by Dario Di Vico
Society has become more moderate, but solutions need to be found for health, rent, schools and inflation
The journalistic debate on post-populism, which began with a provocation from the Censis Report, has stalled. Given the key she had used to develop it, it could probably only be that if the question is: do the more or less openly populist forces still have large margins of consensus? the answer can only be affirmative. But then all the analysts would have to do was consult the polls and silence the puppets.
To get richer results than a mere poll response, one must be willing to examine the underlying policies and ask, essentially, how societal demand has changed, at least in the arc running from the maximum outcome of populist forces, the formation, the yellow-green government assumes the result of the elections of September 25th. Is there the anger that marked Italy in 2018? Is it the fear of immigrants that has fueled Matteo Salvini’s rise to favor with Italians? Is there popular opposition to Europe, portrayed as stepmother and hunger? Are there doubts in the economic categories that a self-sufficient policy is the right recipe for Italy? I could go on with so many questions, but it is precisely from the points made that it is clear how, in the opinion of the Italians, some fundamental coordinates have fundamentally changed in five years. Just a flash: for Salvini’s League to correct its self-sufficient approach during the Conte 1 government, it took the Turin pro-TAV demonstrations, while today nobody in this party – albeit in deep fear – dreams of questioning the attachment to our production system to be placed in the production triangle with France and Germany. On the other hand, that of the Five Stars, it would suffice to recall how the first provision of the then Minister of Labour, Luigi Di Maio (the Dignit decree), aimed to combat fixed-term contracts, while in recent months we have witnessed a Tendency of companies to stabilize jobs. In short, a lot of water has been drained and the list of outstanding issues has been rewritten by events. Just think how the issue of the demographic winter and the difficulty of reversing the cycle of declining birth rates is changing, albeit slowly, the mood of Italians towards immigration. And if we were to consider perhaps the most important issue, inflation, we could easily conclude that there was no anger or social tension against the dizzying rise in prices and the dreaded price-wage surge that never materialized. As Censis rightly points out, it’s not that Italians have their eyes closed and there is therefore no intolerance to excess, disparity and displays of opulence, but they are all sentiments that cannot be hastily dismissed as populists. another register. Society has become more moderate, it doesn’t feel like taking the pitchforks, but that doesn’t mean it gives up the demand for efficiency and fairness.
Let’s think about two issues that concern families every day: health and renting. There is an awareness that our healthcare system is crumbling, that even talking to the GP on the phone has become a privilege, that the emergency room is becoming more and more synonymous with an odyssey, that – in short – there is a strong polarization of society in the healthcare sector. Rent dynamics in major cities haven’t received the same attention, but they deserve it. The two most dynamic cities in the country, Milan and Bologna, the ones that seem most intensely focused on the knowledge economy, are also the ones extorting the talent they want/should be paying exorbitant rents. an explosive contradiction because it takes place on the path to competitiveness that we all invoke for the future of the country. Well, that path will be high, but it tends to limit access and not, as the sacred texts of thought recite, increase inclusion.
I know that any choice, any semblance of social reality is in itself arbitrary and many other examples could be given that are perhaps even more appropriate, but I would like to argue that four years ago the adjective populist could be combined with the noun society almost automatically , today the operation is decidedly more questionable. I don’t know if melancholy really defines the character of Italians, as Censis claims, because, for example, the desire for mobility is very strong, which in recent months has led our compatriots to use planes, trains, hotels and mass events, exhibitions fill , athletic achievements. Equally striking is the research that involves the people we meet around the theme of work, its quality, its renewed meaning. a populist social issue exposed by this evidence? I would not say.
Another thing if we turn to political and intellectual mediation from the field of social research. here that a skill to convey the new demands of the post-Covid society to overcome the populist season is not yet mature. We see it both in the acrobatics of the political forces that won the elections and who think they are reflecting the social consensus by agitating on issues deemed appropriate in the abstract, we see it even more in the losing parties who do not know where to look to get back on the road. certainly true that the centre-right retains an electoral income (quote by Giovanni Orsina) due to the previous populist wave, characterized by the revolt of the small against the big, the present against the future, the lived against thought, but we are it certain that even these differences, Shouldn’t these lists be updated in light of the changes that go through society every day and undermine some conventions? Doesn’t it make more sense to start over with recipes for health, rent, school and inflation than to devote yourself to the horoscope of populism? in this exercise, society meets and real majorities emerge.
December 26, 2022 (change December 26, 2022 | 21:25)
© REPRODUCTION RESERVED