2024 is coming to an end, Giorgia Meloni’s second full year at Palazzo Chigi. She continues to avoid press conferences and meetings with journalists, and also postpones the end-of-year one to the beginning of 2025. Instead, she speaks from friendly stages surrounded by her Brothers of Italy, among (small) wings of applauding crowds, like that of the its Atreju, the party organized by National Youth since 1998, when she was there to serve in the youth organization of his party, which was then called Youth Action. On the site of the twenty-year-olds of today’s right, revealed with a little too much nostalgia by a Fanpage investigation just a few months ago, there is indeed no trace of Atreju, and the publications have stopped years ago. Not bad: their Capa himself is there to defend them from the gossip of those who had pinched outstretched arms and anti-Semitic phrases. “The mistakes of individuals”, as he said yesterday at the end of the Atreju party, are not enough to diminish the wonder that you are, Giorgia tells his boys. He also says several other things, which you can read in the story from the field (Hobbit) written by Enrico Cerrini, on which it is worth reflecting a little, both for the few times in which he allows himself, and because those who engage in militant politics and On the other hand, when he speaks to his people, he tends to say not the truth, but what he wants to be believed as true by those who believe and follow it.

The difference between nation and faction, according to Giorgia

Among the many words said by Giorgia to her followers, a declaration of intent seems both untrue and, also for this reason, very significant. «Those who hope that someone will put our destiny before the nation will be disappointed. We want to disappoint the left, it’s our favorite sport.” And he added: “We will never be a faction.” Nation, therefore, and not faction. People of the country, and not partisans. What stands out is the evident contradiction of those who, while rejecting “factional” membership, attack their political opponents in a mocking and legitimately but openly biased tone. But more than the contingent contradiction, the distance between the declared intentions and the rhetoric long cultivated in these years of government is striking. While the government action embodied by Giorgetti’s accounting prudence was almost forced by the economic context and international rules, in fact, the Prime Minister’s public speech was constantly aimed at defending the identity profile of her political party and, in particular of his party. It has been so in all the most symbolic regulatory and governmental actions – the universal crime of Gestation for Others is the most evident case – and in all the political speeches made. Tones and slogans from Capa of a minority political party, not from the leader and founder of a majority conservative party who currently also has the responsibility of government, legitimized originally and on several subsequent occasions by the popular vote.

And precisely this partisan profile, openly and openly biased, was Giorgia Meloni’s strength, and to a certain extent continues to be so. It is from the beginning of its political history and its climb to the skies of the centre-right first, and then of the country, that it has focused a lot, almost everything, on the ability to be distinct and divided from others. The choice of Ignazio La Russa for the second state office is ultimately a clear institutional manifestation of this political posture. But in the long term, is all this sustainable and positive, for a leader who still wants to accredit herself as an interpreter – however original – of democratic conservatism? Beyond consensus, which for the moment does not seem to be undermined, is it the right attitude to give stability and roots to a political evolution that the country needs? It is no coincidence, moreover, that spurring her towards an evolution are not only many observers and analysts, but also a part – a minority, perhaps, and significantly “non-Roman” – of her party. This was most recently done by Mario Anzil, vice-president of the Friuli Region and from the Social Movement, who in an interview with Il Foglio showed Meloni the path that leads to the centre. Many point to this as the natural and safest destiny for the prime minister and her party. To do this it will certainly be necessary to break away from the burden of a past that is always claimed and if anything minimized, branding all controversies about fascism as sterile and out of time. And it will also be necessary to broaden the perimeter of a ruling class that hinges mainly on its sister Arianna and on a nucleus of managers who come from the Roman MSI. Which have also been, however, the guarantee of stability and well-placed trust in these years of power.

The temptation of an unlikely early vote, some fear it, some hope for it

Furthermore, every now and then the specter of the early end of the legislature resurfaces. We talked about it on these pages, the newspapers talk about it from time to time, and the rumor goes around and around the corridors of political buildings. The one who wanted an early show down, so as not to be worn out by time and by the great reforms that were promised yesterday but which are unlikely to be truly maintained, would be Meloni himself. Which in one fell swoop, convinced of an even more overwhelming consensus, would settle accounts with problematic or unruly allies, on the one hand, being able to count on oppositions incapable, in the short term, of finding a balance and unity. However, even if the president cherished this dream of bloody glory, the path to realizing it would certainly not be easy to find. How can we interrupt the path of a government whose praises it continues to praise without losing credibility? How to control a crisis whose effects, in the palace but above all at the ballot boxes, would by definition be unpredictable?

It is easier to imagine that, in the end, continuity will prevail, that commanding today, albeit imperfectly, is always better than risking not being able to do it anymore having cherished the dream of being able to do it better tomorrow. There is no shortage of sources of agitation and anxiety. There are also signs to watch out for. The resignation of the director of the Revenue Agency Ernesto Maria Ruffini, accompanied by the hypothesis of a move into the field with roots in a center that looks to the left, is for example a more serious and relevant case than the concrete possibility that his political activity will change the immediate scenarios. Ruffini arrived in one of the most important and delicate nodes of the Italian public machine, that of Equitalia, in 2015, remaining there – through the Renzi, Gentiolini, Conte and Draghi eras – for almost a decade. He was close to the new wave of Renzian PD, but he is also the son of the political history of Sicilian political Catholicism, which rhymes not today with that of Mattarella. Giorgia and her family will have carefully connected the dots, and they cannot fail to have seen that this resignation is a signal not to be overlooked. Even considering that tax management, beyond promises and proclamations, is not experiencing a particularly happy moment, and the preventive agreement which was supposed to be the flagship risks turning out to be a time bomb that will explode in the already crying pockets of its government.

Meloni prepared for Christmas in her parents’ den. She needed to galvanize her troops and herself. It is normal, even obvious, even right, for those involved in politics to start again from their faction. However, to build a future we need to remember that the nation is more important and comes first. Declaring it is useful, but it is not enough.