When Donald Trump warns that Europe faces a “civilizational erasure” due to mass immigration, not only revives a marginal conspiracy theory: it elevates it to a national security doctrine.
The rhetoric of the “Great Replacement” (the idea that the West is being deliberately replaced) represents a real threat to democracy today.
But not because it is true, but because it mobilizes resentment among the electorate.
Spain, in this context, must keep its eyes on the data to reject the conspiracy panic, but also without denying the real problems.
The numbers are eloquent. Since Pedro Sanchez He became president in 2018, Spain has grown by 2.7 million inhabitants.
But herein lies the disturbing paradox: all that growth comes from immigration.
Spaniards born in Spain to Spanish parents have decreased by 261,546 inhabitants. And today, almost one in five residents (19.8%) was born outside our borders.
There is no secret plan here. There is simple demographic mathematics: plummeting national birth rate, demographic gap filled by migratory flows.
Immigration in Spain is, considered as a whole, an economically inevitable and culturally enriching phenomenon.
But intellectual honesty also requires recognizing that an accelerated integration of 2.7 million people in seven years generates friction.
The pressure on housing is fierce. Certain neighborhoods are becoming ghettoized. And in terms of crime and gender violence, the overrepresentation of foreigners in the statistics is not propaganda, but a reality that shames the vast majority of honest migrants.
Our 1978 Constitution defines an open and non-militant democracy, according to the doctrine of the Constitutional Court.
That is, it does not close on itself, but has faith in its integrative capacity.
But openness has natural limits. Democracies that exceed their capacity for integration by facilitating self-ghettoization, the practice of values incompatible with the Constitution (such as the subordination of women) or the explicit rejection of common civic values They end up being democracies that cede territory to their internal enemies.
It is the paradox of Popper: “Unlimited tolerance ultimately leads to the disappearance of tolerance.”
Spain is having real difficulties integrating the first generations of immigrants from certain origins (particularly from areas where Islam is the dominant cultural matrix), and this failure jeopardizes the integration of its children.
And when minors reach adulthood without having assimilated basic democratic values, the problem multiplies.
No, there is no such thing as the “Great Replacement” that Trump describes. But there is a risk of a small population replacement if trends continue: each generation, the native Spaniards decrease while the foreign population grows.
This is not conspiracy. It is simple mathematical projection.
The Spanish Constitution today faces multiple threats. That of the independentistas, who deny their legitimacy. That of the separators, which erode its integrative capacity. That of the extremists of all stripes who exploit it. And that of a small percentage of immigrants who want the material prosperity offered by the welfare state in Spain, but who reject the values that have made it possible.
Added to this is the institutional weakening caused by a president who has occupied the institutions, eroded the separation of powers and attacked the Judiciary, the press and the Crown.
But History also teaches us that democracies have a regenerative capacity. The Constitution has survived more severe threats. If the political class has the courage to defend integration without naivety, immigration with control and the limits of constitutional pluralism, Spain can preserve its open character without giving in to its internal or external enemies.
Democracy is not irreversible, as we all tend to believe in times of economic prosperity and social peace. It requires constant defense against all its enemies. It is worth always remembering it.