At the end of the year, one could not miss Pagnoncelli’s authoritative poll in Corriere della Sera on Italians’ voting intentions. In short, what would happen if a vote were cast today? Without going into too much detail and noting that there are no resounding shakeups compared to the recent history of individual parties, Italy is heading toward a now clear-cut bipolarity. Two major movements with two women at the helm: Fratelli d’Italia, led by premier Giorgia Meloni, which stands at almost 28 percent, and the PD, with secretary Elly Schlein, which is close to 23 percent.
The coalitions are organized around them: the center-right coalition, which is concrete and governs, and the center-left coalition, the so-called “wide field,” which is not yet real but is being structured in the opposition laboratory. Two successes, when one considers that after two years of government, polls usually indicate a decline in support and that, for those who have been in opposition for two years, gathering support is increasingly difficult.
In the meantime, politics is not on vacation: tomorrow closes with the financial maneuver, while the Pope, knocking on the door of Rebibbia, reopens the debate on an issue as delicate as it is decisive, that of prisons. On both fronts the worldviews are at the antipodes: more security and harsher punishments on the one hand, amnesty and alternative sentences on the other. The truth, however, is that for everyone-both on the right and on the left-prisons represent the unintended and dramatic mirror of a welfare system that does not work.
Mental illness and immigrants are the children of a missing inclusion. These issues, along with health and rights, are the crucial knots of our age. Nor can a budget law, constrained by European stakes, alone provide all the answers. In January, the reform catchphrase will return, in an increasingly polarized and thus divisive public debate.
And this is not good, because I remain of the idea that a country grows only with everyone’s intelligence.
The article Mirror Italy comes from TheNewyorker.
