What do you want from Salvini and Meloni? Here’s what the center-right is missing: praise and some ideas

23 September 20204 years ago babelfish

But what do you want from Matteo Salvini and Giorgia Meloni? One took a party at 4 percent, in a political and identity crisis, and brought it steadily to 25-26 percent nationally, the other invented a political force bringing it to 15-16 percent in a few years, beyond the electoral goals of the old National Alliance. Together, they represent an area greater than 40 percent and govern (with FI) in 15 out of 20 regions.

To be insatiable, one could observe (but they are not things that are built at the table) that it would be in their interest to differentiate a little their respective political offers, for example by recovering (Lega) a stronger northern-autonomist accent and relaunching (Fdi ) the ability of An to weigh in the South. On the contrary, the feeling is that now, politologically speaking, Lega and Fdi are two catch-all parties, capable of taking votes in many directions, and not so evidently different from each other, with this fueling the "risk" of a vote in many ways bordering and even interchangeable.

This is no small issue to be resolved, which certainly can fuel even an angular competition: but in any case these are two strong, healthy parties destined to last and consolidate further.

They cannot be blamed for what others should have done and taken care of, that is, to prepare another piece of political offer in the center-right, which Forza Italia is clearly unable to satisfy.

The point, in fact, is not the need for a "moderate" component (an adjective that does not seem to mean very much), and least of all for someone who hopes for Eurolyric failures on the right. On the contrary, a combative, conservative and libertarian component would be needed, Eurosceptic in the name of the market, oriented towards the no-quarter pro-business and anti-tax battle, dedicated to the defense of the individual against state and bureaucratic bullying. Able to make these issues not the last point in order of importance in his political menu, but the first and almost obsessive priority.

With a joke, one could say that "Clint Eastwood" is missing: there is a piece of the right that places freedom above other values, that is aimed at voters – like the others in the current center-right – radically anti-left, and yet anxious about their fate of freedom in our time, more and more often sacrificed and expendable in the name of the emergency.

Think of the Covid affair, in which (also for very understandable reasons, starting from the fear of an unjust moral criminalization) the Italian opposition was all too condescending to the opaque management of Conte and his economy-killing lockdown .

How you do it? How is this sensitivity embodied alongside the current center-right forces? Perhaps it is too trivial to think of a third list, as well as an Fi whose performance is inevitably uncertain in the future. It may be – second hypothesis – that Salvini and Meloni take charge of this political need, enhancing some cultural areas, giving citizenship and visibility to some battles, reviewing the basket of their political offer.

There is also a third hypothesis, in the opinion of the writer the best ever. Even if, with realism, I know that it is disliked by almost everyone, either for the legitimate pride of the forces that exist today, or for the unfortunate proportionalist sirens whose song fascinates a large part of the parliamentary hemicycle.

Against all this, it would be a question of reconceiving the entire political offer of the center-right, focusing on a republican party on the US model (in which many cultures and sensitivities feel at home), bringing political competition and the coexistence of even different thrusts under a single immense tent, and letting the whole of half of Italy (well over half) know not communist, not leftist, not taxer, not bureaucratic, that that is the reference field.

They are only notes for constructive reflection. Salvini, Meloni and their constituents do not listen to the interested mourners who, in today's newspapers, dress in mourning for a nonexistent funeral of the center-right. Curious paradox: since this time the Democratic Party has lost less than other times, there are also those who present him as the winner of the game. Surreal spin. Having said that, however, the leaders of the current center-right and those who feel close to them do not underestimate the problem: something is missing, and you cannot ignore it.

The post What do you want from Salvini and Meloni? Here's what the center-right is missing: a praise and some ideas 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/rubriche/cosa-volete-da-salvini-e-meloni-ecco-cosa-manca-al-centrodestra-un-elogio-e-qualche-idea/ on Wed, 23 Sep 2020 03:50:00 +0000.