The statements by Inés Arrimadas last Monday, affirming that, after her party's electorial calamity in Catalonia she feels more reinforced than ever in the leadership of Ciudadanos (Cs) shows the extent to which they have disconnected from reality to become a party that is flatlining. Arrimadas and her candidate in Catalonia, Carlos Carrizosa, have become also-rans with just six deputies in the chamber and since the disappearance of Spain's UCD in the 1980s no political space has undergone such a comprehensive self-destruction. Going from 35 seats in 2017 and winning the elections, to having half a dozen and occupying seventh place out of eight parties with parliamentary representation is a feat that not just anyone can achieve. The party of hatred and tension, of opposition to the language and the educational model has encountered in Vox a bone that was too hard to chew. It is clear that anti-Catalanism has its place in Catalonia after the fracture that Cs has caused in Catalan society. But it was also a foregone conclusion that the moment the most extreme right took off its mask and defended the positions that Santiago Abascal embodies today, there would be little to be done by the far right of Rivera, Arrimadas, Carrizosa and so many others.
And that day came to Catalonia on February 14th, almost 15 years after three deputies led by Albert Rivera entered Parliament in 2006. Now Cs has got six, but with a big difference: then, the party entered in grand style, heralded by the most extreme media of the Spanish capital, and on the other hand this Sunday, it disappeared from the news, because the media who egged it on before have now ceased to take an interest in it. Cs were the useful idiots in the destabilization of Catalonia, they fulfilled the role assigned to them and, out of ambition, they missed an opportunity that, fortunately, they will never have again. They did not want to share a small part of the pie forming majorities with the PP or the PSOE, but rather the whole cake. In politics there are no second chances, and after aspiring to enter the Moncloa government palace at the end of the last decade with Mariano Rajoy and Pedro Sánchez, they became a party that was dispensable, unpleasant, unpredictable, annoying and uncomfortable for those who had nourished it. The last rites were already being prepared.
Now, after Sunday's defeat, Carrizosa in Catalonia and Arrimadas in Madrid are clinging to their positions with disproportionate virulence. Neither of them wants to go home, as they must be conscious of how cold it is outside and all that they have criticized so much they must now stretch out as long as possible. It will be like those automatons that go into autopilot, as no one will care what they say or do. The flag of the politics of hatred and division will be carried by those of Vox, and they can do nothing about it. Like all parties without roots and created from the top down, they will soon be a ghost party in Catalonia, without headquarters in the territory, with the half dozen MPs who won places this past Sunday, not a single mayor in the four Catalan constituencies, a couple of hundred local councillors - many of them in transit to Vox - and a lot of people in intermediate positions until four days ago who will soon be unemployed.
It is indeed the end. In Madrid they liken it to Rosa Díez's UPyD, a political space that never had any strength in Catalonia. Perhaps. From heaven to hell in fifteen years. It’s a good lesson in order to avoid forgetting how fast things move.