On the 46th anniversary of the Spanish Constitution, multiple reflections arise about its state of health. On previous occasions I have been more romantic and I choose to highlight the benefits of our Magna Carta, without intending to exclude them, on the contrary, given the check that the current democratic model in which we are immersed is experiencing, it is important to briefly highlight some disorders that it suffers from.
If when I started my law studies at the University I had been warned that the constitutional text would be questioned, I would never have believed it. And it is that, for some time now, I have observed with concern the drift that modern liberal democracies have been adopting, facing a recurring problem: the loss of confidence in public institutions.
Some time ago I read a quote from the American pedagogue John Dewey in which he asserted: the value of all institutions is their educational influence. It seems anecdotal, but if we review the events we have gone through in recent years we can conclude that Dewey's objective has been denatured.
I think, among many other examples, of the severe influence of hate speech and disinformation campaigns that are spread excessively by "ad hoc reporters" in the anonymous trench of social networks, allowing emotions to be exploited to ignite the fuse of citizen indignation. Never before has it been so easy to spread lies as in our times. How much responsibility do both political representatives and those ad hoc content creators have.
All these ideas came to my mind when I visualized the images of citizens deployed in the towns of Valencia affected by the unpleasant situation caused by the DANA - whose enormous grief is shared by Spanish and European society as a whole - while they shouted "The people save the people", given the lack of immediate response from public authorities and the lack of efficient coordination of actions. It is possible to understand the anger and rage that the citizens who have lost everything may have felt, but are public officials to blame for the effects of the DANA? I dare to assure that, on this occasion, as in so many others, we went too far.
This statement by citizens is at least random, as it displaces and delegitimizes the mandate conferred on Public Administrations by the Spanish Constitution in its article 103.1, which is none other than to serve the general interests of the nation, attending to the principles of efficiency, hierarchy, decentralization, deconcentration and coordination, with full submission to the law and to the Law. If it were not so, everything would be chaos. That is why in modern democracies all the measures adopted aimed at leaving the resolution of adversities in the hands of the people, however exceptional it may seem, only leads to exacerbating the tremendous crisis of authority in which we are immersed.
In this type of situation, order must prevail. When there is a vacuum of power, it is occupied by the feelings of the people. This means that the authority elected by the people is replaced by the disinformation agents to obtain a professional (and political) benefit that has been echoed by the 2024 Report on Political Polarization in Spain, and that, among the conclusions that emerge, the Spanish society is in favor of leaders being able to skip democratic procedures in dangerous situations. It is tantamount to saying that a strong leader is preferred over politicians who have been legitimately elected to respond to the general interests.
A clear example of this strong leadership is that represented by Elon Musk, whose role has been fundamental in the recent US elections of November 5, which resulted in the re-election of Donald Trump as president of the North American country for the next four years.
Thus, a society as polarized as the current one - Spain being the sixth country among those cited worldwide - leads us to dehumanize ourselves and with it we contribute to a greater erosion of democracy as the governing model of our society. What happens is that we have lost our critical sense, because the unwavering adherence to a single ideological option undermines the free exercise of a cognitive diet typical of pluralistic societies, as emanates from article 1.1 of the Spanish Constitution.
It is well known that this system of coexistence that we have advocated bothers and annoys, because democracy is not only going to the polls, it is also renouncing the exercise of our rights in favor of others.
As I said at the beginning, the only way out we have is education, and in this case, in media competition, because the new generations are facing for the first time a digital reality that has already been defined as revolutionary in that the way we receive information has changed drastically and this is extremely important to understand in order to decipher the present and future challenges that we will have to face if we want to safeguard the democratic model.
If we want to enjoy good democratic health we cannot distrust our public institutions. If we want to enjoy peace, let's not fuel the war. I trust in this society, plural, advanced and committed. I trust that we can escape from individualism, because democracy is designed for generality.
