Anyone who reads the press, listens to the radio or watches the news must come to an unappealable conclusion: the far right is the main protagonist of political information, and not only of the daily news (the Valencia negotiations, for example), but is the protagonist of in-depth analyses, of cover interviews, even of Sunday reports. You lift a stone and there it is, crouched, on the far right. Kids vote for the far right. The poor are moving en masse to the far right. Orriolean internal Catalonia. Moderate parties (sic) seek agreement with the far right. Junts does what he does because… of the far right. One day we will wake up and Abascal will be on the cover HI! Orriols will be invited to join the jury Euphoria.
Does such a presence make sense? It is true that the far-right forces show, according to all polls, a clearly upward trend in the electoral scenario, and this legitimately makes them the center of media attention. It is also true that this growth of the far right breaks with some indisputable truths, such as that Spain, and especially Catalonia, have been “vaccinated” against parties of this type.
This all deserves media attention, certainly. But from here there is a path to elevate the far right to a great protagonist of the political moment. Today the ultras are similar to the stock market listing of AI. A bubble. Its price is inflated, so to speak, and it is for two reasons.
On the one hand, the media adapts to the future scenarios traced by the polls. This is very evident in Catalonia, where Aliança Catalana is not treated for what it is (a party with two seats), but for what they say it will be. Never mind that the elections that will (supposedly) explode like a rocket will be held in three years, a political eternity. Aliança today receives the media treatment of a twenty-seat party.
On the other hand, far-right parties, with their outbursts, insults and hate speech, work exceptionally well on the networks. Hate is the currency that moves the networks and the ultras are its coiners. The media experiences this in their economic accounts, which are increasingly dependent on clickbait. When a media outlet publishes news about Vox or Aliança on its website, traffic increases. The facade sells it. Hence partly that information bubble. The problem is that the ultra-balloon, artificially inflated, can act as a self-fulfilling prophecy, because far-right parties end up benefiting from all the free publicity it brings to them and their agenda, which ends up getting confused with the general sentiment of society.
We should think about deflating the ultra’s balloon before it ends up bursting in our faces.
