This is just a quick note on a development in Spain that might have some interest in the United States.
On Sunday, the extremmely conservative Spanish “political” party “Vox” had a conference and it attracted a few interesting speakers. I have not been able to find the complete story yet, so this is what I have thus far.
There were three interesting spekers at the conference, I suspect they were using video calls. They included Viktor Orban, the Hungarian president, Italy’s Giogia Maloni, leader of the “Brothers of Italy” party and probable new president of the country. The third speaker, and the one that you might be surprised at, is one Donald J Trump.
The “Brothers of Italy” party will probably govern in a right wing alliance including Silvio Berlusconi, who wons most of the Italian private press and television. The party itself is the direct descendent of Benito Mussolini’s Fascist party, and even included members that really are direct descendents of Mussolini.
The Spanish party “Vox” during the conference had a band on that played a catchy little song that condemened the progressives and called for a return to 1936 politics. That was the year when General Francisco Franco began the Spanish Civil War and ushered in a forty five year dictatorship.
Vox is an interesting party mostly for what they hate their publicly stated hates include:
- Non Christian religions, probably non Catholic, and probably non conservative Catholic
- LGBTQ community
- Abortion/contraception
- Socialists
- Communists
- Liberals
- Catalans (The province of Catalunya)
- Basques (The Basque province)
Women, at least those who choose to work
They have probably got an agenda against:
- Non Europeans. They aeem to like to look down the street and see homgenised colours
- Any real vestige of democracy
- Just about anybody who shows any sign of resistance.
That is no exaggeration at all.
They march carrying the flag of the dictatorship; it has the Francoist coat of arms on it. They do have bully boys appear to begin street unrest. In Barcelona a few years ago I saw them at Plaza Catalunya carrying their flags and kicking over the occupied tables on the street. If the occupants protested, they soon found that they had a group of others standing by to “quieten” them. The police did arrive quickly and the thugs ran into buses with, mostly, Madrid registrations.
They have been resaonably quiet here, Catalunya.
Vox has eleven seats in the Catalan Parliament, making them the largest right wing party, about eight percent of the seats (there is proportional representation here.) That gives them one third of the members of the ruling party (Esquerra Republicana.) A third of the next party (Catalan Socialist Party,) just over a third of the party immediately ahead of them (Junts per Catalunya,)
I am happy to repot that most of the other right wing parties consider Vaox to be toxic to their brnd and will not join them in Coalition.
However, In the province of Castile y Leon, Vox is part of the ruling coalition, That is disturbing, but the province is very poorly populated, has high unemployment and has had substantial economic setbacks in recent times. It also declares itself to be the home of the Castillian language (Spanish) which does make for a natural audience for very right wing political players.
In any case, I just thought you might be interested in just who your former president is playing footsy with.