What is not to be said about Giorgia Meloni?
The unseen parallels between Mattarella and Meloni. Damato's editorial published in the Libero newspaper.
There's a connection, uncomfortable for many but clear to those with honest observation and analysis, between the President of the Republic's New Year's message, devoid of any reference to fascism or anti-fascism, the full appreciation immediately expressed by Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, and the call for the need for "true national pacification" made by Meloni herself upon hearing the news of the attack she suffered—fortunately without deaths, as occurred in the same Roman location 48 years ago—by young right-wingers who wanted to commemorate that tragedy by pasting up posters. A cold-blooded attack, like the seasonal one, let's say, driven by the usual belief that everything is and must remain as it was. That even memory is a sin, and should not be conflated with the "responsibility" Meloni reminds us of, I believe, not only of her young people but also of her peers and elders.
This reaction from Meloni, dear gentlemen of the left, scattered haphazardly across the variable-width alternative field, confirms the statesmanlike role she has established from her first steps at Palazzo Chigi. And her permanently sidelined opponents, believing they're scoring goals into an open net, end up fueling it with the proof they manage to give of themselves every day, every hour, on every level, including internationally, where they always end up with the dictator of the moment. They can't detach themselves from him even for a moment after his fall. Indeed, they mourn him and hope for his return. Any reference to Venezuela and Maduro is, of course, not coincidental. On the contrary, it is intentional.
Dictator? But Trump is, the Italian "no"s reply, forgetting in their astronomical ease the free elections that brought the American president back to the White House, opposed by a left-wing coalition in free fall, even in the electoral accounts reviewed back home, here in Italy, by someone like Massimo D'Alema. He certainly knows the left better than many others who now think they represent it even better than he does. And they only seem to envy him the wine he produces.
Meloni's statesmanship has become an obsession for her adversaries. Just as Bettino Craxi had become on the left, during the nearly four years he spent in Palazzo Chigi, with his "tricolor socialism." Remember? Even the nearly centenarian Rino Formica forgot about it a few days ago, surprised by the New Year's Eve similarities between Mattarella and Meloni, and enchanted by the fascism and anti-fascism that had been shelved at the Quirinale. Just as Craxi did in 1985, at Palazzo Chigi, seeking out the secretary of the Social Movement, Giorgio Almirante, who, a decade earlier, had already been meeting privately with the Communist secretary, Enrico Berlinguer, to protect both from the black and red terrorism that threatened them.
Then-Prime Minister Craxi asked Almirante to support Arnaldo Forlani's candidacy for the Quirinale, which ultimately failed to gain traction within the DC. Francesco Cossiga, instead, succeeded in replacing Sandro Pertini. Seven years later, in 1992, Forlani's candidacy also gained traction within the DC, consistently supported by Craxi but openly opposed, successfully, within the PSI by Formica himself, who, even then, was stubborn in his vision of a world always divided solely between fascists and anti-fascists.
The world, indeed, is changing. And how it changes, amidst wars that never end and others that loom. Among despots who fall, some fleeing and others ending up in handcuffs, protagonists who fade and extras who aspire to replace them. Among Popes who alternate with the wise courage to correct themselves, like Leo XIV when he spoke of Ukraine, distinguishing himself from his predecessor, Francis. But Italian politics, as seen and described by the "national collective," so to speak, remains the same. A disheartening spectacle.
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/mondo/convergenze-meloni-mattarella/ on Sat, 10 Jan 2026 06:16:45 +0000.