For over two decades, Italy has been in a phase of stagnation. Despite the obvious need for serious economic and structural reforms, the country is prevented from enacting them for several reasons, but there is one in particular that holds it back: the mentality of the Leopard.
This mentality is brilliantly encapsulated in Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa’s novel “Il Gattopardo” (The Leopard). Published posthumously, it portrays the decadence of the Sicilian aristocracy at the time of the unification of the various states on the Italian peninsula into a single country (the Risorgimento), as embodied in the character of Don Fabrizio, Prince of Salina (called the “Leopard” after his family crest).
Considering the social and political upheaval of the period as a threat to his class’s supremacy, Don Fabrizio pretends to support the introduction of a new regime in order to preserve the power and privileges of the aristocracy.
As his nephew, Tancredi, tells him: Se vogliamo che tutto rimanga come è, bisogna che tutto cambi (“If we want things to stay as they are, things will have to change”).
Thus, changes are paradoxically implemented on the condition that everything remains exactly as it is, nothing must change. In other words, self-interest.
The re-election by Italian parliamentarians of Sergio Mattarella as president for a second term on Jan. 29 is confirmation that the mentality of the Leopard is alive and well.
Two candidates had emerged. Former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, and current Prime Minister Mario Draghi (the former President of the European Central Bank, ex-managing director of Goldman Sachs and chief inventor of “quantitive easing”).
Even though it seemed likely that Berlusconi would attract enough votes to win, he withdrew his candidacy for reasons that are still unclear.
As for Draghi, he is not even an elected politician. He was appointed prime minister by Mattarella last February to head an emergency government of national unity after parliament had failed, as often happens, to find a prime minister from among its ranks.
Farrell reports that before voting began, Draghi was the favourite in the polls to become president with Berlusconi in second place. But in the event, he got only a handful of votes in each of the ballots.
The parliamentarians did not vote for him because the only way to stop the snap election they so dread was to keep him as prime minister. If he had become president, parliament would fail to find a new prime minister and would have to go to the people.
The thing most senators and deputies want to avoid at all costs right now is the electorate—above all for reasons of losing power, i.e. self-interest.
The alt-left 5 Stelle (Five Star Party) has the most parliamentarians but is riven by schism. Its support has plummeted from 33 percent of the vote at the 2018 general election to about 15 percent in the polls. It wants to avoid elections like the plague, as does the PD since with around 20 percent in the polls, there is no way it can form a government.
On the right, it gets even more interesting. The federalist Lega (born out of the Northern League separatist party) also has around 20 percent support. Berlusconi’s Forza Italia has around 9 percent.
The party leading in the polls with around 22 percent support is Giorgia Meloni’s party, Fratelli d’Italia (Brothers of Italy). Together with the Lega and Forza Italia, it would have enough support to form a government. However, the latter two are part of Draghi’s national unity government (which is, for all intents and purposes, a dictatorship).
Indeed, Fratelli d’Italia is the only major party that has refused to join the Draghi government on the reasonable grounds that it is illegitimate given his unelected status. And it was the only major party that voted against Mattarella. Indeed, Meloni had an agreement from the Lega and Forza Italia that they would not vote for Mattarella. Yet they betrayed her.
Fratelli d’Italia is cast in the mainstream media as an “alt-right” or “post-fascist” party.
While several of its members hail from the old Movimento Sociale Italiano (Italian Social Movement)—the party formed out of the ashes of Mussolini’s Fascists. Meloni is a declared admirer of Anglo-American conservatism, and thus, individual liberty. She is also the president of the Conservatives and Reformists Group in the European Parliament.
Scruton’s most notable publications include “The Meaning of Conservatism” (1980) and “How to be a Conservative” (2014).
Scruton was instrumental in forming underground networks of dissident academics in what was the old Eastern Soviet Bloc.
As Meloni stated in the same article:
“In my opinion, the greatest cultural inheritance which Scruton has given us is his extraordinary ability to describe and explain the profound reasons for his love of both the small and the big, which according to him are both worth conserving. In his thought, the protection of the traditions of small communities and the struggle for the highest social and political conquests, such as the liberty of people subjugated by the yoke of the Soviet Union, were of equal importance. He explained to us that conservatism is born from the conviction that it is easy to destroy good things but it is not easy to create them.”
Now that, Meloni has transformed her party, inspired by conservative values—most notably individual liberty, the biggest obstacle she faces in becoming prime minister is the mindset of the Leopard.
This mindset of self-interest approves of such things as the ban on the unvaccinated. Such a herd mentality is not only manna from heaven for dictators like Draghi but also a mortal threat to liberty.
To say that Italy has a bloated bureaucracy and public debt problem is the quintessential understatement. Meloni as prime minister would also seek no doubt to drive economic reforms and shrink the size of government in line with Reagan’s policies.
That thought is enough to make the elites catatonic with fear. Meloni is a threat to their supremacy. Like Don Fabrizio, they will do anything in order to preserve their power and privileges.
The term of the current parliament is due to end by no later than June 1, 2023. After Mattarella’s election, Meloni declared that her party’s decision not to vote for him will see it rewarded at the expense of all the others that voted for this inciucio (stitch-up).
For Italy’s sake, I hope she is right.
