A political face-off is like a gun duel in the Wild West. One step, two steps and boom. In principle, whoever draws first wins. There is little use trying to boast of honesty if your opponent has already pulled the trigger without contemplation. Even if the data is not accurate or is misrepresented. The refutation after the fact is a consolation prize. This is what happened on Monday night on the muddy set of Atresmedia. Television is not the Senate. Sánchez sold some expectations that he failed to meet and Feijóo emptied his dialectical weapon for practically the 100 minutes.
The debate was harsh from the first minute. Perhaps that is why the night was lived with intensity in the most coffee-friendly social network, Twitter. Elon Musk still allows you to enjoy these evenings. There were several central themes: the “SúperVox glue”, Bildu and the horrifying slogan “que te vote Txapote” (remember: in a discussion about a matter of violence, the sensible position is always to position yourself on the side of the victims), the Falcon (which all the presidents used and will use for security reasons), the trap pact to allow the list with the most votes to govern or the role of the two moderators.
Especially commented on was the controversy over the verification of some economic data offered by Feijóo. Sánchez was not quick to refute them, although the networks took care of that later. Namely, Rajoy has not created more jobs than the current government or energy is not more expensive in Spain than in Europe. But the job of dismantling "the mountain of lies" should not have been the responsibility of the tweeters, but rather the opposite, in this case, of Sánchez.
On the Atresmedia set it was also shown that the political debate has become impoverished. It is something that happens almost weekly in Parliament, but it is another thing to demonstrate it before a massive audience. González, Aznar, Zapatero, Rajoy... their predecessors were more constructive. The loser in this case is democracy, that is, all of us. We must not forget that the majority of citizens consider that politics is the main social problem. Neither Sánchez nor Feijóo thought about it during their face to face.
The mud is not good for the country. Many Spaniards are still outraged and the face to face, rightly, reaffirmed their discomfort. Even so, we will always have the memes. What would politics be without social media?
