Conte, Schlein and the competition between ideological extremisms
Not just the Bari case. What really happens between Pd and M5s. Paola Sacchi's note
Apart from the decisive original "sin", namely that of being the heirs of that centre-left saved with a surgical operation by the mallet of "clean hands" (post-communists and left-wing DC) after the destruction of Craxi's PSI, the only liberal, anti-communist party of the modern left, the failure of the so-called broad camp marks the lowest point of the Italian left's attempt from '94 onwards to become a true alternative government force.
The wide field, with the sensational divorce in Bari between Giuseppe Conte and Elly Schlein, but also with problems in Turin and other areas, collapses into a competition between ideological extremisms. Held together by unsuccessful motions of no confidence against the centre-right government.
The Democratic Party stands out only in a very pale attempt to appear to be the most reformist force. But in the eyes of public opinion the Democratic Party now appears more like a party of power (an image aggravated by the preference scandals that emerged in Bari, which in any case will have to be clarified on a judicial level, and on which guaranteeism must apply as for everyone else) than as pivot party of an alternative front. And this is because the Democratic Party took, with the choice of the Schlein secretary, an extremist path aimed at incorporating the Five Star Movement which, however, turned out to be only a failed pursuit of Conte's extremist policies.
In politics, as we know, the original always wins. And so Conte, who finds himself a few points behind in the polls from what should be the pivotal, hegemonic force of the coalition, increasingly claims free hands and de facto command of the left-wing coalition. It is no longer the contrast that existed between the DS and the Communist Refoundation, mediated by the former left-wing DC Prodi. The Five Stars are not there to be the extreme wing of the coalition which in turn has become increasingly extreme and radicalised.
To use a Dalemian term referring to the internal fibrillations of the PD itself and its union between former communists and former left-wing DCs, the true, political amalgam was maintained with difficulty from the beginning. It was cemented predominantly by the power of the establishment, far from a broad representation of the so-called real country.
Only twice and for a few years did the left come to government through elections. But now what was the Ulivo, the Union and finally the broad field seems to have become a very narrow field with extremist politics, without a reformist center of gravity, in which a competition seems to have started where to be pure you always find someone purer than it purges you, according to the old Nennian adage.
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/mondo/pd-m5s-e-la-gara-fra-estremismi-ideologici/ on Sun, 07 Apr 2024 05:57:17 +0000.