Think of the paradox of this electoral campaign, what effects the most refined and dangerous of populisms, the “neo-aristocratic populism of the elites”, is having on the political elections.
In fact, there is a piece of the Italian ruling classes, which in recent years – out of anger or desperation – have begun to cheer for the non-vote, or for the non-victory, or for an uncertain result that does not produce any parliamentary majority. homogeneous.
These are three scenarios which, after all, represent – albeit in different ways – the only possible way to ensure the return of a now non-democratic but almost sacred formula: the so-called “technical government”. That is, a government that manages to get rid of the problem of consent. That it should not be confronted with the idea of being legitimized by a popular vote.
It sounds crazy, but this new current of thought rests on a more or less logical explanation. This is a hope, almost always unacknowledged, but supported in every way, even in the media. For example, the one offered by some candidates of the so-called “third pole” (which in reality, according to the polls, is currently the fourth and a half pole).
Maria Stella Gelmini, former Minister of Forza Italia, for example, openly theorem of the non-consensus theorem, with these words: “I hope that none of the main coalitions that are in the field today will win: on the one hand, that is, the one formed from a maximalist left, hanging on the whims of Fratoianni and Bonelli. And on the other, a right-wing enslaved by the populism of the League. If this happens – observes the outgoing Minister of Regional Affairs – there will be the conditions for Draghi to finally return to Palazzo Chigi! Voting for us – concludes Gelmini – means voting for this outcome! ». The return of the longed-for technician, therefore, as a return to Eden, as the primal state of nature in which votes no longer count, and majorities and names are interchangeable, under the power of the only true “chosen one”. The technocratic leader.
Politics? An error
Now, on closer inspection, this reasoning (expressed in almost identical words also by Matteo Renzi and Carlo Calenda, but also by authoritative commentators such as Massimo Franco), has elements of madness, which, however, can all be explained: according to this vision, the right and the left are just an error, the product of a feeling of malmostosa popular sovereignty, while “the government of the best” would be the only salvation for the country, the necessary defusing of the political and social conflict. But since the “best” do not want to get their hands dirty with electoral campaigns and with the onerous task of collecting votes, then politics must become the handmaid of technocracy, pure electoral theater with limited sovereignty. Thus politics is reduced to cheering on the crisis of politics (that is, of itself!) In order to then be able to invoke a savior of the homeland to put things right.
The reasoning is so convoluted that it gave rise to a surreal curtain between the former Italian minister and the director of IlFatto.it, Peter Gomez on La7: “Excuse me – objected Gomez – but if you come to cheer for a lack majority, as long as Draghi governs, can you at least tell me if Draghi encouraged it? Whether or not he favors this project of yours? She – concluded Gomez – sees him often, and this morning too, in the council of ministers. Was it possible that she never said a word to her? ‘
At this question, Gelmini’s expression suddenly turned to marble and petrified tones. The Calendian candidate, in fact, she warned that she could not say that she was “encouraged” (she would immediately become a political fact, and therefore a title). But she couldn’t even lightly deny that she hadn’t received any support (because that would have been a way of describing her own irrelevance). And so Gelmini, for a few minutes, said nothing more. Smiles, half sentences, evasions.
The Draghi government, in the minds of these supporters, should return as the rulers of the Italian dynasties returned to their regional kingdoms after the Vienna congress in 1815: with wigs and ruffs, locked in their gilded stucco carriages, and acclaimed in the streets by the cheering peasants. But – for God’s sake – no votes and no tests. Because there is no longer any hope of passing the test unscathed.
Against universal suffrage
I therefore found it very instructive – in this regard – a dialogue in which an unsuspected leader of any Jacobin or radical passion, Mario Monti, stigmatized this attitude, giving me some salacious and caustic jokes that well described the situation: “Someone – says Monti – told me as an alleged “loser”, for the result, which I collected with the Civic Choice, at the 2013 policies. months, after two years of government tears and blood, which came from the pension reform, which made no promises, and which if anything took away, rather than gave, the Italians. Well – observes Monti – in these conditions I took 10 percent of the votes. I am really curious to see if whoever is applying to collect those consents will be able to get close to this result ».
Perhaps, precisely because of this result, Draghi has chosen not to run. While, as is well known, his government had a completely different attitude: he opened his mandate with a reform of the land registry that was triggered only in 2024 so as not to bother the center-right, and closed it with a universal petrol bonus of two hundred euro, perfect for making an “image”. This while he, after having changed the building bonus seven times, he reproached the yellow-red government (in the famous speech of trust) for having “written it wrong”.
If there is one thing that the populism of the elites does not disdain, then, it is the winking search of the voters. But it is one thing to please, it is quite another to have to establish a pact, come up with proposals, make commitments in the electoral rite. Renzismo has built all its strategy on promises and prebends (the “violin bonus” is memorable). While the “Dragon Age” closed with the first early summer vote (strategic to avoid the furious reactions of citizens to October’s bimonthly bills).
“Populism” is always that of others. In various countries of the world there is debate (unfortunately seriously) on the ways in which to overcome representative democracy, on charismatic “democracies”, on provocations such as the return to non-plebiscitary, oligarchic forms, new theories of restricted suffrage, or even of “epistocratic” democracies “(Again, the government of the” best “) such as those described by a constitutionalist of the caliber of Sabino Cassese.
Cassese’s essay was published as a preface to the book by an American scholar Jason Brennan, which is entitled, not surprisingly, “Against Democracy”, to summarize the discomfort of neoliberals with respect to universal suffrage. Even on the left, however, some consider the universal vote to be an outdated tool: an idea that snakes in the French left, and found a form in an essay entitled “Against the Elections”, published by a Belgian scholar, David van Reybrouck.
Voting – this is the thesis – “is no longer worthwhile”, since everything has already been decided. These are ideas that circulate at such a speed, that even the old Silvio Berlusconi, a few days ago, said in one of his messages: “Remember that mine was the last government that was the expression of a majority elected by vote. “.
That’s why even the Italian elites are cheering for non-victory this time: to change everything, with the theater of a theatrical election campaign, so that in the end nothing changes. But in the end even the fans of the new leopard do badly: the combination of the cut of the parliamentarians and the Rosatellum will produce an effect. It will be ugly, dirty or bad, but a majority will pop out of these polls. With all due respect to the fans of the “Dragon Restoration”.
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