ABSTRACT
In this chapter we consider how recent events in Spanish politics have shaped the Podemos intellectuals’ understanding of their country’s past. First we look briefly at how the outlook of Juan Donoso Cortés, who exerted a profound influence on Schmitt, itself shifted radically in response to the political disarray he experienced in nineteenth-century Spain. We then examine how Iglesias’ and Errejón’s view of Spanish history—including the period through which Donoso Cortés lived—has been moulded by their experiences first as children of families who resisted Franco’s regime, then as students of politics during a decade in which memories of Spain’s Civil War re-entered the public sphere, and most recently as academics confronted by the inadequacies of left-wing responses to neoliberalism’s failures. Once we understand not just how Podemos’ founders see Spain’s political past but why they see it as they do, we can begin to understand how Schmittian ideas might hold strong appeal.
