Eight times out of 10 it appears next to his name: Luigi di Maio from Pomigliano d'Arco. It's not quite the same as Camillo Benso (count) of Cavour, but times change and we get over it. It's true, Di Maio has a home in Pomigliano d'Arco, where crews and envoys have arrived in the last two years to uncover secrets and stories about his political origins. The family ones, were clumsily made public on the occasion of events related to the activities of the parents. And it wasn't a good thing. But the city in which he lived, until his expolit in the Chamber of Deputies and then as political leader of the M5S and deputy prime minister, is still visited by curious politicians. No one has discovered great things, apart from some playful experience in school committees and banquets for the grillini's primordial initiatives. From Pomigliano d'Arco were the parents of Giovanni Leone, sixth President of the Republic, of which Di Maio perhaps would have liked to imitate the role that Leone also had as Prime Minister. Luck didn't help him.
In Pomigliano d'Arco, the M5S leader returned as deputy prime minister to visit the aeronautical hub of the Leonardo Company, to visit his old high school, to have his photograph taken at the table with his family, to assist Mimmo Mignano, a fired FCA worker who had set fire to his house. He things like this: a bit government and a bit tribune. But the city, which accompanies its origins in the chronicles, has never identified with the parable of its - for now - most illustrious citizen. Is the writer Fulvio Abbate right, who judges Luigi Di Maio a "miracle, an in vitro creature of Casaleggio associati, a new occupational subject ready to take the stage, however one thinks of it"?
In these hours play the game of life. The possibility, the ability, to politically survive himself using the power of "grace and forgiveness" granted by Grillo and Casaleggio. It is known that he has never had a stable job and that his political battle in favor of the riders, detractors say, is a kind of conditioned reflex for his pre-political experiences. Pomigliano d'Arco, however, has a strong democratic, workers' and union tradition, marked by decades of struggles and claims of all kinds. One of the largest FCA factories is located here, the former Alfasud from the time of the IRI. The future Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Economic Development had every opportunity to learn the rules of the democratic game at home, certainly more difficult than the "vaffa..." of a seasoned piper. He had the time and place not to make useless threats to reform the union once the M5S came to power, as he declared to Repubblica. He didn't do anything, of course. And in the key moment of his ascent (or descent) if he had been far-sighted he could have conversed with better luck and perhaps success with the other blessed by fortune in the role of head of government. All this, albeit within a movement managed by a private citizen. Instead what emerges is the defense to the bitter end of positions obtained by the leaders and maintained despite the loss of millions of votes in the last elections.
The city associated with his name thinks of something else, in spite of reporters hunting for a scoop. He is not keen on the Di Maio-Pomigliano d'Arco combination. There is no sentiment, no anxiety about what the future holds for him. He is anxious if he thinks that on 4 September the redundancy fund for 4.500 FCA workers will be renegotiated at the Mise. That there is a need for work, that the territory must be better governed. The Conte bis can mark the political end of Di Maio. Who mysteriously crowned him head of the movement, unfortunately for him is witnessing the blatant metamorphosis of a man seduced by power, the real machine that reveals the nature of people. He is doing everything to stay where he is, he certainly has grit, but it doesn't count to be from Pomigliano d'Arco.
