The philosopher Nuccio Ordine published a book ten years ago entitled in the form of an oxymoron: The utility of the useless. A manifest contradiction that he clarified as soon as he began: “There are knowledges that are ends in themselves and I consider useful everything that helps us to become better”. Change "knowledge" for "motions of censure" and that is what Vox thinks of his performance with Ramón Tamames in front. It will not overthrow the Government, but it can be useful.
Like all the motions of censure that have been promoted in Congress, with the exception of that of Pedro Sánchez in 2018 against Mariano Rajoy, the initiative will not prosper. The day after the confrontation between Tamames and the president, he will continue in Moncloa. But, will everything remain the same in the political courtyard?
The fact that something is theoretically useless at the service of the purpose for which it was created does not automatically make it harmless or innocuous. Therefore, depending on how, it can be useful, for example, to put the media focus on a Vox that has been stagnating downward in the polls for a while.
In the kitchen of politics, there is a rule of thumb that is clear: if you don't appear in the media, you don't exist. Let them talk about you, even if it's bad. Of course, if the little that you appear on the map is basically in the key of crisis or negative, you have a problem. It was happening to Vox. And the motion of censure wants to turn this panorama around, in a gimmicky way. He tries to draw Vox as the big problem for a Sánchez caricatured on the right as the worst of all evils (and presidents).
If it is possible to define in the collective imagination that Vox is the big stone in the shoe of the worst president Spain has ever had, even without removing him from the Government, the motion will have been useful for the interests of the great competitor of the PP among the right-wing voter . Abascal now says that Sánchez's is "the worst government in history", but before, in the midst of a pandemic, he claimed that it was "the worst government in eighty years". The worst since the Republic, therefore. Worse than the Francoists.
This last point is surely not shared by Ramón Tamames who was a member of the Communist Party of Spain (PCE) precisely because he considered, back in the fifties, that this was the most useful organization to fight against Franco. But Vox has not chosen him as a spokesperson for this reason as much as for the nostalgia that one of the best-known faces of the transition can arouse.
Is there less and less nostalgic for Francoism, not even for biological reasons? Well, Vox chooses to pull nostalgia for an idealized transition, even with the years of felipism incorporated there. This is how he discredits the Spain that Zapatero left, that Rajoy did not fix and that Sánchez would have finished off with the rapier.
Thus, the motion, even without going ahead, can be useful to them, if it improves their options. And the PSOE, if you know how to confront it in its fair measure, too. It would not be the first time that Sánchez seeks melee with the extreme right to mark a profile and weaken the PP.
