https://www.theguardian.com/books/2020/jul/09/twilight-of-democracy-by-anne-applebaum-review-when-politics-ends-friendships

Shaming Boris Johnson and other friends who shifted further right ... a personal survey of nationalisms, discussed alongside The Light That Failed by Ivan Krastev and Stephen Holmes

Muslims make up around 4% of Spain’s population. When asked to guess the percentage, Spanish respondents regularly give pollsters an inflated number. A similar discrepancy is found across all western democracies. Demographic alarm, whether based on reality, fantasy or stoked with falsehood provides rich pickings for the nativist movements that have swept the world in recent years.

Santiago Abascal is leader of Spain’s Vox party. As Anne Applebaum points out in her sweeping survey of political nationalisms, “the idea that Christian civilisation needs to redefine itself against the Islamic enemy has a special historic echo in Spain”. The fact that a large proportion of immigrants come from Catholic Latin America is mostly ignored by the far right. Applebaum points out that in one of Abascal’s many campaigning videos, he “mounted a horse and, like the knights who once fought to reconquer Andalucia from the Arabs, rode across a southern Spanish landscape. Like so many internet memes, it was serious but unserious.” It has certainly been effective. Last November, Vox made huge gains in the general election, becoming Spain’s third largest party.