Why does Juan Manuel de Prada never say what alternative he proposes to the 'Regime of '78'?

In Spain, we have a left that is demolishing our democracy, an attack that is meeting with considerable resistance.

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Among these resistances, we cannot count a minority of the right that wants to finish Sánchez's demolition work, rather than help stop it, in the perhaps deluded belief that the ruins will not be built on what the dominant left wants, but rather on what the marginal right dreams of. But what is it that dreams?

Today, the newspaper Abc published an article by Juan Manuel de Prada entitled "Open your eyes!". The article is like the usual ones from that writer: an attack on what he calls the "Regime of '78." Unlike most of the right, De Prada does not want to defend constitutional legality against Sánchez's attack: what he wants is to finish the job. A coincidence that is not the first: let us remember that two years ago De Prada insulted those of us who criticized the photo of Sánchez with Bildu.

In line with the most clumsy and obtuse right, De Prada is dedicated to launching attacks against entire generations of Spaniards, claiming that the generations that supported the Constitution in the 1978 referendum "did it stuffed with propaganda" (perhaps the propaganda they were most fed up with was precisely that of people like De Prada) and claiming that subsequent generations "cling to silly constitutionalism like saprophytes cling to a corpse". Comparing millions of Spaniards to bacteria because of their age is a clear example of dehumanization typical of totalitarian ideologies, which have already done similar things to millions of people because of their race, nationality or social class.

Like others, De Prada is placing all his hopes in young people, who "have not been bribed." Someone should warn him one day that one of the most illogical attitudes is generalization, such as morally classifying millions of people you don't know simply because of their age. This is not only illogical, but it's almost comical. De Prada asks these young people to "politically combat this rotten regime, from within and without, with will, courage, generosity, a spirit of sacrifice, a lively imagination, and creative optimism, until it is overthrown."

Curiously, De Prada, like the far left, calls for the overthrow of the "Regime of '78" but does not explain his alternative. This is common among the far right (the real one, the one that hates the "Regime of '78" not for what's wrong with it, but for what's democratic about it). Why does this writer never explain what he proposes in return? Is he so embarrassed to explain it? Is this alternative really that bad?

Of course, at this point, even though De Prada insists on hiding from us what he intends to build on the ruins of the "Regime of '78," it's not hard to imagine. Ten years ago, De Prada openly praised the Russian dictator Vladimir Putin, stating that "Russia is the only possible alternative to the New World Order; and the only dam against the Mohammedan invasion that remains for an inane and apostate Europe." A curious dam allied with Islamic dictatorships such as Iran, Sudan and Algeria and with socialist and communist dictatorships such as North Korea, China, Cuba and Venezuela.

In his eagerness to defend Putin's regime while disregarding the facts, just nine days before Russia's invasion of Ukraine, De Prada stated: "Russia, of course, has no interest in invading Ukraine". In line with Russian propaganda, in that article De Prada accused the US of "provoking a war in Ukraine". After Russia (not the US) started that war, De Prada justified the invasion, and did so using the lies of Russian propaganda: "We do not believe that Russia can be blamed for deciding to intervene to stop an eight-year massacre of compatriots in the Donbass." A pro-Russian hoax that I referred to here three years ago.

Honestly, I don't know if this guy wants to establish a regime like Putin's in Spain, but it is very revealing that he directs the harshest criticism against the "Regime of '78" and, at the same time, has so often passed up the opportunity to criticize the crimes of a dictatorship in which opponents end up in prison or dead, as has happened with Alexei Navalny, Anna Politkovskaya or Vladimir Kara-Murza, and which is now dedicated to kidnapping children and torturing and murdering civilians in Ukraine. A regime that is installing new monuments to Stalin, a dictator and genocidal maniac who murdered millions of people, and to Lenin, the first communist dictator, whose regime murdered more than a million people for political reasons in six years.

Furthermore, it is very significant that De Prada does not even mention Catalonia in an article in which he mentions the amnesty but without criticizing or mentioning Sánchez or socialism, which is also very revealing. Let us remember that this amnesty is aimed at erasing the crimes of the perpetrators of the 2017 separatist coup in that Spanish region. Regarding this, in 2019 De Prada stated that "Catalonia is a nation like a cathedral" and complained that the current constitutional regime is "suffocating" Catalonia. On that occasion, De Prada even resorted to a curious conspiracy theory, stating that "the international powers have already decided, unlike with Kosovo – which was in their interest to keep Russia away from Yugoslavia – that they do not want Catalonia to be independent." I wonder what the many patriots who applaud his ideas have to say about this.

Surely there will still be people on the right who justify the nonsense of this writer, ignoring that last year De Prada participated in an event organized by a Stalinist group. During that event, Alejandro Cao de Benós, a well-known fan of the brutal communist dictatorship of North Korea, praised De Prada for "his analysis of Anglo-Saxon dominance and submission to it against Hispanicism". Is it now better understood why Juan Manuel de Prada never explains what model he proposes as an alternative to the "Regime of '78"?

Finally, if some people believe that a better regime will emerge from the ruins of the 1978 Constitution, it must be because they are daydreaming. With a left like the one we have and a centrist party (the Popular Party) that obediently submits to the ideological dogmas of the left, what we would have is a much worse Constitution. But I wonder if any of this matters to someone who believes that Catalonia is "a nation like a cathedral," that Russia is "the only possible alternative to the New World Order," and who criticizes the 1978 Constitution but has no qualms about attending an event hosted by a Stalinist group.

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Photo: Fundación Cajasol.