Political scientists and experts in political communication point out that the president imitates the communication of the extreme right and has created an “image in permanent opposition to the very enemies of the extreme right.”
One year after the blackest week of the PP, in which Isabel Díaz Ayuso won the fight against Pablo Casado, she, the president of the Community of Madrid, has reached this pre-campaign period as leader of the hardest wing of the conservative party. That of the “cowardly right” that Santiago Abascal, leader of Vox, said, has been banished for a long time in the community chaired by Díaz Ayuso because the popular leader, even without being able to overthrow Vox, has managed to contain it with a speech that the voters themselves of the extreme right recognize that it represents them.
Faced with the term “moderation” that is used to define the current leadership of Genoa, in the PP of Madrid they add the need for the cultural battle. If in the more temperate PP represented by the Andalusian Juanma Moreno, Borja Sémper or Alberto Núñez Feijóo himself are committed to reducing the tension of the public debate, the Madrid leader brings up her already famous “vote you Txapote”, even stirring up a part of the victims of ETAwarns that Spanish society is “on the verge of the totalitarian drift of the Second Republic”, draws parallels between the government of Pedro Sánchez and the authoritarianism of Daniel Ortega in Nicaragua, where opponents of the regime are imprisoned, or compares the protests in defense of public health with the riots in Catalonia.
right-wing populisms
His most aggressive and frontist speech against Sánchez or against certain postulates of the left have made the opposition compare Ayuso with Trump, Bolsonaro or the movements of the extreme right in general. Is it like them? “His speech has populist and Trumpist overtones, that is unquestionable, but his policies are more orthodox,” he acknowledges. Ana Sofía Cardenal, Professor of Political Science at the Open University of Cataloniawhich details that this comparison is produced by the “exaggerations and ideological distortion” of his speech: “He is the one who takes the caricature of this government, which they call Frankenstein, the furthest.”
Guillermo Fernández, Professor at Carlos III of Political Science and specialized in European radical right, also establishes a difference between discourse and politics. But it goes further. This political scientist, author of “What to do with the extreme right in Europe”, explains that at the moment the European conservative parties are facing the extreme right with some tension and in two different ways. On the one hand, there are those who consider that the indifference is the best strategy so that these movements do not continue expanding their social base, on the other, those who understand that in order not to lose a part of their electorate they have to make their own or copy some slogans or ways of doing things on the extreme right. And in this second bag he puts Ayuso.
“Not having complexes, his self-confidence or the provocation“they equate it to characters associated with populism such as those mentioned, “but it is more comparable to the classic right that has imitated the political communication of the extreme right,” explains Fernández, who believes that the most notorious equivalent of this type of strategy would be Boris Johnson. “Ayuso is actually a continuist with respect to Aguirre or Cifuentes, although her liberal model always tries to go one more degree. What is new about her is her casual style, not only with the left but even with her own, and her commitment to the question of identity, which is something that gets a lot of votes.This idea of associating their image with the identity of a supposed model of life (Madridism) that at the same time opposes the left and the independentistas and who are the classic enemies of the far-right, that’s what has similarities with the far-right”.
To this identity exercise Belén Fernández-García, political scientist and member of the Association for Political Communication (ACOP)calls it “nativism” and explains that it is one of the characteristics of the radical right, “a form of exclusive nationalism”, although in the case of Ayuso it has more to do with the idea of reinforcing Madrid’s identity against a government that the threat and not so much against immigrants, as Vox can do.
Debate with Vox in the Assembly
In the plenary sessions of the Madrid Assembly it is increasingly evident how the representative of Vox, Dew Monastery, and Ayuso try to distance themselves from each other in the final stretch of the legislature. The first by putting more ideological issues on the table such as abortion, problems associated with immigration (such as the lack of security or the deterioration of public services) or issues linked to equality and sexual freedom; the second, blaming him for his lack of initiative or even accusing him of copying those proposed by the Government. “They propose the same as me but a little more,” he told them recently in a plenary session. Although from the point of view of the political scientists and experts in political communication consulted, it is just the other way around: “Ayuso’s merit is that it is not so easy to copy, but she has managed to please the far-right voter by copying her ways,” he points out. Cardinal.
madrileñismo
“She has built an image in permanent opposition to the very enemies of the extreme right, she is the scourge of Sánchez, of the independentistas and defender of the Madrid identitya package in which little by little it has been including elements of the conservative agenda such as the defense of the bulls, nods to the Catholic Church… all this generates an effect of proximity to the extreme right although de facto there are differences”, underpins Fernández, who equates this exercise by Ayuso for incorporating conservative values into an identity message with what happened in Catalonia, where little by little the stellate of the balconies began to be accompanied by proclamations associated with the left.
“If she were a Trumpista, she would not be in the PP but in Vox and they would have signed her with all the honours,” she reflects Jorge Santiago, PhD in Political Communication from the Camilo José Cela University. From his point of view, it is necessary to “differentiate the governmental role”, in which whoever is in charge has to govern for all, “and the electoral role”, which in recent times has been permanent in the Spanish political scene. What Ayuso does is “tightrope walk” and try “not to step on the wrong tiles”.
fernandez concludes by saying that it does not seem that Ayuso is obsessed with the immigrationhe abortion or sexual identities as the leaders associated internationally with the extreme right or as Vox in Spain have shown, but he has managed to make his “provocative, carefree and identity-oriented” speech like the voter of Abascal’s party.