Spoiler: the future is already intense

Instead of a lesson in humility for analysts, the results of the 28-M elections multiply the interpretations and the eloquence of the comments.

Oliver Thansan
Oliver Thansan
29 May 2023 Monday 22:31
6 Reads
Spoiler: the future is already intense

Instead of a lesson in humility for analysts, the results of the 28-M elections multiply the interpretations and the eloquence of the comments. Preliminary speculation, especially when it is rigorous, is part of the result and helps to confirm forecasts or deny certainties. There are things, however, that do not change, such as the informative display of the TV3 special program, with visual shortcuts so effective that it was possible to follow it without sound.

It's not just any Monday. At 6:30 a.m., Carlos Herrera (Cope) personalizes the socialist defeat in the figure of President Pedro Sánchez and, with that joy, says: "The fish already smells." The image is powerful, above all because it adds a transversal forecast in most Spanish media: the future will be intense. It is not necessary to be an expert to sense that the intensity is not innocent and that it will be treated as a slogan. A slogan that will try to influence the mood of the voters, turned into spectators.

To enhance the political value of intensity, the tension would have to be maintained. Even La Sexta has joined the alarmist language and, in the subtitles, has spoken of the catastrophe of Sánchez in Valencia. Language can be an aphrodisiac, so it is worth remembering that hecatomb means great slaughter. Meanwhile, in Ser, Àngels Barceló has highlighted the progress of the PP and, returning to the Valencian Community, has said: "A popular hurricane devastated Valencia." The interpretive surge denotes an explicit combat between those who exploit the discouragement of the parties touched and sunk (PSOE, ERC, Podemos...) and the euphoria of those who stir up the ancestral blood of the two Spains (who, like everyone else, You know, it includes a third: that of those who do not want to be Spanish).

And at 11:18 a.m., what we call the information bomb explodes, with debatable taste. Pedro Sánchez appears to announce the advancement of the elections as a legitimate measure that places democracy in the sphere of the ballot box and not of social gatherings. His attitude is more that of a bold president in the midst of a dizzying crisis than of a fish in a rotting phase. However, even fleetingly, he has regained the helm of a ship with too many crew members willing to mutiny (or shipwreck) her. Chance is the father of all algorithms: Sánchez's announcement coincides with the last chapter, stormy and full of exponential betrayals, of the Succession series (HBO Max).

And the abstention? plethoric. Already set to make creative comparisons, Blai Marsé, the music expert at Catalunya Ràdio, explains that the sum of voters for Jaume Collboni and Ada Colau is equivalent to the number of spectators who have attended the (pause cuqui ) Coldplay concerts. Oh, and I almost forgot: Miguel Ángel Revilla has sunk in Cantabria. He will now have more time to go to El homiguero.