After the authentic tsunami in Catalan politics caused by the alliance between the Catalan Socialist Party (PSC), Barcelona en Comú (Comuns) and the Partido Popular (PP) which displaced Xavier Trias from the Barcelona mayoralty, the parties are starting to take stock of the damage. Those in Madrid, unanimously, from the perspective of satisfaction at having once again foiled Catalan independentism, since, although in the first instance the major victim was Trias, with him Ernest Maragall and the Catalan Republican Left (ERC) were left out of the city government. Opinion pieces by Manuel Valls and Jorge Fernández Díaz were sufficiently clarifying on that point: the former highlighting his pride for having left his mark when he blocked the way for the independence movement, and that four years later Sirera has done as he did in 2019 with Maragall; and the latter, with a text that does not need to be read beyond the headline: Barcelona: "Antes roja que rota" ("Better red than broken").
We have yet to see whether the destruction wrought on Saturday will generate a massive tidal movement or if it will be limited to a wave of indignation that fails to channel the discomfort, since there are many mouths to feed, from the pro-independence parties themselves to the ANC, and including those who advocate abstention in the Spanish elections of July 23rd. The Republican Left has made a move by naming Ernest Maragall as a candidate for the Senate in a plot twist aiming to take advantage of the anti-natural movement by the parties of '78 that returns Catalan politics to a position on the chessboard that, it seemed, in this space, was only of interest to the PP. Between those who opted for the war between blocs in the face of the much-vaunted agenda of reencounter, only the supporters of the first have been left standing, those for whom it is all the same, terrorism and independence, both of them caricatures of a situation against which it is necessary to fight, both in the Basque Country and Catalonia.
The PSC has an important mayoralty in Barcelona and very serious municipal power, since 60% of the citizens of Catalonia have a Socialist mayor. It is not, by any means, a small thing. But politics is not what it used to be and everything is much more volatile. Today everything is won and lost at a speed that did not happen before. And, perhaps because of this, the changes in perceptions go at a dizzying speed. Also in the moves made. In less than 48 hours, Trias has gone from losing the mayoral office and accusing the PSC's Jaume Collboni of dishonest operations to extending his hand to a pact with the Socialists in the Diputació de Barcelona, the provincial body. His words sum up the politics of Trias: "That I am angry and indignant does not mean that we in life are not intelligent. We cannot remain outside the world, and we must have the capacity to be able to govern".
Curiously, or not, the people in Together for Catalonia (Junts) who applauded the forceful, almost choleric, Trias on Saturday - who let loose the expression that has already become famous, "Que us bombin!" - "You can all go to hell!" - were the same people who were irritated that Trias had opened up this possibility. Among them, the MP Joan Canadell and the former mayor of Girona, Marta Madrenas. Junts will not be able to escape this debate, even if Jordi Turull tries to bury it as soon as possible, since the views within the organization are different and, as an illustration of this variance, is Trias, the biggest victim.