Skilled in verbal fencing, clever in tactics, incandescent and leathery, Pablo Iglesias began as a fearsome moralist. He was the Savonarola of the new left. In addition to exciting his followers, he scared his opponents. In a politics dominated by the pragmatists, the decaffeinated, the unbelievers, the hypocrites and the corrupt, Iglesias preached with puritanical brilliance. Indifferent to the carpets of power, heir to the deep left and the disenchanted anti-Francoism of the transition, he was the political incarnation of the indignados, the movement that, let us remember, emerged in the midst of the economic crisis as an expression of the young generations, the most prepared of history, who rejected the pacts and silences of the transition and who were not willing to let themselves be sacrificed.
The success was dazzling. Podemos was about to surpass the PSOE, it embodied the rejection of the cultural hegemony of the PP and, with a cold anger reminiscent of Robespierre, it called for a purifying fire for the "regime of 78". Despite the impetus of his indignation, he knew how to be patient to wait for the pact with Pedro Sánchez. Upon reaching the vice presidency, a flaw in his personality, his arrogance, became his Achilles' heel. Already the dispute with Íñigo Errejón left him in evidence: his pride blinds him. He likes fighting and winning more than adding. The enormous width of the front of his enemies contributed to excite that arrogance: the entire Madrid press, including El País; the right, the extreme right and the more systemic PSOE. Suddenly, the reeds of righteous moralism (for example: the escraches to the leaders of the PP) became spears. Savonarola was inspected day and night. Pursued by truths (chalet) or lies, Robespierre was accused.
Clever, had a moment of insight. He resigned, turned into a lightning rod for a party too young, purist and rootless to withstand the rain of lightning that power provokes. Since then, Podemos has been unraveling, becoming a party with an anthropological radicalism (trans law) that surprises even some of its followers. Obsessed with the questionable queer vision, he distances himself from the social vision.
Iglesias returns now, resentful, ready to fight, that is: to subtract. The specter of Robespierre cannot bear that Podemos takes the friendly and smiling, less bellicose, more inclusive turn that Yolanda Díaz proposes. Iglesias is not even allowed to be a teacher. They don't leave him alone in civilian life. But he doesn't leave his followers alone either. That pride, transformed into arrogance, is now haughtiness and contempt. There are characters who are determined to agree with their enemies. Instead of staying on course, they fall into the traps and provocations that their enemies have devised to lead them astray, embitter them, and make them lose their way. Having come to the battlefield with a purpose, they end up muddy and spinning in a maze.
