the tools at his disposal. And, until now, he has achieved this even at the cost of governing against approximately half of Spaniards, whom he places in the darkness of the right and the extreme right. Without an agreement with the other Spain on a few main issues, I predict greater upheavals in the stage that begins after the long and unprecedented break in April.
Sánchez's adversaries are not only in the opposition, but in the judiciary and the media. The Government maintains that what is disturbing is not that the judges do their job, but that they rely on the media to overthrow the political class. You have to be naive not to have noticed this practice so common in many liberal democracies. He himself has experience dealing with judges and journalists.
The full stop announced by Sánchez does not consist only of speeches against the “global reactionary movement,” but of future laws that are approved with the requirements established by the Constitution and that protect the competing interests of citizens in any modern society. There is an old principle in political science that says that the most delicate moment for governments is when they begin to reform. Here we are.
If you change the rules of the judiciary without established consensus, you will make a mistake. And if he wants to silence the press, no matter how hostile, scoundrel and miserable it may be, he will dig a deeper hole in the confrontation between the two Spains. In any case, a solvent and solid democracy consists of a tough opposition, an independent justice system and a critical and free press. I heard Joe Biden say it at Friday's dinner with the correspondents accredited in Washington, a show full of humor and subtle but poisoned darts against the White House guest on duty. A little irony, please.
A warning to surfers regarding the reorientation of the media, mostly digital media, which are becoming factories of emotions without promoting analysis based on facts. Legendary journalist Walter Cronkite was chosen as the man Americans most trusted half a century ago. The general public trusted his comments.
Sánchez says that freedom of expression must not be confused with freedom of defamation and that we must show the world how democracy and freedom are defended. Strongly agree. But first we must aspire to something simpler, which is to gain the trust of the greatest number of citizens who simply aspire to be governed with responsibility and common sense. Without doing comedy.
