If you _really_ need to get your news about what's going on in 🇪🇸 #Spain (#PedroSánchez, #Puigdemont, #Catalonia, #amnesty, #amnistía) from none other than #TuckerCarlson, [by all means do](https://twitter.com/TuckerCarlson/status/1725556767365443753).
But please read this short thread as preparation — for context, nuance and balance:
[1/7]
> _“When a couple of weeks ago the founder of the populist Vox party was shot in the face…”_
While factually true, the context makes this sound as if the attempt to kill former vice president of the European Parliament Alejo Vidal-Quadras was linked to internal Spanish politics. Instead, very soon after the incident both the police _and the victim himself_ [pointed to the Iranian regime as the most probable culprit](https://www.politico.eu/article/spain-alejo-vidal-quadras-attempted-murder-terrorist-incident-court/). It's not like politicians opposed to Pedro Sánchez are being shot on the streets here in Spain.
[2/7]
> _“The left in Spain is trying to take over the country extralegally…”_
While I personally agree with this statement, people outside Spain should know that the question of whether the proposed amnesty would be legal or not is a subject of very heated debate here, and that there are law experts in both sides of the argument.
> _“…pardoning terrorists, offering amnesty to terrorists…”_
That is hyperbole. The crimes that would be erased are mostly non-violent ones: rebellion, sedition and misuse of public funds. Those charges are grave, but nobody here is talking of pardoning “terrorists”. The most charitable interpretation is that Carlson is confusing public servants in Catalonia who were condemned for the events of 2017 with the long history or Basque terrorism by the ETA and their political enablers.
> _“…in order to take complete control”_
Another hyperbole for effect. “To take complete control” invokes the image of an autocrat dismantling the judiciary and the legislative, ignoring the results of elections in a Banana republic, or staging a coup d'état. Think what you want about the deal between the PSOE, Bildu and the Catalan separatists, pardoning the debts of the government of Catalonia, and the proposed amnesty law. I am firmly against all that, but all this was done by Pedro Sánchez so that he could secure a (legal) parliamentary majority to be (legally) elected President for a regular four-year mandate with the usual powers — not “to take complete control” of the country.
[3/7]
> _“So one side has to follow the letter of the law, or you go to jail. The other side can do whatever it wants. So there's no more rule of law in Spain, as you're describing it.”_
I'll call hyperbole again. These political developments are alarming and will have very bad consequences, but the rule of law is in place. Spain is [one among only 24 “full democracies” in the world](https://pages.eiu.com/rs/753-RIQ-438/images/DI-final-version-report.pdf) and has a [“high state of peace”](https://www.visionofhumanity.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/GPI-2023-Web.pdf), and I doubt what is happening now will put the country in an entirely different category.
[4/7]
> _“Spain is a relatively small country…”_
It's not. That's a very US-centric thing to say. Spain is a _relatively large_ country: out of the 195 UN states, Spain ranks [51st by area](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_and_dependencies_by_area#Countries_and_dependencies_by_area) and [30th by population](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_and_dependencies_by_population#Sovereign_states_and_dependencies_by_population). ie, Spain is among the 27% largest countries by land mass, and among the 16% most populous ones.
> _“…in Western Europe”_
Within Western Europe Spain is definitely _not_ a relatively small country: out of [approximately ten countries considered to be “Western Europe”](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_Europe#Population), Spain is the second largest (only France has more area), and the third most populous.
[6/7]
> _“Our assesment [of Vox party leader Santiago Abascal] was pretty simple”_
That is part of the problem with this video. Nothing like this is simple.
[7/7]
> _“You [Vox party leader Santiago Abascal] are the leader of the opposition”_
False. The unofficial title “leader of the opposition” has always been [“the leader of the largest party in the Congress of Deputies not within the government“](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leader_of_the_Opposition_(Spain)). That is PP's president Alberto Núñez Feijóo since April last year.
[5/7]