Of Marcello Veneziani

Source: Marcello Veneziani
Upon closer inspection, Matteo Renzi was the last tram, the last trump card for the GMO left. Dopo di lui il disastro. Not even the scorching one, The crushing electoral defeat reveals the conditions in which the left is currently reduced. Incomparable shreds, wandering packs without direction and destination, total absence of leadership and credible programs for the country, survival of only a few oligarchies and then that's it. Today it alternately clings to anti-populism or the Grillini.
With Renzi, albeit due to a spectacular misunderstanding, the left touched the sky of 40% of approval with one finger. Short parable, then ended with a pigeon shoot by the most barbarians to bring down the "little tyrant", which however had brought them to the top of consensus, leading the country almost alone. Renzi missed "the appointment with history" when he didn't have the courage and stature to go through with his Party of the Nation, transverse, that left the old one behind, rancid, rancorous anti-fascist left to gain centrality in the country. He got scared, Renzi, of the hostilities gathered on the left, he tried to recover among his own; then crippled by the referendum, he tried in vain to relocate himself to the centre-left, pretending to be some kind of Prodi 2.0. And there it gradually lost pieces, managing to lose the sympathies gained in the center and on the right, without gaining the slightest sympathy on the left. But Renzi collapsed, the left is in dust, with no direction of travel, it only leverages resentment towards populists.
But it would be unfair attribute the catastrophe to Renzi himself or to the misgovernment of the left. The phenomenon is worldwide, the left is no longer in government in any major country, except Xi's communist China. In America there is Trump, in Russia there is Putin, in India there is Modi, there is in Türkiye Erdogan, there is in Iran Rouhani, there is in Japan Abe, in France there is Macron, in England there is May, there is in Spain Rajoy, in Germany there is Merkel. In Hungary he is preparing to win by a landslide Orban. None of them are left-wing: they are moderate or exaggerated, popular or populist, right-wing liberals, conservatory, nationalists.
The left has disappeared within a couple of years, after Obama. He no longer rules anywhere. All that remains is Pope Francis, that is, just an icon to take refuge under his habit. He is the only one left to raise issues that may have a classic left-wing meaning, like the welcome, solidarity, the defense of the poor and the excluded, albeit in an evangelical and religious context.
There is nothing left on the left of the old social democratic experiences, Labor, reformists, socialist, liberal. Only ruins, no consensus. The crossroads he found himself at in Italy were clear: invent a left-wing Berlusconism, as Renzi tried to do, that followed the national path of Craxi(and Mitterrand), in a changed context or ride the Franciscan wave of a pauperist left, humanitarian, but knowing that they are interpreting the voice of a minority and of a force incapable of facing reality and governing it.
The subordinate hypothesis is the German one, become minority shareholders of the centre-right. But due to residual ideology there are those who prefer to act as sidekick comedians for the grillini. And regress to indignant and populist left à la Tsipras, except to be tamed and bossed around by the same Eurocrats. Otherwise disappear and surrender to the prefabricated products of the European Oligarchy (Macron type). The left is finished, there is no trace, there is no sign of life, beyond the ideological canon of political correctness, accompanied by anti-fascism and human rights rhetoric, which remains his only one, true legacy. For Renzi all that remains is the tear, given the hatred he collects in his house, but now he has little meat to cook and few ranks.
Not that on the other side there are promising signs of life and health: there is no real and credible right, national, social and conservative; there are no statesmen nor a true popular movement of Catholic inspiration. But if we look at the world, the challenge seems to be between moderate insiders and populist outsiders, almost everywhere. Or between technocrats and tribunes of the plebs, except for virtuous variations.
The left can still be an ideology, a moral, or rather a moralism, a code to conform to, even a fashion. But no longer a policy, much less a way of governing.