The oppositions fall for us: crutch to the Conte government, the trap of the “moderate turn” has been triggered
Forza Italia, the Brothers of Italy and the Lega vote for the budget variance together with the majority: "The attempt to divide us has failed miserably … We have surrendered". Center-right ghost coalition. It makes no sense to offer a crutch to the government that managed the emergency by violating the Constitution and massacring the economy. The problem of cultural subjection and the deception of the "moderate turn" and pro-European: the conventio ad excludendum will fall, perhaps, but if the League falls for it, there will no longer be any need, because it will not have the votes, it will be neutralized
Yesterday the opposition parties – Lega, Fratelli d'Italia and Forza Italia – voted together with the majority to authorize the new budget variance requested by the Conte government in Parliament. In the morning, Berlusconi had announced to his parliamentary groups the decision to vote yes ("the government has accepted our requests"), regardless of what the allies would have done.
The perfect synthesis is by Dario Franceschini (Pd): “A choice of responsibility by Berlusconi that politically forced the other center-right forces to change lines and adapt. Chapeau “.
Satisfied Zingaretti and Conte, even if for the prime minister the opening of a new political phase always risks turning against him, changing those very particular astral conjunctions that helped him to stay at Palazzo Chigi. But it counts on its ability to make itself concave and convex when necessary.
Salvini and Meloni rightly chew bitter: the first, rejected by the allies the provocation of the "federation", tries to console himself with the willingness, which he practically offers himself, "to open two tables, one on school, one on taxes". We'll see…
“The attempt to split the center-right failed miserably”, exults the leader of the Brothers of Italy. Failed a horn. First, at what price? To vote compactly with the majority after months of emergency managed by the Dpcm, after having been marginalized and demonized ("with the right in the government we would have had mass graves on the beaches", Zingaretti, 28 August 2020). So, it's a bit like saying: “The attempt to kidnap us failed miserably. We gave ourselves over ” . Second, it's not even true that it failed. Appearances saved, the center-right is more divided today than yesterday, because as noted by Franceschini, Lega and FdI were "forced" to follow Berlusconi, who unilaterally decided to vote the deviation, so mutual distrust and internal contradictions are destined to sharpen.
The gist is that Mattarella had his "national unity", obviously in his version, that is, not a government of national unity, but unity of the left in the government and disunity of the center-right in opposition, the rudder always firmly in the hands of the Democratic Party, with 5 Stars and now also the oppositions that put their face on it. Since yesterday, the Conte government has looked a little more like the Monti government.
It is clear that yesterday's vote opens a new political phase. With the arrival of vaccines (attention: it will take a large vaccination campaign starting from the subjects most at risk, in any case millions of people, and the government will be able to mess up this too) we can also see the end of the health emergency in the strict sense, which politically served as the glue of the majority. Despite all the disasters in the management of the emergency, it was unthinkable to change the driver during the race. But now that the light is glimpsed at the end of the tunnel, instead of waiting and seeing if the dramatic economic crisis, which will continue to bite for months and maybe years, the EU's 200 billion euro and internal contradictions will come to a head. collapse the Conte government, here comes the center-right to the rescue.
On the merits, we will see if the majority will keep faith, and to what extent, in the commitments made. We fear the classic birth of the mouse, the crumbs, but in any case it remains a choice that politically – and, yes, morally – makes little sense: a crutch is not offered to the government that has taken "full powers" in violation of the Constitution and that it literally massacred the center-right electoral base. Why, then? Because they think, this is the scenario for which they were prepared, that Trump's defeat closes the season of what they call sovereignty (even if the defeat is yet to be certified and many elements suggest waiting to give up "Trumpism" ), and that it is time to try to return to political matches such as the management of the elusive Recovery Fund (if anything it will see the light), the new electoral law and, above all, the election of the President of the Republic.
Obviously, lessons from the recent past not even talking about it. In particular, on the choice of the name for the highest hill, when the center-right deluded himself that he was in the game, he always got burned, discovering at the end of the game that he had not even taken the field. Not even allowing the birth of the Letta government in 2013, and then the Nazarene with Renzi, helped Berlusconi to have a say and had to swallow the choice of Mattarella, a visceral anti-Berlusconian like all the left ex DC. Also this time, they will delude themselves to have their say and will find the worst.
At this point, however, a discourse on the so-called "center right" touches to do so. It governs in 15 out of 20 regions, so the coalition is rewarded by many millions of Italians. At the national level, the polls give it consensus varying between 45 and 50 percent, therefore more than favored to win the next political elections. Yet … Yet we are talking about a practically ghost coalition.
The problems are many, of a very material nature, let's say “the stuff” , and cultural. Forza Italia now appears to be a party that has no political ambition, it serves its leader as a position to negotiate a favorable legislation and parachutes for its companies with the government in question. It's really remarkable how Berlusconi as prime minister, he should be crucified by his opponents for conflict of interest when the action in the vastness of the government fled there some rule to aziendam or a personal basis, usually to protect themselves from legal persecution, while today it is practically the only role of his party – negotiating advantages for his companies – well, the issue has completely disappeared from the radar. I believe you, the left now goes to a wedding, because in this way it can keep Berlusconi, and all the opposition in tow, on a leash. It must be said: the first conflict of interests served the political interests of the center-right, its electorate, and often the country; this second, is a damn for all three.
Forza Italia, to which the polls attribute a 6 per cent of the votes (but we believe that the percentage is lower), therefore manages to influence the two major parties of the coalition on strategic choices, essentially for two reasons: first, it is necessary to save the fiction of a center-right to keep regional councils standing (and this makes sense politically); then, there is the safeguarding of the apparitions, and of the most profitable issues in terms of consensus, on the Mediaset networks. It is an exchange, but clearly in this way Berlusconi retains a bargaining power in the coalition that goes far beyond the specific electoral strength of his party.
And we come to the second category of problems: the cultural subjection of the center-right parties.
You will remember “Inception” , the extraordinary film by Christopher Nolan in which the protagonists have to graft a precise idea into the mind of the victim, asleep, making her believe that it is his.
This is what happened to the League in recent months with the idea of the need for a "moderate change". Surreal like Nolan's movie.
We wonder how it was possible that a majority and healthy party like the League, which came out of the 2019 European Championships with a record of 34 percent, for months in any case close to 30 according to the polls, which with its candidates has contended for the left strongholds historians such as Emilia Romagna and Tuscany, can get bogged down in an internal debate about the so-called "moderate turn".
The problem of center-right parties with "moderatism" is atavistic and deadly, but it is a complex one. Basically, what happens on time is that they let themselves be dictated by their opponents, by the political, media and cultural left, what is "moderate", they are convinced, they take that path. And it is clearly the wrong path. When a winning center-right appears in the political landscape, it is punctually branded as unpresentable, extremist, dangerous, incompatible with the democratic institutions and the fundamental coordinates of our country. What happens? That in the face of the difficulties in the “Palazzo” and in the circles that count, ever larger sectors of that center-right are convinced of it. The theme of the “moderate turn” is introduced by editorials, statements, talk shows, even by polls, and enters the internal debate of the parties. As in "Inception" , in fact, only in this case the victims are not asleep (in theory).
If at that moment the center-right is in government, as during Berlusconi's years, it begins to lose its driving force and to disappoint the expectations of its constituents, to avoid challenges, preferring to endure with increasingly lower compromises. Goodbye "liberal revolution". If he is in opposition, as he is today, he abandons the path that led him to record percentages in the hope (which he will clearly be disappointed) that the European and home establishments will bring down that sort of conventio ad excludendum against him.
In the League it is Giancarlo Giorgetti who seems to play the part of Gianni Letta with Berlusconi with Salvini. If the League wants to have hopes of governing in the future, Giorgetti thinks, it must make peace with the establishment, stay within certain borders, approach but not cross them, not challenge some taboos, show a “presentable” right.
The problem is that that perimeter is drawn by its opponents, from the left, and over the years it becomes increasingly narrow. They decide what is presentable and, coincidentally, the presentable right is always the minority (or defunct) one.
Today Salvini's center-right scares and Berlusconi is a statesman; yesterday scared Berlusconi and the statesmen were Fini, Casini …
Berlusconi called himself a liberal, "moderate", he has always been in the EPP, he has never questioned the euro. Yet, everything was done to prevent him from governing and as soon as he got out of line, in 2011, from the Franco-German Consensus (Libya, Bailout Fund) they killed him.
The question is: will a "moderate" and more "institutional" right, as the left would like it, be able to garner as much support? What is asked of the League to become “presentable” is essentially the pro-European act of faith (this is why the theme of joining the EPP was introduced). It is clear that after such a turning point, Matteo Salvini, the one who brought it to 30 percent, could not remain the leader. We have already seen him in difficulty in managing these months of Covid emergency, in which the opposition is branded as irresponsibility, and it will be even more so in the new phase of "collaboration". Paolo Mieli generously offered him the candidacy for mayor of Milan. As if to say: if you step aside, we will give you a buen retiro .
But these are things that cannot be hidden, the voters are not stupid. The conventio ad excludendum , at that point, will perhaps fall, but if the League moves in the direction indicated, there will no longer be any need, because it will no longer have the votes to go to the government. In short, the so-called “moderate turn”, pro-European, is not aimed at opening the doors of Palazzo Chigi to the League, but at neutralizing it as was done with the 5 Star Movement.
“When populism goes to government, can it really govern? I think not ". Giorgetti had explained this not long ago, a month before the US presidential elections, at the presentation of the new book on Donald Trump by Andrew Spannaus, "Post-global America" , together with Massimo D'Alema and Germano Dottori. In his speech, in addition to predicting – correctly, except for surprises – Biden's victory, he explained that "the populist who is elected without having the apparatuses and institutions that are functional behind him is in extreme difficulty, here of Trump's problems ”. In other words, "populism is unable to govern if it does not have the apparatus at its service".
That Trump has had problems in being followed by the "apparatuses", the so-called Deep State , is an understatement, given that they have tried to oust him and in any case de-legitimize him. But Giorgetti is wrong when he says that "the resistance of the structure has prevented the deployment of the policies that Trump had in mind". Despite the "Resistance" , Trump has done more in four years than the center-right from which Giorgetti comes in twenty, from deregulation and the most consistent tax cut of the era of globalization to full employment, from energy independence to the new approach in the Middle Orient. In this, however, helped by the different system of government.
The problem of having the "apparatuses" at one's service is solved by changing them, bringing with them a ruling class ready to follow the political direction chosen by the citizens, not bowing to the bureaucracies that are found when one is elected. If this is not possible, then there is a serious problem of democracy.
Giorgetti's advice to Salvini, which Trump's exit from the White House risks reinforcing (for this he supported Biden), is to place the hatchet against the establishment, European and domestic, and find a compromise, without the which one does not enter Palazzo Chigi. But the alley is dead, because reassuring the establishment can – perhaps, we would not bet a cent – bring down a (however illegitimate) conventio ad excludendum , but at the cost of losing votes and, therefore, reducing the chances of winning elections. And from the polls, which we are wary of anyway, it seems that this is already happening. With the supposed failure of the conventio ad excludendum you do nothing, if in the meantime you have been neutralized from the point of view of electoral strength.
Thus, the so-called "moderate turn" is a win-win scenario for the status quo and a lose-lose for the League.
True, it is difficult to govern without good relations with the chancelleries of Italy's partner countries, but the capitals to look at are Washington, London and Jerusalem. Salvini's bet on Trump, up to wearing the "Trump2020" mask during the last days of the campaign, was correct, but it was belated. He should have done so when he entered the government, but at that moment he was paying for the ambiguity with Russia in republican circles and in the State Department. The Wall Street Journal interview last September was perfect, only coming 2-3 years late.
We close with a lightning tweet , one of many, by @nonexpedit :
“The problem of the right is not populism, but that there is no longer a right-wing elite. It has disappeared, nor is it clear where it could ever form, grow and prosper in a world hegemonized culturally by the left ”.
But this is another article.
The post Oppositions fall for it: crutch to the Conte government, the trap of the “moderate turn” has been triggered appeared first on Atlantico Quotidiano .
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Atlantico Quotidiano at the URL http://www.atlanticoquotidiano.it/quotidiano/le-opposizioni-ci-cascano-stampella-al-governo-conte-scattata-la-trappola-della-svolta-moderata/ on Fri, 27 Nov 2020 04:51:00 +0000.