The 5 Star Movement and the Lega are very different political forces, which however have one thing in common which explains, more than any other, how they manage to govern together. This thing is the conviction of being able to represent, each in its own way, a valid alternative to the crisis of representative democracy, which is manifest in Italy but which is latent in all Western democracies.
The League thinks it can do it by taking Orban and his "authoritarian democracy" as a model, while the 5 Stars prefer to turn their attention to the various Latin American populisms. In any case, neither of these two political forces proposes reforms capable of restoring solidity, effectiveness and prestige to our representative institutions because this is not their objective.
Their real goal is the emptying, if not the overcoming (see Casaleggio and Grillo) of representative democracy to the advantage, in the case of the League, of the "commander" and, in that of the 5 Stars, of the people of the web. In any case to the detriment of the Institutes of representative democracy which are instead the basis of our Republic.
To this common feeling is added a further element of cohesion between the Lega and 5Stelle and it is the contempt for the elites (not only the political ones), the distrust of skills, culture and science and the growing intolerance for procedures and rules of democracy. These are all facts that closely recall the attitude of the Parisian crowds towards the "ancien regime", when resentment took the place of reason in their hearts.
Now, how was it possible to get to this point?
The answer to this question, which we should all ask ourselves, is that the Italian "ancien regime", if we want to call it that, did not collapse due to the attack of external subversive forces (the barbarians) but due to its inability to reform itself. The unforgivable fault of the cultural and economic political elites is to have prevented, starting from the end of the 70s, the implementation of those economic, social and institutional reforms, which would have made our institutions not only more representative but also more effective and our society fairer.
The fault lies with all those in Parliament, in the Union, in the Judiciary and in the Universities who have hindered any attempt to reform the country to the point of condemning those who tried to do so to shame. It was like this with De Gasperi, when he put forward the first, timid proposal to reform the electoral law, and it was like this, years later, with Craxi, who was not forgiven for his attempt to bring about a Great Reform capable of making political alternation possible. and governance.
And, more recently, the same fate befell Berlusconi first and then Renzi. If our democracy is at risk today (and it is!) and if the values of reformist and democratic liberalism are so despised (and they are), the fault lies also and above all with those political, cultural and economic elites, so profoundly conservative and so intimately corporate as to be able to block any change or, at least, reduce it to the point of making it ineffective.
Is it possible to remedy this situation, take the path of reforms and prevent a further deterioration of our democracy? It's hard to say, but it's mandatory to try.
Minister Calenda has indicated a possible way: to clearly say who we are and what we want; define a programmatic political platform of economic, social and institutional reforms that are essential if we want to resume the path of economic growth, development and employment; oppose the government's action point by point and, above all, work towards the construction of a vast alliance of reformist and democratic, progressive and moderate forces that will run first for the European Parliament and then for the leadership of the country.
It is up to the Pd to start this process even if it is quite clear that the outcome cannot be a stronger Pd or even an aggregation of only the forces of the left but a new and broader formation of the centre-left. A new democratic, reformist and reforming political force. A pro-European force but, precisely for this reason, the standard bearer of a renewed Europe, as Macron says.
Is it a possible goal? Yes, it is if you work with conviction, that conviction which, at least until now, seems to be lacking in the PD. It is not a question of programmatic elaboration, which to a large extent already exists, but of political will, which is still lacking.
The programmatic political platform is, in fact, already largely defined. Many have worked and are still working on it, not only in Italy but also in Europe. An extraordinary contribution has also recently come from the English magazine "The Economist" which, celebrating the 156th anniversary of its foundation, published a Manifesto for a new liberalism (radically reformist as he defined it) capable of combining freedom with the common good. So there is no shortage of ideas and they are stronger ideas than those of the 5 Stars or the League.
To these ideas we Italians could perhaps add one of our own which is that of electing, in conjunction with the next political elections, a Constituent Assembly, to which we entrust the task of drawing up and proposing to the country a hypothesis of constitutional reform that takes into account the great changes that have occurred. It is not a new proposition. It has already been advanced and it has always been rejected and perhaps it will be again this time.
But it should be clear to everyone, by now, that the path of partial reforms, of referendums on particular aspects and of changes wrested from the blows of the majority leads nowhere. That what we need is a calm, aware and competent reflection on these issues and who better than a Constituent Assembly can do it? Let's think about it. Perhaps this moment of such a deep crisis and of such great insecurity about our own national identity is the right one to do it.
