NM's blog

If the arrangement of society is bad (and ours is), and a small number of people have power over the majority and oppress it, every victory over Nature will inevitably serve only to increase that power and that oppression. This is what is actually happening.  — Leo Tolstoy, On Life and Essays on Religion , 1898

From the Financial Times 22 March 2026 The populist, anti-immigration party is surging in the polls thanks to the support of  young Spanish men, Vox leaders have found that old-school conservative preoccupations such as  bullfighting have lost much of their importance. Instead, Vox has learnt to exploit men’s deep-seated economic and social grievances, which have  become the defining feature of a new strain of Spanish populism. Young women still lean to the left, but there has been a striking shift among males: they identify as  being more rightwing than any other cohort of young men in the past 40 years. Many see themselves as victims of Socialist Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez and his policies on the economy and immigration. While Sánchez celebrates Spain growing faster than any other major advanced economy in the past two years, young men complain that their personal hopes have been frustrated. Stoking their discontent are a band of populist rap artists and fa...