I have been hopping mad since yesterday. Somehow I waded into the warbloggers’ world and found everyone berating the Spanish for letting the terrorists win.
I disagree. The terrorists did win. But not on sunday. They won on thursday when they killed 200 people. On sunday, the Socialist party won.
I don’t understand what the hooplah is all about. A major terrorist act affected the outcome of a national election. Well, duh! What else did you expect? That the Spaniards would totally ignore the attack, the casualties and the conduct of their government and vote according to their preferences on wednesday? What should a Spaniard voter have done? If she was going to vote for Aznar’s party, then not change her mind in the last 3 days? If he was planning on voting for the communists, then not switch to the socialists? If she had decided to abstain, then she shouldn’t have changed her mind at the last minute and voted?
If you look at the election results, it seems that not many Popular party supporters switched. The support of voters of some minor parties of the left and an increase in voter turnout were also factors.
Imagine if there was a US election was scheduled for September 14, 2001. Do you expect that the election results would have been exactly the same as the polling on September 10 had shown? So terrorism, war, economy, etc. affect elections. Great insight!
And it isn’t the first time terrorism has affected elections, though the first with such media coverage and a clear swing in the last 3 days. Remember Israel? Remember the suicide bombings right before elections there? Do you think those had no effect on the Israeli election results? Do you think that may be Hamas wanted Netanyahu and Sharon to win? Did you say absurd?
Some say it isn’t about the Spaniards. Instead it is about the perception of the terrorists. Great! Now we must weigh every single action of ours based on what Bin Laden might think of it. If that were true, Israeli soldiers would still be dying in Lebanon and American troops would still be stationed in Saudi Arabia.
Unfortunately, some great bloggers, who are obviously on my blogroll, have jumped off the cliff following the “warbloggers” on this one. The most stupid comment among these bloggers was by Virginia Postrel:
Regardless of its perpetrators, the election results provide an unhappy, and potentially dangerous, lesson: If you kill enough people, you can change the outcome of a democratic election.
Warning to terrorists: Americans do not draw the same conclusions from massacres that the Spanish did. Americans tend to rally around the president and direct our anger outward.
Isn’t that also terrorists changing election outcomes? What if the terrorists wanted Bush to win reelection and took Virginia’s post to heart?
I am too angry to write coherently, so you’ll have to go and read Randy Paul, Jacob Levy and A Fistful of Euros for some reasoned analysis about this issue.
Zack,
Hopping mad or not, I think you’re still missing my point, which was somewhat different from the war bloggers. Of course terrorism has affected elections before, and no democratic government can long permit its citizens to be slaughtered on buses or trains. Either it will have to come up with a credible plan for preventing slaughter, or it will lost to a party that has one. Simple as that. (As the Israeli experience shows, if the experience lasts long enough, everything from outright appeasement to an outright state of war will be tried.)
I suspect that the new Spanish government’s approach will mirror the French approach — heavy handed law enforcement directed against Muslim immigrants. If attacks recur (and why would they cease if the law enforcement effort begins to successfully round up al Qaeda members?), how do you think the government would respond? With heavier handed tactics, perhaps? Might we not see police states emerging as Europe grapples with terrorism?
I happen to think that’s the wrong approach, although it might be more politically palatable. Demonizing the “enemy within,” after all, is far easier than attacking the root causes.
Zack:Very sensible points. My own little contribution to the debate is that I think the mass demonstrations in favour of peace and democracy, impressed me a lot coming from a nation that had just undergone such a significant terrorist attack. I think it speaks well about the maturity and depth of the Spanish polity’s determination to adhere to what they regard as the democratic process in dealing with this threat; I heard some stupid reactions on the media here as well along the lines of “if there had been a suicide bomber on the streets then, those marches wouldn’t have been all that peaceful” which strikes me as sort of crass as well as missing the point. It isn’t as if the Spaniards aren’t politically sophisticated enough to draw a distinction between the war in Iraq and the broader WoT in Afghanistan and other places; Spain’s willingness to stick with NATO forces in the latter and to be part of any UN operation in Iraq indicates that this is exactly what they have done. I also doubt that the Spanish are going to get all that squeamish about taking on AQ cells within their borders, their past history against ETA demonstrates that they are not exactly what one would call ‘soft-on-terrorism’. I think the fears that the invasion of Iraq would be counter-productive in the WoT and would actually lead to an increase in this problem, have been borne out to a degree; the former has turned out be more of a distraction rather than a springboard in solving this problem.
Bill: Like I commented on your post, I agree with the rest of your analysis. Here I am just disagreeing about your disappointment with the election results in Spain. I think the election results are nothing to be worried about.
It may seem strange to us Americans but what I see in Spain are citizens who don’t absolve their government of lying to them in the event of a devastating attack. Perhaps they realize more than we that times of crisis call for stricter government accountability, not unquestioning rallying around its policies.
Secondly, there was widespread opposition in Spain to Aznar’s decision to enlist the country in the American adventure in Iraq so it’s not surprising that they voted him out.
That said, yes, the new government may very well lash out at their Muslim citizens and particularly immigrants. It remains to be seen if the Spaniards will be as outraged about such atrocities against innocent folks.
As for the withdrawal of their troops from Iraq. I’d only worry if they didn’t partake in a non-Americentric effort there.
This pretty much what I would say on this topic.
Blogs can depress you, as so many people who are seemingly held in high esteem say so many stupid things. (Reading Tom Freidman has the same effect). But there’s a fair amount of good in there too. And some great light entertainment. Don’t let the bastards get you down.
Spanish inhibitions
Here on ideofact, I usually try to avoid writing about what the Polish poet Zbigniew Herbert memorably called the black foam of the newspapers, my post on the Spanish elections being a relatively rare exception. And I probably shouldn’t write…
aslam: I have heard lots of theories about the Spanish election results. Without some detailed exit polling, we can’ tell what really happened.
Ikram: Blogs are infuriarating, but also fun.
Spanish inhibitions
Here on ideofact, I usually try to avoid writing about what the Polish poet Zbigniew Herbert memorably called the black foam of the newspapers, my post on the Spanish elections being a relatively rare exception. And I probably shouldn’t write…