Draghi, The Great Debacle

Great Draghi!

All hailing him, as is right, incensing him, hoisting him up as the banner of the great rebirth, of the glorious victory over the demonic Covid, and the longed-for return to coffee at the bar and happy hour (what, there have also been deaths, dramas, painful farewells? Ah, yes, I think I’ve heard of them... but, from the reports on the news), it seems that the main damage has been, and still is, apart from the economic damage of the managers of those services, the prohibition to sit at a table and sip a drink or go skiing).

Certainly, I admire a figure of his caliber and have immense confidence in him, but I fear that his task will be, rather than arduous, prohibitive. I doubt that a person with a curriculum and a prestige like his can be found in Italy, and therefore I believe that it was not possible to make a better choice (and the markets, lords and masters of the planet, confirm this), but I am afraid that the great feat expected will turn into a great, dishonorable defeat.

Saving Italy is certainly a challenge bordering on the impossible, but I am convinced that the eminent professor lent to finance and politics would have the preparation and ability to win it, as he has demonstrated his ability to do in other contexts of perhaps equal difficulty. But the absurd enterprise to be accomplished will be to have to do it with the collaboration of the political forces that have so far led Italy (and the results are under everyone’s eyes) and that cannot even at the current juncture to behave responsibly and stop fighting. But what am I saying, “fight”? It would also be right, sacrosanct, to do so, if it were to defend ideas, projects, decisions. But the impression, clear, that you have is that it is the usual obscene, shameful and eternal battle of electoral character aimed not to propose and defend solutions, but only to discredit a political opponent, at this time even “allied”, to gather some more votes at the next election. The left that grumbles because there is too much right-wing in the government team, the right that complains because there is too much left-wing, in contrast to the recommendations of President Mattarella to which everyone applauds and claims to want to comply; and then the latest, as ridiculous as it is unreasonable, controversy, that of the number of women in the governmental structure: Dammit, we have our lives turned upside down, there are those who live responsibly cooped up at home in reasonable fear and are afraid to even go to the supermarket to do their shopping, and those who don’t give a damn and continue to make prosper (grow and multiply, said an illustrious authority at the time, addressed to other beings) a virus already bestial in origin, that with the various transformations it can afford thanks to these unconscious becomes more and more aggressive and dangerous; there are those who are reduced on the rocks and risk not being able to bring home bread to their children; there are those who die in solitude, without even the comfort of having a loved one next to them, and those who remain pine for the idea of not being able to say goodbye with a final hug to their loved one; there are those who are rejected by hospitals because there is no room and those who, instead, more “lucky”, manage to save themselves by undergoing treatments that are horrible just to see them; and these “honorable” personalities who should lead Italy out of such a tragedy think to discuss the sex of angels ... pardon, of ministers.

We are in a democratic regime, unfortunately, and this, as it has prevented to stop the pandemic by enforcing as due the forbidden assemblies, when necessary, with truncheons, water cannons, and arrests, will put immense obstacles to Prof. Draghi (I like to call him professor more than honorable or president, I can’t explain why). If we were in a dictatorial regime, and the prime minister had full powers, a personality with his characteristics could really succeed in saving this tormented country. But if I think that he will have to avail himself of the collaboration of the people I mentioned before, who will have to discuss, evaluate and authorize any of his proposed decisions, and who will take advantage of any excuse to squabble among themselves, pessimism assails me.