Now the new “game” is to call each other friends with yet another ambiguous expression from the Vannacci vocabulary. At the general’s summer initiatives around Italy, people call each other comrade, referring to anyone who has had even a little military experience. The new ingredient of the “Vannacci phenomenon” is added to those already seen in recent months: from Mussolini the statesman (because “he wrote History”) to the “abnormality” of gays, since the majority of the population is heterosexual. His figure even loomed over the games played at the Olympics and Paola Egonu’s women’s Italian volleyball team, reading newspapers and social media, seems to have also defeated the “Vannacci Team”, in addition to the USA, Turkey and Serbia.

Roberto Vannacci is like this: a tightrope walker of political communication who enjoys polarizing the conflict: either with him or against him. He is thrilled when he captures the attention of public opinion and the media, in any way, each time pulling a different rabbit out of the hat. Who cares (from his observatory) if he continually throws fuel on the fire of the divisions and oppositions that we experience in the country.

The general incites his platoon of readers, teases the crowd that appreciates the stereotype of the strongman and cultivates the cult of the leader. He also rides the exasperation of that right that does not recognize itself in the complex and long path of transformation of Fratelli d’Italia into a conservative force. And he keeps in the League voters disappointed by the federal secretary Matteo Salvini.

The association “We with Vannacci”

The Vannacci summer was then marked by the launch of his association, “Noi con Vannacci”, which mimics the movement that its leader proposed in the Center-South, “Noi con Salvini”, now devoured by Fratelli d’Italia and stripped by Forza Italia. Thirty euros for the annual membership of an association that is working in a vast territorial dislocation. The feeling is this: Vannacci will use the European stage to build an ultra-conservative party that will recall themes and slogans of the most extreme European right, like the German AfD. The official continues to deny the possibility, but perhaps the time has come to decide what he wants to do when he grows up. Or rather, to communicate it clearly, without throwing the stone and then hiding his hand.

Is Vannacci content to play the role of MEP in Brussels and Strasbourg for the League? We are happy, he would be paid for this. Is he waiting for the first diplomatic incident with Salvini to slam the door? It’s a bit what everyone is expecting.

The lobbies that contest it

If we are not really facing yet another aspiring leader who founds a new party, the general could abandon the protest phase and start the proposal phase. Vannacci was elected MEP and in his very well-known book, “Il mondo al contrario”, he blasted the European Union, influenced – according to him – by numerous lobbies. An unsolicited piece of advice: choose a couple of those battles and get involved in the institutional offices to stem phenomena that are indigestible to his electorate.

An example? Let him get busy with the ban on thermal engines scheduled for 2035. He himself claims to be a happy owner of diesel cars over twenty years old: let him fight for this. If he is absolutely convinced that environmentalism is a thing for the rich and that the EU cannot force its inhabitants with the Green Deal to respect laws that aim for sustainability, let him make his voice heard for the 500 thousand Italians who voted for him.

He can become, in fact and with his proposals, in the League, the champion of that “people” that he claims to be able to represent better than others. Vannacci, moreover, believes that minorities often “lay down the law” towards majorities. He is in opposition in Europe, so he should propose the scheme again. If instead he will use the euro-seat to rant in favor of “We with Vannacci”, well then let’s wait for the next media “finds” that, in the long run, could however be accompanied by some yawning.