La ola populista: de Vox al AfD

Y Vox fue el único partido que hablaba de ese miedo sin ningún filtro.

The Catalan crisis as a catalyst.

That's something I don't think gets explained well enough outside Spain, actually.

The international press tends to frame Vox purely as immigration panic, but you're saying the national identity question came first.

La verdad es que son las dos cosas, pero el orden importa.

It's both, but the order matters.

El miedo a la ruptura de España fue primero.

Fear of Spain breaking apart came first.

Después, Vox adoptó el discurso antiinmigración porque vieron que funcionaba en otros países europeos.

Then Vox adopted anti-immigration rhetoric because they saw it working elsewhere.

Santiago Abascal aprendió de Le Pen, aprendió de Salvini en Italia.

Abascal learned from Le Pen, from Salvini in Italy.

Hay una especie de internacional populista que comparte estrategias y mensajes.

There is a kind of populist international that shares strategies and messaging.

A populist international.

I mean, the irony of hyper-nationalists coordinating internationally is something I genuinely never get tired of pointing out.

Sí, es una contradicción evidente, pero funciona porque comparten los mismos enemigos: la Unión Europea, los medios de comunicación convencionales, las élites globales.

Yes, it's an obvious contradiction, but it works because they share the same enemies: the EU, mainstream media, global elites.

La identidad nacional es el producto que venden, pero la organización es completamente transnacional.

National identity is the product they sell, but the organization is completely transnational.

Now, Germany is a different and in some ways more troubling case.

The AfD was also founded in 2013, originally as a eurosceptic party by economics professors, of all people.

Then it was taken over by the harder right.

How does that kind of transformation happen inside a party.

Bueno, la historia del AfD es fascinante.

The AfD's history is fascinating.

Empezaron criticando el rescate económico de Grecia durante la crisis del euro.

They started by criticizing the Greek bailout during the euro crisis.

Era un partido de economistas, de profesores universitarios.

It was a party of economists and university professors.

Pero cuando llegó la crisis de refugiados en 2015, el partido cambió por completo.

But when the refugee crisis hit in 2015, the party changed completely.

Los fundadores moderados se fueron, y los sectores más radicales tomaron el control, incluyendo figuras como Björn Höcke, que usa un lenguaje que evoca claramente el nazismo.

The moderate founders left and the harder factions took over, including figures like Björn Höcke, who uses language that clearly evokes Nazism.

And in 2024 the AfD became the first far-right party to win a regional election in eastern Germany since the Second World War.

The German constitutional court has been debating whether to ban the party outright.

That is not a small thing.

Es que Alemania tiene mecanismos legales específicos para esto, precisamente porque aprendió de su historia.

Germany has specific legal mechanisms for this, precisely because it learned from its history.

La Verfassungsschutz, que es el servicio de protección constitucional, monitoriza al AfD como una amenaza potencial.

The Verfassungsschutz, the constitutional protection service, monitors the AfD as a potential threat.

Pero hay un debate real: ¿es democrático prohibir un partido que representa al veinte por ciento del electorado?

But there is a real debate: is it democratic to ban a party that represents twenty percent of voters?

Here's what gets me about that debate.

Germany has the most explicit constitutional memory of where this road leads, and yet even there the taboos are breaking down.

What does that actually tell us.

A ver, creo que nos dice que los factores que generan el populismo son más poderosos que la memoria histórica en muchos casos.

I think it tells us that the factors generating populism are more powerful than historical memory in many cases.

En el este de Alemania, la reunificación prometió prosperidad que muchos sienten que nunca llegó.

In eastern Germany, reunification promised prosperity that many feel never arrived.

Hay una sensación profunda de abandono, de ser ciudadanos de segunda clase dentro de su propio país.

There is a deep sense of abandonment, of being second-class citizens in their own country.

Eso es un combustible muy poderoso para el resentimiento político.

That is very powerful fuel for political resentment.

The left-behind narrative.

And it's not purely economic, right.

Sociologists talk about status anxiety, people who feel the world is changing faster than they can adapt, and that the culture they grew up in is being displaced.

It's about recognition as much as money.

Sí, y esto es importante para entender por qué el populismo no desaparece aunque la economía mejore.

Yes, and this is important for understanding why populism doesn't disappear even when the economy improves.

En España, Vox sigue creciendo en regiones que no tienen grandes problemas económicos.

In Spain, Vox keeps growing in regions with no major economic problems.

En Suecia, los Demócratas Suecos tienen mucho apoyo en zonas que apenas han recibido inmigración.

In Sweden, the Sweden Democrats have strong support in areas that have received almost no immigration.

El miedo a perder la identidad cultural puede ser más poderoso que la experiencia real.

Fear of losing cultural identity can be more powerful than lived reality.

That's a genuinely disturbing finding.

I spent time reporting in Hungary in the early 2010s, just before Orbán consolidated power, and I remember thinking the economic grievances were real but the solution being offered was a kind of theater.

A performance of national strength.

Orbán es el modelo para muchos de estos partidos.

Orbán is the model for many of these parties.

Ha demostrado que es posible ganar elecciones repetidamente, controlar los medios de comunicación, cambiar la constitución, y seguir siendo miembro de la Unión Europea al mismo tiempo.

He has shown it is possible to win elections repeatedly, control the media, change the constitution, and still remain a member of the EU.

Es un manual para erosionar la democracia desde dentro sin romperla formalmente.

It is a manual for eroding democracy from within without formally breaking it.

Democratic backsliding, they call it.

Which is one of those political science terms that sounds almost gentle for something that is, in practice, quite serious.

Look, let's talk about Italy, because Meloni is a fascinating and in some ways confusing case.

She's been governing since 2022 and the sky hasn't fallen the way some people predicted.

La verdad es que Meloni es complicada.

Meloni is genuinely complicated.

Su partido, Fratelli d'Italia, tiene raíces directas en el neofascismo italiano.

Her party, Brothers of Italy, has direct roots in Italian neofascism.

Ella misma, de joven, admiraba públicamente a Mussolini.

She herself publicly admired Mussolini as a young woman.

Pero desde que llegó al poder ha moderado su discurso, ha mantenido el apoyo a Ucrania, y ha sido razonablemente cooperativa con Bruselas en temas económicos.

But since taking power she has moderated her rhetoric, maintained support for Ukraine, and been reasonably cooperative with Brussels on economics.

Entonces, ¿es realmente peligrosa o es simplemente una política conservadora con un pasado muy incómodo?

So is she truly dangerous or simply a conservative politician with a very uncomfortable past?

I put that exact question to an Italian journalist friend of mine last year, and she said something I haven't been able to shake.

She said: watch what she does to institutions, not what she says about foreign policy.

And when you look at what's happening with Italian public broadcasting and the judiciary, it gets less reassuring.

Exactamente.

Exactly.

Es el patrón Orbán otra vez.

It's the Orbán pattern again.

Meloni ha intentado controlar la RAI, que es la televisión pública italiana.

Meloni has tried to control RAI, Italy's public broadcaster.

Ha tenido conflictos serios con jueces que bloquearon sus políticas de inmigración.

She has had serious conflicts with judges who blocked her immigration policies.

El discurso cambia, pero la relación con las instituciones independientes es siempre tensa.

The rhetoric changes, but the relationship with independent institutions is always tense.

Eso es lo que hay que observar con atención.

That is what needs to be watched closely.

So let's go deeper on the historical moment.

Because these parties existed in the nineties, they existed in the early 2000s, and they were mostly fringe.

Something changed.

What was the ignition point.

Mira, creo que hay tres momentos clave.

I think there are three key moments.

Primero, la crisis financiera de 2008, que destruyó la confianza en las élites económicas y en los partidos tradicionales que prometieron que el sistema funcionaba bien.

First, the 2008 financial crisis, which destroyed trust in economic elites and the traditional parties that promised the system worked.

Segundo, la crisis de los refugiados de 2015, que convirtió la inmigración en una emergencia visual y emocional para millones de europeos.

Second, the 2015 refugee crisis, which turned immigration into a visual and emotional emergency for millions of Europeans.

Y tercero, las redes sociales, que permitieron a estos partidos comunicarse directamente con la gente sin pasar por los medios tradicionales.

And third, social media, which let these parties communicate directly with people, bypassing traditional media entirely.

2008 as the hinge point.

No, you're absolutely right about that.

I was in Spain in 2011, during the indignados movement, and I remember thinking that what I was watching wasn't just economic protest.

It was a wholesale withdrawal of consent from the entire political class.

That vacuum got filled, just not by the left.

Es que en España la izquierda también tuvo su momento populista, con Podemos.

In Spain the left also had its populist moment with Podemos.

Pero Podemos llegó al poder, entró en el gobierno, y perdió gran parte de su energía.

But Podemos entered government and lost much of its energy.

La derecha populista es más persistente porque trabaja con miedos más profundos: la identidad, el territorio, la nación.

Right-wing populism is more persistent because it works with deeper fears: identity, territory, nation.

Esos miedos no se satisfacen nunca con políticas concretas.

Those fears are never satisfied by concrete policies.

Which is a genuinely troubling thought.

If the demand is emotional rather than policy-based, what do mainstream parties do?

They've been trying to co-opt the immigration rhetoric for years and it doesn't seem to be working.

A ver, hay dos estrategias posibles.

There are two possible strategies.

Una es el cordón sanitario, que es negarse completamente a gobernar con estos partidos, como hicieron Bélgica y los Países Bajos durante años.

One is the cordon sanitaire, refusing completely to govern with these parties, as Belgium and the Netherlands did for years.

La otra es la estrategia de absorción, que es adoptar parte de su agenda.

The other is the absorption strategy, adopting part of their agenda.

El problema de la segunda es que normalizan las ideas extremas sin ganar los votos de sus rivales.

The problem with the second is that you normalize extreme ideas without actually winning their voters.

The centre-right moving toward far-right positions on immigration has been the dominant story of European politics for a decade.

And I've spoken to enough conservative politicians off the record to know that many of them are deeply uncomfortable with where they've ended up, but they feel they have no other option.

La verdad es que también existe una responsabilidad de los medios de comunicación.

There is also a responsibility on the part of the media.

Yo he trabajado en periodismo durante veinte años y sé que es muy fácil cubrir estos partidos de una manera que amplifica su mensaje.

Octavio has worked in journalism for twenty years and knows how easy it is to cover these parties in ways that amplify their message.

Cuando un político dice algo escandaloso, los medios lo repiten, lo analizan, lo debaten durante días, y al final el mensaje llega a millones de personas que nunca habrían escuchado al partido original.

When a politician says something scandalous, media repeat, analyze and debate it for days, and the message reaches millions who would never have heard the original party.

The amplification problem.

I've written about this directly.

There's a real tension between covering these movements honestly, not ignoring them, not pretending they don't exist, and not becoming a free megaphone for them.

I don't think journalism has resolved that yet, frankly.

Bueno, y mientras tanto el mapa político de Europa ha cambiado de manera permanente.

Meanwhile, Europe's political map has changed permanently.

En el Parlamento Europeo, los partidos de la derecha populista son ahora el segundo grupo más grande.

In the European Parliament, populist right parties are now the second largest group.

Tienen capacidad real para bloquear legislación sobre el clima, sobre migración, sobre el estado de derecho.

They have real capacity to block legislation on climate, migration, and the rule of law.

Esto no es una amenaza futura.

This is not a future threat.

Es la realidad de hoy.

It is today's reality.

So where does this end.

Because I've had this conversation with a lot of serious people and I get two very different answers.

One group says these parties will eventually have to govern, they'll make a mess of things, voters will lose faith, and the cycle will correct.

The other group says democratic norms, once eroded, don't come back easily.

Which camp are you in.

Mira, no soy optimista ni pesimista.

I am neither optimist nor pessimist.

Soy periodista, así que intento ser realista.

I am a journalist, so I try to be realistic.

Lo que sé es que el populismo no va a desaparecer mientras existan las condiciones que lo generan: la desigualdad, la desconfianza en las instituciones, la sensación de que la democracia no da respuestas reales.

What I know is that populism will not disappear as long as the conditions that generate it remain: inequality, distrust in institutions, the feeling that democracy does not deliver real answers.

La pregunta no es si estos partidos van a sobrevivir.

The question is not whether these parties will survive.

La pregunta es si las democracias europeas van a ser suficientemente fuertes para contenerlos sin traicionar sus propios principios.

The question is whether European democracies will be strong enough to contain them without betraying their own principles.

Y esa, Fletcher, es la pregunta más difícil de todas.

And that, Fletcher, is the hardest question of all.