Attention. Italians do not desert Republic Day. Under the banner of those absent who are always wrong, the three hours of live television coverage of the military parade for the June 2nd celebration recorded a 44% viewership, levels that not even the national football team now reaches.
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The left should come to terms with it: after four years of Giorgia Meloni’s government, we have become patriots. On TV, we prefer to watch tanks and bersaglieri rather than the Azzurri’s friendly matches, which, if they reach 30%, are already a great result. To the dismay of Ilaria Salis, Tomaso Montanari, and Roberto Saviano, who, in front of the President of the Republic on the national holiday, would like to parade those from the Flotilla; why not even Hamas, at this point?
The evening also went well, with the special on the Eighty Years since the Referendum surpassing 16% share, distancing Tuesday’s political in-depth analyses. Italy doesn’t bore, anti-Italians do, seems to be the remote control’s verdict. But the day’s losers are certainly not to be found on television. The finger is pointed towards Elly Schlein and Giuseppe Conte, who marked their absence without justification.
EMPTY CHAIRS
What will they do if the left wins next time? Will they leave the chairs next to Sergio Mattarella empty? Or will they attend this time, testifying that for progressives, the Republic deserves to be celebrated only if they govern it; because one should never get involved with the right, not even when it represents institutions, which are secondary and must succumb to party logic.
No one invited me, the Democratic secretary justifies herself, hiding behind etiquette, as if it were a middle school students’ birthday and June 2nd were not a national holiday. A curious statement, moreover, for someone who founded Occupy Pd and then took it over, claiming no one saw her coming, which means she doesn’t wait for invitations when she wants something.
It’s true, the ceremonial protocol does not provide for official invitations to party secretaries but only to institutions, therefore to the group leaders of all parties, including those in opposition, and to former prime ministers, so in addition to Conte, also to Matteo Renzi, who, if he was there, didn’t draw attention. But it depends on how much one cares.
Meloni, for example, when she was the leader of a small opposition party, asked to be there and was naturally welcomed with open arms, even if naturally placed to the side, in the position that was appropriate for her at the time. Elly, however, did not stoop.
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Thinking about it better, however, it wasn’t a matter of not stooping, but of calculation. The absence is the result of a political calculation, not a misinterpretation of institutional etiquette. If that weren’t the case, the secretary would have asked her two group leaders in Parliament, Francesco Boccia and Chiara Braga, to be present, as the former ‘scrapper’ intelligently did, having himself represented by Raffaella Paita and Maria Elena Boschi. Even Conte had himself replaced in some way, although the willing Michele Gubitosa cannot be called a first choice.
Schlein and the Democrats, however, did not: the secretary is stubbornly unitary and wants to be brought to Palazzo Chigi from within the broad field. Lacking ideas or particular charisma, she opted for a strategy she obsessively pursues: that of doing nothing that could bring her criticism. After stepping on a banana peel, talking about wealth tax and getting a ‘screw you’ from both Renzi and Conte, Elly could not afford to appear at the June 2nd parade, because she would have incurred the wrath of Avs, the pro-Pal supporters, and that part of the Pd that voted for her.
TACTICS
The strategy, however, is short-lived. Sergio Mattarella or Ilaria Salis? The Democratic secretary must choose, the two figures are not compatible. She said she wants to move the Pd further to the left and was elected for this, but her and her party’s absence from the June 2nd parade legitimizes the question of how much further left; to the point of leaving the perimeter of institutions, which, upon closer inspection, is the perimeter drawn by the Constitution that Schlein has practically claimed as her own, almost as if she had written it? Italians, for what Auditel is worth, which in any case has a much broader base than any poll, have done so.
The circumstance of having noisy and aggressive allies, specialists in raising the tone of controversy and making themselves the measure of the world to the point of criminalizing those who don’t think like them, even if it were Erri De Luca or Francesco De Gregori, is a handicap for reaching Palazzo Chigi. Tying herself to these people to get there was a mistake for which the secretary has already started to pay the price. If Carlo Verdone, Luca Zingaretti, Luca Barbarossa, Carolina Crescentini, and Cristina Capotondi understood it on the evening of June 2nd on Mattarella’s stage, she should understand it too.
