Of Emanuele Boffi
Source: Times
Matteo Salvini said he does not believe the latest SWG survey given by the League to 32 percent. The Interior Minister and Northern League leader is right to be cautious, knowing full well - like the other Northern League member Giancarlo Giorgetti – how volatile the consensus is in Italy. It remains an objective fact, However, than his government action (much more than that of his Grillini companions) gain the sympathy of the Italians. Why? Because this happens, although almost all the media do nothing but attack him? It is the frustration of the left that cannot understand the fact that voters simply do not understand that Salvini is "a barbarian", “a fascist”, “a racist”.
It's a misunderstanding that's not just Italian. Il 9 September we vote in Sweden, the country of “good” socialism, of statism from the cradle to the grave and where progressive parties have always governed. The latest polls tell us that even in those latitudes the right-wing party (populist, racist etc etc) is on the rise. The Social Democratic Party is al 23,3 percent, the xenophobic right-wing Sweden Democrats al 19,7. It is likely that everything will then be resolved with the formation of a centre-left government (the proportional system applies and alliances are made after the vote), ma, also in this case, the neutral observer cannot help but wonder what is the reason for the success of Jimmie Åkesson's "unpresentables".
Another example. Tuesday in the newspaper Italy Today Berlin correspondent Roberto Giardina began his article like this:
A week of clashes in Chemnitz and the AfD increases further. One more point, dal 14 al 15%, against i 12,6 of the last elections, exactly one year ago. According to other polls, the populists of the far right would even be at 17%, one step away from the Social Democrats (18). And according to other data, they would already be equal, al 16,5. The CDU-CSU remains stable at 31, but it was at 41 before the great exodus, when in September of 2015 Frau Merkel decided not to close the borders and in four months one million one hundred thousand Flüchtlinge entered, fugitives.
In Bavaria we vote on 14 October and for the centre-right and centre-left parties a Caporetto is expected. Why? How is this possible if all the mainstream media are openly aligned against the far-right AfD party?
Giardina gives an illuminating example:
Even though I follow the news and read all the national newspapers, for days I didn't really understand what had happened in Chemnitz. At the beginning there was talk of clashes without explaining why. Then, it was admitted: a young man was stabbed to death on the night of 26 August. For trivial reasons. No, because he tried to save a girl who was about to be raped. In the end, the name of the victim Daniel H., 35 years, leaves behind wife and son. Still nothing on who killed him. Everyone already suspects, so, whether it is a foreigner. Privacy requires revealing only the name, and not the surname, of those involved in news events. The police don't do this because it would be immediately obvious: this is the Iraqi Jussif, 22 years, and the Syrian Alaa, Of 23. This was revealed by a policeman, which will be suspended. (…) Jussif killed with a stab or with 24? For a woman, or for cigarettes? Apparently, there was no girl in danger. But now no one believes in anything anymore. The authorities knew that violent right-wingers were marching on Chemnitz, because adequate measures were not taken? For incompetence, or by tacit complicity? (…) Jussif had already been expelled, ma he Bamf, the office for foreigners, he allowed six months to pass before sending him back to Bulgaria, and we had to start again from scratch. And they passed 22 months, in which the Iraqi committed several crimes. The Bamf was already under investigation because it gave away permits to everyone, due to misunderstood do-goodism. I think that many vote to the right, o si astono, because they feel insecure. And they are because they are convinced that they are treated like children who cannot be told the truth.
The left (and its media) it is not in good shape in any European country. Here we fiddle about marginal issues (the debate on whether to change the name of the Democratic Party has restarted, Laura Boldrini proposes to start again from "ListaUnitariaEuropea", whose acronym Lue stands for “syphilis”), collecting grotesque figures. The media present Salvini as a "non-man" (Espresso), like a devil (Christian family) and even a prosecutor's office is investigating him. Better opponents than these, the leader of the League could not have them.
The most astute minds who have no sympathy for the yellow-green government have understood that the demonization strategy is counterproductive and plays into the enemy's hands. The political scientist Giovanni Orsina, then taken up by Paolo Mieli, proposed a different strategy: “Romanize the Barbarians”, that is, to begin a process of normalization to bring the Northern League and Grillini back to the rule of law and to milder advice. Orsina's reasoning is interesting and strategically well argued, but – in my opinion – fallacious in one of its premises. The problem, Indeed, it's not that there are barbarians, the problem is that there are no "Romans". Chi, Indeed, it should "contaminate" Salvini? Who should "educate" Di Maio? Laura Boldrini is an enlightened matron who could teach democracy to the Five Star Movement? Maurizio Martina is a Cicerone compared to Alberto Bagnai or Claudio Borghi? Matteo Renzi is the Caesar who could restore order on the pitch?
It's not like that, and we know it. «Perhaps the ruling class that leads the left, having no real solutions to the country's problems, he needs an enemy to demonize, despise, hate: yesterday it was Berlusconi, today it's Salvini", he told us Luca Ricolfi. If the alternative to the "booty" Donald Trump is Hillary Clinton, that is, mainstream thinking, people vote for the boor. The problem is that the dominant and widespread thinking of the left is tiring, it is inadequate and - for a thousand and more different reasons - people turn to those who contest that thought. Liberal thinking is the problem, as the Polish philosopher explained in Times Ryszard Legutko.
To return to our own backyard and in particular to the center-right, there are two alternatives: a new shock that sends Lega and M5s into crisis and starts everything from scratch. But the problem remains: all over again from what? With what ideas, with what forces, with which men?
Or that Salvini understands that if he wants to broaden and stabilize this consensus that has fallen to him from heaven more due to the demerits of others than his own merits, it must also speak to those sectors of public opinion currently without points of reference. And those sectors need to figure out if, at least a little, it is better for them to "barbarize" themselves.
