Conservatives Everywhere: Celebrate With Madrid! | The American Spectator | USA News and PoliticsThe American Spectator | USA News and Politics

by ITXU DÍAZ

The Right emerges victorious in regional elections, rejecting lockdowns and other left-wing doomsaying.

Madrid could be compared to a gorgeous ex-girlfriend who is always waiting for you, just in case you change your mind. An old rock song says, “Ah, no, without living in Madrid, you wouldn’t understand.” All those European countries where it’s too cold and their politicians hate Trump and believe that progress consists of killing old people in hospitals would be much nicer places to live if they resembled, even just a little, the capital of Spain. Old Europe, the one that marries tradition and modernity, still exists where the remains of Cervantes were laid to rest. Madrid today is once again a beacon of hope for the free world, the closest thing to North America outside of North America.

I write with a hangover. I still have confetti in one ear, I have lost my wallet, and there are a bunch of strange guys I don’t know at all lying in my shower, passed out drunk, with their masks on their heads. Dear American friends, in this Old Europe of taxes and legions of bureaucrats, where everything that is not communism is social democracy, a communist, self-conscious right-winger and climate-fool-free zone has been born. In the regional elections of Madrid, freedom is victorious! This changes everything. So, if you would be so kind, break out the expensive booze, and, as Aristotle said, “Let us drink!”

In Spain we have been celebrating all week. In Madrid’s regional elections, the right wing (under the slogan of “Communism or freedom”) has overwhelmed the left wing (with the mantra “Fascism must be stopped”). The triumph has been so overwhelming that the Bolivarian communist Pablo Iglesias, who left the vice presidency of the Government to be a candidate, has decided to leave politics altogether. A bad day for Maduro, Zapatero, Morales, and other friends of the seals. A good day for the free world.

The left-wingers have all been defeated by a girl who does not need gender quotas, nor favors, nor inclusive language, nor progressive nonsense, to be a true leader. They have been beaten by Isabel Díaz Ayuso (despite the last name, I don’t think we are related). And since she is single (at least at the time of writing) I can publicly lay myself at her feet without being trampled on by any bears. Thank you, Isabel.

There is a lesson for all conservatives in this victory. The winner, who thus renews and extends her presidency in Madrid, has spent a year pioneering an approach to managing the pandemic that refused to close bars, theaters, businesses, and schools and prioritized testing, freedom, science and vaccination. She also built a huge hospital exclusively for coronavirus patients in just 100 days — a success so infuriating for the Left that they even sabotaged it by clogging toilets, cutting off electricity, and ruining machines while it was still full of sick people. They’re such champions of peace and democracy.

The EU, with all of its idiots begging for more closures, more face masks, and more irrational restrictions, looks on in amazement at the Ayuso Miracle in Madrid. Of course, Spain’s Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez hates her. That is perhaps the best proof that she is doing things right. More proof is that she has won more votes than all the left-wing parties combined. Spain is alive, folks! There is hope.

Because of Ayuso’s determination to keep the bars open, the Left that yesterday called us fascists today calls us drunks. Personally, I’m much more comfortable with this. It has not been a bed of roses. Ayuso, who is from the People’s Party (PP), has had to deal with many enemies, including the moderate centrists in her own party. But she has stood firm in her commitment to common sense, an apolitical management of the pandemic, and a refusal to live on her knees before the Left. And it has been largely thanks to VOX, the unabashedly right-wing party, which has been at the forefront of the cultural battle against the Left, speaking in the only language that those who believe that the economic crisis can be solved by wishing hard and calling upon the Pachamama, understands.

Everything that has happened is, in reality, a lesson for all conservatives, at this moment when the Left is a dead man walking. The Right has lost its fear and realized that lowering taxes, disregarding the woke, and betting on freedom is better for citizens than spending all day calling for lockdowns, cancellations, promoting sexual deviations, and fighting against the imaginary climate enemy. It’s true. Our ideas are simply better. Or, at least, yours are.

Madrid’s great red belt, that is, the working-class neighborhoods, voted massively for the Right because Ayuso and VOX talked to them about their businesses and their families while the Left dedicated their rallies to talk about “him, her, and hir,” the fight against climate change, declaring “anti-fascist alerts” against the Right, 76 years after the death of Mussolini, who most progressives nowadays think is a brand of Italian cars.

One of those journalists who in another life must have been a pangolin with malaria opined yesterday that in Spain “Trumpism has won.” Anything but admitting that Ayuso’s Madrid will be from now on an idyllic place to invest your time and cash without being taxed. And we have the Prado Museum, the Santiago Bernabéu, Iberian jamon, the mother of all wines, and some breathtaking brunettes strolling through the Salamanca neighborhood. “You come to Madrid to not be bothered by anyone,” says Ayuso. For these things we love her.

I love it when a plan comes together. Waiter, another round!

Itxu Díaz is a Spanish journalist, political satirist and author. He has written nine books on topics as diverse as politics, music, and smart appliances. He is a contributor to the Daily Beast, the Daily Caller, National Review, the American Conservative, The American Spectator, and Diario Las Américas in the United States, and is a columnist for several Spanish magazines and newspapers. He was also an adviser to the Ministry for Education, Culture, and Sports in Spain. Follow him on Twitter at @itxudiaz or visit his website: www.itxudiaz.com.

Translated by Joel Dalmau