A 1978 classic sci-fi horror film. The best version of the four film adaptations of Jack Finney's novel written in 1955. The silent, progressive and unstoppable replacement of people by clones of the same appearance, but without a trace of humanity in their character. The same but different. Part of the criticism saw in the film's subtext the resurgence of the communist threat and the substitution of some values for others in American society in an environment that anticipated Donald Reagan's victory in 1981.
In real life, substantial mutations in societies are not carried out by aliens, but by real people who promote marginal ideas until they are no longer marginal. In political theory this is called the expansion of the Overton window and it happens in two ways. Either because politicians end up validating ideas and projects that are already common currency among citizens, or because they themselves take the risk of putting an unpopular program into circulation, even causing scandal with the aim of convincing and normalizing it.
In Catalonia, the major works to expand the Overton window were carried out in the early regional elections of 2012, when Masismo granted independence the endorsement that naturalized secession as a feasible project that deserved to occupy the center of the political debate. But simultaneously there was another enlargement of the window. The emergence of the CUP with three deputies in the Parliament also normalized the extreme left discourse and displaced, due to the need for its votes, the ideological axis of the Chamber, until it became one of the most left-wing on the continent. The new window measures were consolidated by Colau's arrival at Barcelona City Council in 2015. In Spain, the Overton remodeling works were carried out in phases: Podemos in the 2015 general elections (with the prologue of the 2014 European elections) and with Vox in 2019. Behind each of these expansions was the normalization of debates, ideas and statements that until then were disparaged as radical, dangerous or ridiculous. Or for all three things at the same time.
The measures of the Catalan Overton window – which are the problems and solutions that reach the category of reasonable, and therefore debatable in the sphere of institutions – appear again as the backdrop of the May 12 elections. And we know that the PSC's intention to reduce its size so that it stops talking about independence is unrealizable, whatever the results and the resulting governance formula, if there is one.
But there is a new project to expand the window with an uncertain outcome that is about to be waged on the margins of sovereignty. The building permit is requested by someone who, like the CUP in 2012, does not yet have parliamentary representation: Aliança Catalana, the candidacy that will clone the ideology of Éric Zemmour in France, located to the right of lepenism. Aliança Catalana is even more aggressive than Vox when it comes to the Bermuda triangle that makes up its ideology: immigration, crime and the theory of the “great substitution” of its own culture through Islamization. Extreme right in vein, but sweetened with ratafía, covered with espardenyes and the head covered with barretina.
If Aliança Catalana sits in the Parliament, the effect could be similar to that caused by the CUP in 2012. It drags, this time to the right, the sovereigntist bloc, particularly Junts. And naturalization in the political debate of statements and solutions that until now were unimaginable in the secessionist playing field. In essence, the necessary answer as to whether those hypothetical ultra deputies would also be counted to draw secessionist majorities or if an ineffective and debatable cordon sanitaire would be applied to them, as is currently done with Vox, which involves, for example, not even inviting them. to the drought summits.
In May we will know the new measurements of the Catalan Overton window. If it remains the same or if the expansion project is aimed to the right. We will see, in a film version, how the silent, progressive – and we will see if unstoppable – invasion of the ultracorps advances in Catalonia. Could it be true – beyond physics – that every action is followed by a reaction?
