Girauta and Marcos de Quinto launch ‘Pie en pared’, their think tank "to combat leftism woke"

The former parliamentary spokesman for Ciudadanos, Juan Carlos Girauta, and the businessman and former director of Coca-Cola, Marcos de Quinto, signed by Albert Rivera as an independent to appear on his list as number two and economic guru in the 2019 elections, have come together to promote a “cultural association” which they have dubbed ‘Pie en Pared’. Its purpose is to “stir up ideas in the cultural sphere to vindicate liberal democracy”, as Girauta explains to elDiario.es, who assures that the project that they are now finalizing, and that they will present at the beginning of this fall “or before”, has nothing to do with launching a new political party. Girauta defends that it is not “exactly a new think tank” either, although it really does look a lot like it. “Our goal is to influence culture, to stand up to the hegemony of that ‘woke left’ clinging to the progressive radical feminist discourse, which now defends indigenism, or has insisted on blaming everything on climate change.” They also intend to combat “nationalism” (not Spanish) and “separatism.”

The ‘Pie en pared’ Cultural Association, insists Girauta, is not linked to any political formation “nor does it want to be” although people from a “broad ideological spectrum” will collaborate in it, who will write and also present their reflections in acts and debates that will begin to see the light this fall and will be reflected in the networks. At the moment, its promoters do not want to advance the names of these personalities invited to participate in the project, although some profiles have already been surveyed. Girauta advances that there will be ‘intellectuals, academics and “true feminists”, linked to the “old socialism”, a party that according to the former leader of Ciudadanos has lost its essence.

This same Tuesday, De Quinto made a first advance on his Twitter profile about what they want to fight and used the hashtag #PieEnPared to launch a premonitory message of what his platform is going to be: “If they attack you with all their hatred, it is that what you defend hurts them. Therefore, far from being intimidated, you have to continue. Because their hate confirms that what you’re doing is the right thing to do.” Several users have replied using the same hashtag, without any formal announcement so far.

Both Girauta and De Quinto have been pigeonholed since they left Ciudadanos in ideological positions very close to Vox, although both deny that re-entering a political party is among their plans.

Girauta left Ciudadanos after the elections of November 10, 2019, in which he did not get the seat to which he aspired for Toledo, the constituency for which he was running for the second time after giving up the head of the cartel for Barcelona to Inés Arrimadas in the previous elections in April of that same year. Girauta then moved to live in the Castilian capital of La Mancha and reneged on his homeland, assuring that he was “fed up” with the independentists whom he said he did not want to “see even in painting.” “I’m sick of you, I can’t take it anymore,” he said. The seat for Toledo went to Vox.

Shortly after, when Albert Rivera announced his resignation, he followed in his footsteps and also left politics. “A good man has been crushed and I don’t want to be there after that,” he said in an interview on esRadio. His critical positions with the new management headed by Inés Arrimadas started from the very minute of the succession.

Since then he has taken refuge in his collaborations on ABC, where he has a column, he has written a new book: Sentimental, offended, mediocre and aggressive: Radiography of the new society (Reflejos de Actualidad), in which he already anticipates many of the positions on what is going to be ‘Pie en Pared’; and she has resumed her career attorney.

After leaving Ciudadanos, the parliamentary export spokesman has starred in loud clashes on social networks with some leaders of Podemos and ERC, against whom he has spared no insults. But he has also had strong grips with some former party companions and with other Internet users. One of his most scandalous tweets was launched against his own party colleagues, whom in June 2020 he called “traitors” and released them: “You, traitors, are going to eat my dick for a while.”

Girauta also participates in the National Assembly of Tabarnia, which on September 6 will appoint the president of the Community of Madrid, Isabel Díaz Ayuso, as president of that “imaginary republic” invented by Albert Boadella and a few anti-nationalists.

With Marcos de Quinto he has continued to maintain a great friendship. The businessman, on the other hand, did manage to keep his seat for Madrid in Congress after the last general elections, but he did not last long in office. Months after starting the legislature -in May 2020- he announced that he was leaving Ciudadanos due to discrepancies with Arrimadas’ strategy, mainly due to the support for the state of alarm that he had given Pedro Sánchez during the pandemic.

De Quinto is just as controversial as Girauta on Twitter, where he presents himself as a “Pirate” who “sails without a flag” and uses provocative language without letting any controversy pass. One of his last clashes has been with chef José Andrés for his help to the firefighters who were fighting the fire in Zamora. “I believe that, with what he carries in his arms, he will be able to feed few. And if he plans to make the delivery by helicopter, Gretta is going to be angry”, he said ironically, after the journalist from esRadio, Luis del Pino, confessed that he “gives him creeps” the famous chef. He replied, clarifying that they were wrong: “In that helicopter we carried 3,000 meals. First landing on Abaco. After 4 days being hit by Hurricane Dorian,” he noted, referring to the help his organization provided in 2019 in the Bahamas. “Those trays went to the only hospital. Helicopter was the only way to get there. Photo? There was an ABC team. And a Photographer. Whom we rescued,” he added.

His activism against everything that comes close to the Government led him to invest as a shareholder in Javier Negre’s Internet television, EDATV.com, better known as ‘Estado de Alarma’. He had also been announced as the founder of ‘La Séptima’, another television from the same ideological spectrum that was launched with the capital of Murcian businessmen, but finally got out of the project before it started.