Referendum, Schlein's Tactics

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There is a journalist, formerly of Repubblica, but a free thinker (and the but has a meaning, for journalists who know the adversaries), who is called Ivan Berni. I have great respect for Ivan. Commenting on the referendum, Berni uses very harsh words: "I think that this terrible situation (a political gamble that no one believed in) was set up to have one more argument to throw in the faces of fellow travellers. Minoritarianism has once again won by a landslide. It has won by reaffirming itself as the most powerful and so far invincible soul of the Italian left. Everyone knew that the Referendum would be a failure, and yet signatures were collected, it was pretended that the issues on which the vote would be held were of capital importance ."

Schlein goes straight ahead without listening to anyone. But Milan and the North are seething

I couldn't have said it better. The conclusion, however, differs between me and Ivan. Because for him it is a failure in the sense that it does not determine any step forward for the world of the left. Instead , for me, even if I do not agree with anything, Schlein comes out strengthened because she reasons in a logic of strengthening the nucleus, and of attracting the contiguous electorate of the 5 Star Movement and Avs. And in fact she goes straight ahead without listening to anyone, with her most faithful. Of course, the territories of the North are seething: Milan first and foremost. And it is no coincidence that many reformists, in these latitudes, live with discomfort and annoyance a message that has nothing of Milanese and Lombard.

But the battle over rights can - and does - cover everything. It's Pride time, and every division is swept away by the fact that when it comes to civil rights even the reformists on a war footing are firmly on the left. Schlein is proving to be tougher than everyone else. I wrote it and I repeat it. He reminds me, obviously not because of the positions (diametrically opposed) but because of the method, of the protagonist of The Young Pope , Sorrentino's series in which a "young" pope scandalizes the Church by doing everything the Church considers wrong, and yet reigning perhaps with more power than anyone else in the recent past.

Schlein adopts the policy of extreme polarization. Like Meloni

Schlein does not mediate, does not negotiate, does not bend. Schlein keeps his loyalists united, holds firm to the fundamentals, does not broaden . Is it necessary to broaden? Yes, perhaps. But it is more necessary to militarize and polarize one's own, in a world in which most people no longer go to vote. It is a gamble that implies a paradigm shift: no longer the politics of negotiation, of agreement, but the politics of extreme polarization, on one side and the other. Meloni had played - in her time - the same game: she had held her ground while everyone was with Draghi. And then she was chosen because she had not made agreements. Schlein is trying to do exactly the same thing, with an added difficulty: Meloni had a homogeneous territory for a homogeneous group that could receive the same message. Schlein, on the other hand, has a North sensitive to issues that the secretariat no longer seems to address: economic development and tax pressure (yes, even the rich pay taxes).