Politicians have been leveraging this for years, using this division to their benefits. And these applies both to catalonian politicians using independence and blaming everything in Madrid, and national parties in Madrid demonizing Catalonia.

They've been making a huge snowball of this, and it's starting to be too much.

From talking to some catalonian people, I think the last economic crisis, its management, and the corruption scandals in Partido Popular (the party that govered Spain from 2011 to 2018, but is always extremely irrelevant in Catalonia) had a lot to do with it, as it was easy for many to blame those on Madrid, on Spain, or "on the Castilians".

(I'm from Castilla but around half of my family emigrated to Barcelona a generation ago. I don't hate any catalonian who wants independence, they have that right; I'm sick of how both sides use FUD and hatred.)