Donald Trump's administration was the first to rebrand his lies as "alternative facts." They are also that, the "inaccurate statements" of Alberto Núñez Feijóo in the campaign, for example about pensions. And they are, equally, the "changes of opinion" of Pedro Sánchez, always and about almost everything nuclear.
In Catalonia, where the "great trolling" of the procés has been criticized a lot, the lies of the PP and PSOE seem to lend themselves less to collective mockery, although they are more clearly identified. And with this spirit, on Sunday people will go (or not) to the polls. With the perspective and the bewilderment generated by a recent past that they want to sell us as far away and surpassed, and by a disturbing present that seems to want us to choose between one or the other, in the most classic style of “scare or death”.
Added to this panorama is a party like Junts, which has taken to wearing a sign hanging on its back with the danger symbol and the legend "under construction". And an ERC that now pretends that it does not know a PSOE that it has propped up until the last moment, most of the time in a dedicated and uncritical way.
The CUP's fondness for blocking its own and strangers does not seem like the great alternative either. Just like other small formations and basically synonymous with sterile division, but at the same time they are very fond of lecturing the rest on how to add or even multiply. All lie.
More. We have already passed the middle of a campaign where ERC has presented an unrecognizable (and at times invisible) Gabriel Rufián as headliner. They have covered it up with Teresa Jordà, Oriol Junqueras (and whoever they could), while they have made him mutate the tone and substance of his statements.
Too much leap, from his classic boastful and lacking style, with which he came to label Carles Puigdemont and his entourage as "moronics" or "James Bond apprentices", to the (very little credible) appeals these days to unity and to the good tone between independentistas. But he hasn't changed his mind. Basically, and everyone sees that it is by pure electoral calculation, he is now forced to say things in which he does not believe at all. That is why, in the campaign, they have hidden it as much as they can.
Politics is, more and more, emotion. But that shouldn't banish reason. In their right dose, they must know how to combine. For this reason, the declarations of eternal love that politicians now dedicate to us in the campaign should have been preceded by facts that would give them credibility. There is less than a week left for the citizens to decide who is believed more. Who identifies less “alternative facts”, “inaccurate statements” or exaggerated “changes of opinion”.
The key will be, in large part, in the judgment that people make about who has lied to them less so far and who looks like they will do so to a lesser extent in the immediate future. It is not an attractive choice. But it will be the great choice of many.
