has anyone actually said or even suggested that, or are you strawmanning again? i just hope your political understanding goes a bit beyond the labels (like 'separatist' / 'radical') you can tag onto a certain figure, and includes the context in which they come to 'power'. i think after the authoritarian crackdown including political arrests and violence against civilians it really does not matter much who the formal 'president' of catalonia is since it's clear he has no real power whatsoever when it comes to the central issue in this conflict, which is independence.

and while you might not have thought it through entirely, you accidentally already illustrated that if anything, this was a smart political move on rajoy's part: magnanimously 'allowing' such an incompetent, dogmatic, and unworldly separatist (which he undoubtedly is, your propaganda style one-sided character assassination attempts are not required, they only shed a bad light on you, at least for people somewhat familiar with the matter) to become president does a couple of good things for him: it portrays him as a 'proper democrat' (a point you immediately tried to exploit with your loaded premise that doesn't even apply here), it will likely result in even less support for the independence movement based on expected mismanagement and dogmatic priorities rather than practical ones, and at the same time set up yet another intervention and power grab from madrid that might even look somewhat legitimate, further obscuring the path to something real democrats should have no trouble supporting: a fair chance at self-determination.

Only ever been to Barcelona in Spain, and the people there are pretty damn brown. People in Madrid are even darker?!

I was in Estartit, Spain for a year in 1978. Traveled to Barcelona, Genoa, France (by accident), and Torrejon.
Estartit is in Catalana. It was nice when I was there, but not so much for the locals.

what the actual fuck is wrong with this guy

you mentioned some fake history propaganda, books and other stuff, but this is something else entirely
hitler would be proud

Of course not, it's bogus pseudo-"science". Maybe in Andalusia, where the moors held off for a few more centuries before the re-conquest was completed, there was more of a genetic mixing... but if there is any difference, it's minimal. Spain is very ethnically homogeneous (except for Ceuta and Melilla, for obvious reasons). If catalan supremacists like Torra consider andalusians to be "racially impure", then they are more "screwed" than the rest of Spain, because back in the day Franco turned Catalonia into the industrial heart of Spain, making it the land of opportunity for many peasants from poor rural areas, and leading to massive migration waves of Andalusians and Murcians in the 50s, 60s and 70s. A very significant chunk of the catalan people are their descendants, and even the now extinct "Andalusianist Party" (a regionalist party that aimed to promote Andalusian culture within Spain) used to get seats in the catalan parliament.



Yeah, he belongs to Omnium Cultural, which is basically a supremacist cult. Them and Assamblea Nacional Catalana (the other organization I mentioned back in the day, featuring Victor Cucurull, the deluded fake historian) promote this kind of pseudoscience and fake history crap. Many of their members have rewritten their family trees and changed their non-catalan surnames to more "appropriate" ones that indicate "catalan racial purity". The sad thing is that they act as think tanks for the catalan government, which has been funding them for years. In small towns where 90% of people are separatist, members of these organizations are invited to schools to "teach" children, and make extra-curricular activities with them. It's a mess tbh... it has been going on for years, but the central government has never bothered to do anything about it because of how they often relied on the catalan nationalist and separatist parties to support them in the national parliament.



Yes, someone did suggest it, and provided a link from a Quebecois news article that claimed that Rajoy wouldn't allow a separatist president. If you really want me to, I will look for it and post it. Just stop with your silly accusations of strawmanning or propaganda. I'm posting truths that can be easily checked (I even provide sources)... if you don't like them then I'm sorry, but things are the way they are.

Oh and I understand that it is "smart" to let an idiot run the catalan separatist movement to make it crash. But I'm not happy about a fanatic and racist dolt running the region, which will lead to further social division, worse social services for the people and greater indoctrination of children. Being an eligible candidate (legally he is) I wouldn't oppose to him being elected (even if I find him to be dangerous and over all disgusting) IF he promised to follow the laws, which he hasn't done. And that's the problem. Rajoy won't get any extra points for triggering article 155 again, because the other parties are already telling him that it's absurd to let someone who promises to break laws take over. If Torra does break the law and article 155 is triggered again, then Rajoy would just look (once again) like an incompetent idiot, and the other parties will be able to say "we told you so".

so it already went from 'those' (plural) suggesting it, to one person linking an article from a news organisation located in a region with a prominent independence movement. i don't think i have to say anything else regarding this then...



you know as well as me that you don't necessarily have to tell outright untruths in order to engage in propaganda. i think your completely one-sided characterisation of him speaks for itself. context matters, and i know that you are aware of that in general - so you can feign outrage all you want, but i'm pretty sure if you try to look at it objectively (which i understand can be very difficult for a spaniard) you will find that this incredibly biased demonisation by exclusively pointing out his flaws is a textbook propaganda move. and just to be clear, as i have made the experience that emotionally involved people tend to conflate those things, i am by no means suggesting he's a good guy in any way, he clearly isn't - but he's also not the supervillain you're trying to portray him as...



good point about the domestic pressure, and yes i share your concerns about the increasing divide and radicalisation (even though i don't share your approach to exclusively blame just ONE side for it). that being said though, this also seems to be about optics. this case has international attention and obviously rajoy has to calculate that as well - and you gloating about how against (imaginary) widespread predictions he generously 'allowed' catalans to have a separatist president, proving what a great democracy spain is (despite the unnecessary violence and political arrests), just confirms that.

Interessant. Don't the Basque folk have quite a distinct genetic makeup from the Spaniards that more closely resembles the French?

maybe they try to match the superior race:

actually he looks great for his horrible age

Well, that's true to some extent. Like I've said in other occasions, the basques are the most distinct people within the Iberian peninsula. Unlike the rest, they were not invaded by Carthaginians, Romans, Visigoths or Arabs, so the only common ancestor we have are the ancient Celtic-Iberian tribes that occupied half of the peninsula before Carthaginians and Romans invaded. The Kingdom of Navarre, the "basque kingdom" of the Middle Ages, was formed out of the descendants of those tribes that were isolated in the basque mountains for centuries while different invaders took over the rest of the peninsula.

So yes, there is less of a common genetic heritage (since they skipped Carthaginians, Romans, Goths and Arabs) and in fact we share more with the Portuguese (they have the exact same genetic and cultural history as most of Spain... it is in fact a historical anomaly, mostly caused by foreign intervention, that we developed into separate nations), although we share a Celtic-Iberian heritage with the basques, and over the last 5 centuries they've been part of Spain and have been consistently mixing up with people from all over the country.

HOWEVER, these genetic differences aren't apparent when it comes to physical traits. As far as I know, there is only some evidence of these "differences" in blood types. Many basques have a certain blood type (can't remember which one), that is supposedly much more common among them than in other neighboring regions. Because of this, Basque nationalists have tried to implement a Basque ID card that would include the person's blood type. The national government has denied them that right, as IDs are a matter that can't be transferred to the region, and it always causes controversy, as it's deemed racist, and its critics say that it would be used to point out the "mudbloods".