Italy and the United States: Seeking Stability in the Elder Statesmen

https://www.euractiv.com/section/politics/news/president-mattarella-reluctant-hero-in-italys-crisis/

Akin to similar developments in other Western democracies, the polarity within Italian politics has reached an extreme – to the point that change itself is feared. Elected to his second term as president, Sergio Matarella is 80 years old and he is the stabilizing factor, the shepherd of an inherently unstable situation – that of Italy's National Unity government which was formed last year.

All parties are represented and Mario Draghi the prime minister is a non-aligned technocrat. In such a scenario there is no mandate to rule. The mandate rests on the person of Matarella who as head of state is trying to hold the system together and keep the government functioning. Like the United States, Covid and pervasive economic crisis have torn Italian society apart. The Right is on the rise and still waits in the wings, chaos being a quick ticket to power for figures like Matteo Salvini and Giorgia Meloni. Salvini's League and the anti-Establishment Five-Star Movement (M5S) currently command the most votes and yet the Italian and European Establishments recoil in horror at the thought of either of these groups getting a free hand and control of Italy. In fact to many Establishment thinkers, M5S represents the kind of chaos that will simply lead to a Right-wing takeover.

And so they play them off against each other. Gridlock ensues, manufactured, orchestrated, or otherwise, and the country keeps reverting to technocratic arrangements. M5S and the League attempted a coalition but it collapsed after only a year.

This arrangement marks a degeneration and failure of democracy. While national unity governments are ostensibly democratic, they actually represent a system in deep crisis and as said, the arrangement in Italy is tantamount to kicking the proverbial can down the road in an attempt to buy more time.

But there isn't much time. Matarella is 80 and Draghi will be 75 this year. This stasis will not continue for much longer – and the situation has been further exacerbated by the Covid-19 pandemic and the economic and social tensions it has unleashed.

We're also seeing this in US politics, particularly within the DNC. Biden as president is 79, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is 81, House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer is 82, and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer is 71.

The Democratic Party is facing a crisis in that you still have those like Pelosi and Schumer who are Left-leaning in terms of personal liberties, and who support welfare programmes, but these proclivities are sharply tempered by their allegiance to Wall Street and support for US imperialism. While the Right paints Pelosi as a fire-breathing communist, the truth is she's a stabilizing force for the capitalist order, a figure within the spectrum of the American Left that in international political terms would be considered a Centrist or even Centre-Right. She panders to the sodomites and supports crumbs for the working class but her true friends are found in the halls of power and Wall Street.

A younger generation of Democrats rightly or wrongly identified by groups such as 'The Squad' are calling for more profound change that risks a shake-up of the status quo and the existing order. As addressed elsewhere, these programmes and the ideologies represented by the likes of the 32 year old Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez are not nearly as radical as some may suggest. There's a great deal of hypocrisy among these figures and in other cases their voices will only be allowed to be heard up to a point. The system has safeties and mechanisms to insure their momentum will be arrested. At present, one of the safety mechanisms is revealed in that the DNC is led by stable elder statesmen figures like Pelosi, Hoyer, and Schumer. They are able to obstruct the agenda of the 'radicals' – if that's how one wishes to view them. In truth they're little more than reformers – not radicals or revolutionaries at all.

But what about the radical nature of the Sanders movement? As the record demonstrates the agenda of figures like Bernie Sanders (80) and Elizabeth Warren (72) has been revealed as fraudulent. They are not genuine Leftists at all but servants of the Establishment as represented by the DNC. The socialist label they sometimes employ is a stunt and has been proven as baseless. But they keep the radical elements coming back to the DNC and voting for its candidates – as seen in 2016 and 2020.

Once again, this is deemed as essential as the alternative is the Right – and a glimpse or preview of future possibilities was seen in the Trump presidency. If the Democrats succumb to the politics of the Squad, they stand to lose even more of their base and figures like Pelosi and others within the DNC leadership know that it will provide a broad and easy avenue for the Right to come to power. And yet it would seem their hopes rest in the present stability provided by people who are well past retirement age – those who have already exceeded standard life expectancy. How long can this continue?

The present situation in American politics, as well as what we're seeing in Italy isn't sustainable. A younger and more radical generation is waiting to assume leadership. In some cases these people lean to the Left and in others they lean dangerously to the Right. And yet in both cases it would seem the Right stands ready to benefit from political chaos.

It goes without saying that things are going to change in the next few years. The elder statesmen figures like Matarella or even Pelosi are going to be dropped from the scene. And then what will happen? One thing that we're seeing is that despite the noise coming from the more Left-leaning elements, the mainstream parties are all moving to the Right and history is repeating itself.

The only thing (politically speaking) that can challenge the Right is the rise of a genuine (and revolutionary) Left-wing movement but that seems a remote possibility at best. We'll have to see more societal collapse before that happens but as seen in the 1920' and 1930's, those energies can just as easily be channeled by Right-wing elements. People are easily fooled and manipulated into supporting demagogues who represent the very forces that have brought them into misery. One need only drive through the Rust Belt or West Virginia to see that.