Red Sunset: The left, the Pd and San Mango D'Aquino

I resumed reading a book of 2008published by Renato Mannheimer and Paolo Natalein the aftermath of a round of elections that, after the fall of the second Prodi government, has returned Italy to the forces of the center-right: 17 million of Preferences to the group of Parties led by Silvio Berlusconi and 14 million consents to the center-left led by Walter Veltroni.

In the introduction, the two scholars write that the electoral result "is probably a further piece of a path that sees our country gradually leaning towards the political proposals conveyed by the structure of center-right, Thanks also to the presence of an increasingly weak left (or to its absence), with increasing difficulties in formulating credible projects and proposals, often unsuitable to intercept the needs and hopes of the country».

And again: "Electoral Italy and the results of the 2008 policies draw a world where – through the vote – we reflect the salient characteristics of the Italians, their fears and their desires: fear of the immigrant, need to be defended, constant Personal security demands. But also the difficulty facing a competitive future and the scarcity of innovative projects. '

Ten years later, do you find perhaps some diversity in the current political situation, without prejudice to the arrival of the 5 Star Movement and therefore its participation in a government of change that so far is clearly led by Salvini and his league?

The crisis of the Left has distant origins, but in the last twenty years has had a strong acceleration and has made us witness the sudden elimination of its leaders, indulging a tendency, more or less conscious, to damage themselves as in a game of Self-destruct.

Some examples? In the political elections of 21 April 1996, the Communist refoundation, thanks to a pact of desistance in the colleges stipulated with the Olive tree, obtains 10 senators and 35 deputies. But it will be precisely those seats that influence the action of the Center-Left alliance, and during the two years of Prodi government, refoundation prevents the olive tree from reforming pensions, health, social status and economy.

While in television D'Alema and Berlusconi speak of great reforms, government of broad understandings, possible agreements to rewrite the Constitution, the same d'alema, after pushing the PDS to the proposal of direct election of the head of government and attempted with the pole of freedom a dialogue that does not go forward, defines the action of Government of the center-left a policy of pure management, without strategic design, despite the presence in the Council of Ministers of eight men of the PDS in key places.

As you know, Prodi defeats Berlusconi twice at the polls: in 1996 with the Olive Tree and in 2006 with the Union. The parties to the coalition, however, are not able to assure the Government the duration for the entire legislature, and so the executive D'Alema in 1998, personal interests (Dini and Mastella) and party (Bertinotti and companions) in 2008, are events that interrupt The center-left experiment.

And it's not better for Walter Veltroni, First Secretary Pd. 33.2% obtained from the policies of 2008 is not enough, and in the farewell speech pronounced in February 2009 says: The Pd was the political dream of my life, I leave in serenity without slamming the door, now I will try to lend a hand to the party. The journalist Matteo Tonelli notes: In sala Soru dries the tears, Fassino and the Finocchiaro are terrei. Achille Serra asks him to reconsider. Bersani, coat in hand, is still. Rutelli's not here. D'Alema not even. They say he hasn't even called. '

And here we are back to 2008, the year in which the league doubles its votes thanks to the heightened consents collected among the workers. The two scholars still write: «The league has worked on the sentiment of anti-politics in different forms than in the past: At one time it was mainly directed against Rome, today the attack focuses on the caste of politicians and their privileges». Adding that it has managed to carve out a more dynamic and aggressive space within the right "thanks also to a greater attention to the territory, to the relations with the people and to the role played by the network of its elected mayors in these years." In short: "The Carroccio has been perceived as the most sensitive party to the increasing demand for security that arises from the impact of globalisation on social life."

In that context and with these precedents the crisis of the Democratic Party is consumed. Which has never departed, as we have repeatedly written, and which today has come to the terminus of an ephemeral and often inconclusive race.

Then, in 2008, in the category thoughts & words of sanmango.org I have seen that "the parties of the Union deserve not five, but ten years of opposition, during which they have time to try to regain contact with the citizens and make interpreters of collective needs and needs: security, economic growth, Labour and the fight against precariation, reform of bureaucracy, improvement of justice, federalism, fiscal fairness, abolition of unnecessary bodies, costs of policy. '

The fall of Berlusconi and the advent of the government Monti in 2011 have however paved the way back to the center-left (read in 2013, Renzi in 2014, Gentiloni in 2016), and here we come to the government count, with alongside the two Vice-Presidents in the role of Guardians of Revolution.

Even in Calabria the Pd was born as an aggregation between leftist Democrats (not all) and centrists of the Margherita. With the addition of some local movement, like the Pdm of Loiero. Becoming almost an employment agency and bringing forward discussions of Summit, Division of posts at regional and provincial level, quarts and personality at the citizen level. The exact opposite of the idea wandered by Andreatta and brought forward by Prodi.

Yet that idea of a new party – and not a new party – is for a few years the basis of the political action of a group of young people from San Mango D'Aquino who already in 2005 have the intuition to open a single seat within which to place section, symbols and Flags of both leftist Democrats (National secretary Piero Fassino) and Margherita (National President Francesco Rutelli). Thus, in a small village in the province of Catanzaro, there is a meeting between the social Democratic, Christian-social and socio-liberal cultures advocated in 2003 by Michele salvaged and taken from the Federation Pact of the Ulivorimasto in force up to When in April of 2007 the National Congresses of DS and Margherita set the common path towards the founding of the Democratic Party.

The group of San Mango, with its circle, remains compact, operates in the field and brings forward the problems of the community for a little over a year. It hosts political representatives of the district, organizes meetings and debates and initiates initiatives to protect the environment and citizens ' health. Then the Board of the Socialist Section, which also operates in the country, gathers and approves a document in which we read, inter alia: «Given the evolution of national and regional policy,[…] which is therefore considered to save the culture and identity of Socialists, however scattered in the various formations, you have to try the only possible operation of unity of the Socialists within t[…]he Democratic Party all that, the Board decides to adhere to the political project, only possible in this Socialist Unity in the Democratic Party. '

San Mango has been a "socialist" feud for decades. The cammellate troops burst and with the complicity of provincial leaders seize the local structure of the nascent political formation, and also in San Mango d'aquino the Democratic Party never becomes "party". As well as in other territories of Calabria and Italy, where similar incidents occur and where current chiefs, notables, bureaucrats and politicians of profession occupy the Pd by conditioning his choices and determining the action.

I avoid making considerations on the level of the Consensiche then the Pd has collected in San Mango: Really poor figures, where the "socialists" had accustomed us to considerably substantial figures. Register that at the national level, in 2018, ten years after the foundation, the Democratic Party has touched in electoral terms the lowest level. His last secretary – Matteo Renzi – failed to be a spokesman for a deluded generation by an entire ruling class. The attempt has failed, certainly sincere, to bring freshness in an environment considered old and inadequate. But the attempt to reform the political system and the institutions themselves has also failed.

Today, in this country of ours, what Italians perceive – for example – in the subject of emigration and security is a feeling different from the situation that data and statistics represent. And on this perception binds and 5 stars have built their electoral fortune. What remains of the Pd-or rather, what remains of the left-will have to decide whether to chase the dominant thought, or elaborate a project, a vision, a different idea of Italy, and present everything to the Italians during a crossing that begins in the dark and not You know where, when and how it ends.

Go over the Pd, definitely. It makes no sense to keep alive a political formation that in its ten years of life was like the Saturn painted by the Spanish painter Francisco Goya: A mythological god who devour his children.