We should have imagined that one day we would see a minister usurp the public service news to tell us about his extramarital affairs: it wasn’t long ago that we spent our days talking about the Prime Minister’s boyfriend, who even wanted to tell us about the end of the relationship on his official social media channels. We have also calmly and serenely witnessed the actions of ministers who went beyond their prerogatives to call the shots (we will remember, I hope, Valditara who tries to limit the school autonomy of a Northern Italian institute) or who remained in office despite being investigated for false accounting. Why should we then be shocked by the unworthy use that has been made of public television, and by the sordid interest that Italians have in gossip?

That television became a government broadcaster happened without much controversy, and certainly not particularly heated (nor, obviously, effective): we saw it happen and we allowed it. That instead of talking about what politicians do we talk about how they dress or who they take to bed is a well-known fact, and cleverly exploited by politicians themselves; together with the complete ignorance of Italians about the duties of a representative of the institutions and the general functioning of our Republic.

The fake interview

Otherwise, how could the indecent skit the other night on TG1 have taken place? The minister, instead of going to Parliament as is customary (and consequently a minimum of institutional sense), takes up the news to be “interviewed”; or rather, to say what he wants without being asked any pressing questions, any criticism, any objection. This clearly allows him to omit some details and to tell the story as it suits him: the death of journalism. He says he has not spent public money to pay this consultant/non-consultant of his, but in no normal country does a citizen have to trust what a minister says, just because he pretends to speak from the heart: documents and evidence are needed, and these must be delivered to Parliament.

The interviewer specifies that there is nothing prurient in his investigation into the relationship between the minister and the woman: Italians have the right to know. But then he asks him if he is afraid that something compromising might come out. This gives the minister the opportunity to show himself as a man like all the others, one of us in short, a tender heart of cream who has given in to a human and fully understandable impulse. The conflict of interests as big as a house that would emerge when a minister hired as a consultant a person with whom he had an intimate relationship does not seem to worry him too much.

The use of pathos to gain the sympathy of the people

As if this were not enough, we also found ourselves having to endure the emotional declaration of love and the painful my fault towards his wife (the most painful three minutes of the last year, as far as I’m concerned), the most important woman in his life. It’s okay that we’ve been mimicking the United States for decades, but I don’t know if I’m ready for an Italian version of Oprah.

A few words should also be spent on Mrs. Boccia, who filmed inside the Montecitorio building, as if she were walking around as a tourist – all that was missing was a selfie with the hashtag #cameradeideputati – and now she is being interviewed by anyone about anything, clearly taking advantage of the popularity of the moment; in fact she did not fail to refer to the strong powers that “don’t say what they say” and blackmail the minister.

But in the end we shouldn’t care much about her, even if respect for institutions should be so deeply rooted in us as to induce a deep sense of disgust and annoyance (but I’m a dreamer). Instead, we should care a lot about who represents the State, and not in the sense that we have to sit with popcorn in our hands listening to her painful love confessions: in the sense that the State is ours, and if someone uses it to do their own thing, we should get really pissed off. Let’s hope that, at least this time, the opposition is capable of doing its duty, because if we succumb again, if we let it go again, we will have truly sealed the fate of the Republic.