The slogan that won the municipal and regional elections was not "You win", the elegant official motto of the popular people of Madrid, but the one they shouted at Pedro Sánchez at his polling station, the shared and unofficial slogan of Vox and PP: "That I voted for you Txapote”. This phrase with a consonant rhyme and little logic (technically Txapote could vote from jail but Sánchez was not elected in this appointment) is lacking, memorable, aggressive and offensive, suitable for shouting, painting on posters, making memes, including in speeches or slide in a cut of a few seconds of television. Pure Spanish alt-right.
Most associate the phrase with the viral video in which a guy who was going to be interviewed for a fine surprises the reporters of the RTVE program 'Hablando Claro' by releasing it live. “The cry ‘that Txapote vote for you’ is absolute genius. It is an accurate, funny and catchy slogan. A fined uncle from Cazalegas is going to kill Pedro Sánchez," said someone anonymous on Twitter. But if we look closely, the tagline is anything but viral or a spontaneous movement.
He was born on September 3 in Seville, when someone wrote it on a poster to receive an act by Pedro Sánchez. There is no previous trace and it is credible that this is the case: the ETA member's approach to the Basque Country had been announced a few days before. Three days later he was already in the background at a Vox press conference. Right-wing media instantly celebrate him, and use him to headline his chronicles with the message that the President cannot set foot outside of Moncloa without being booed.
A couple more banners appear, and after a few days of being moved on Twitter by the regulars in these things, the trend fades, until the end of January when the "spontaneous" appears on television. At the beginning of February, Ayuso quoted him in the Madrid Assembly: "Socialist candidates, not only in communities, but also in town halls, are ashamed of Pedro Sánchez and are afraid of a phrase: 'Let Txapote vote for you'". Consuelo Ordóñez, whose brother was killed by Txapote, responded to Ayuso, outraged. The elections were already about ETA. Later it was learned that the spontaneous cry was called Chema de la Cierva, he was the son of a Suárez minister, and had collaborated with Vox for years as a photographer.
From that moment the message was unstoppable. The phrase was said by Esperanza Aguirre, and also by Ortega Smith. They told Reyes Maroto through San Isidro and Juan Lobato down the street. In Valencia, stickers with that text appeared on the PSOE electoral posters, in Mallorca a billboard, painted in Melilla and a labeled sheet was seen in front of Ferraz. He rang through the streets of Barcelona. The New Generations of the PP chartered a van with the message. T-shirts with the slogan were sold. The networks and certain media were flooded.
On TikTok it's easy to see how the viral phrase caught on and how the videos that were born later did too, many on that same platform, others generated elsewhere on the internet and rebroadcast there. Anonymous thematic accounts have been in charge of promoting all the material, but also many more or less well-known users. For months, there has been talk of the other trolling on RTVE made in the live connection with a tiktoker; from the techno session where DJ Ángel Belmonte included the phrase in the music; Ibai's circumstantial face when Kun Agüero says it at a Kings League meeting; of the child recorded by his father yelling at the door of the headquarters of Picassent's socialists; of the versions of the Simpsons; from the owner of a parrot who teaches him to say it; from the TikTok reporter who asks people on the street to continue the phrase “Pedro Sánchez”; the one that records people of different origins repeating it; of dozens of Granada fans who chant him; of the young man who interrupts a meeting in Ayamonte shouting it.
Of all the videos, one is shocking because it shows a daughter recording her mother at the polling station. The woman introduces her vote, looks at the camera and says "Txapote vote for you" while she listens to her daughter die laughing. She has 600,000 views in 24 hours. When looking at the comments, TikTok suggests the most popular search that users have done after viewing the images. In this case they searched for “who is Txapote”. The ETA member has been in jail for 22 years, perhaps since before some of those who have seen, commented, broadcast, recorded, laughed and voted influenced by these videos were born.
