On September 7, the far-right party Vox filled Spain’s Vistalegre arena with ten thousand nostalgists for Franco’s regime, neofascists, Catholic extremists, and reactionaries of all kinds. In organizing such a spectacle, Vox had good reason to choose this particular venue — that is, the same arena in which Podemos has held its own congresses. The far-right party staged its rally here in order to display its own strength.

Vox wanted to vaunt itself as the natural antagonist of the new left that has arisen from the 15M anti-austerity movement. And it succeeded. Since this event, the name Vox has appeared across the media, its leaders are in all the papers, and the party has begun to be taken seriously by opinion pollsters (rising from zero percent to around 5 percent in months).

The event at Vistalegre marks a turning point in Spanish politics: the rise of a new far right, in a country once considered an exception to the global fascist menace.