In Leonardo Sciascia’s novel ‘’The Day of the Owl’’ (Einaudi 1961), the mafia boss Mariano Arena addresses the captain of the carabinieri Bellodi – who is investigating him as the mastermind of a murder – with a token of esteem: «I have some experience of the world; and what we call humanity, and we fill our mouths saying humanity, a beautiful word full of wind, I divide it into five categories: men, half-men, little men, the (with all due respect) assholes, and the loudmouths. Very few are men; few are the half-men, and I would be content if humanity stopped at half-men. But no, it goes even lower, to the little men: who are like children who think they are grown, monkeys who mimic the same moves as adults.»
There are cases where this judgment does not concern the identity of people, but signals the decline over time of a single person who, as years and experiences pass, after having started their path with the marks of a man, finds themselves descending the scale of dishonor until becoming a loudmouth, after having passed through the ordeal attributable to a half-man (we leave aside for obvious reasons the other intermediate level).
Let us take the case of Matteo Renzi. Young mayor of Florence since 2009, he carves out a space in the national debate not only within his party. In 2013, he makes up for the defeat suffered in the primaries against Pierluigi Bersani (mocked live by Grillo) and is triumphantly brought to the PD secretaryship (I am witness to people who joined the party just to be able to vote for him). Then he moves to assault Palazzo Chigi and Enrico Letta’s government. On January 11, 2014, Matteo Renzi, then PD secretary, utters the famous phrase “Enrico, stay calm.” A month later, on February 13, 2014, the PD Directorate approves Renzi’s document requesting a new executive to get out of the “quagmire” with 136 votes in favor. Napolitano contributes greatly. The bell exchange between Letta and Renzi takes place, the most laconic in the history of the Republic. Letta even abandons politics and expatriates.
A few months later, on the occasion of the European elections, the PD nearly reaches 41%, achieving the most extraordinary result in the entire history of the left in Italy and the Union. It manages to bring Federica Mogherini to the position of Vice President of the Commission and to the role of High Representative of foreign policy. Within the party, he claims the role of the “scrapper” against historic ex-PCI leaders like Massimo D’Alema. As Prime Minister, he commits the government to an aggressive policy on issues open for years, especially regarding labor.
With a group of young scholars coordinated by Tommaso Nannicini, between 2014 and 2015 he launches the jobs act, challenging the old political and trade union left; with the Poletti decree, the government makes the use of fixed-term contracts flexible and with incentive measures restarts employment growth. The party’s left leaves and founds a movement called “Article 1.”
Like Icarus, Renzi believes he can afford a very invasive constitutional reform, obtaining too generous support from much of the deep state, convinced he can win by putting his face on it, tying his political fate to that of the reform which Italians reject.
The fall of the Boschi law also overwhelms the electoral law that should have ensured Renzi could capitalize on the referendum victory. The “young caudillo” soon finds himself outside the party, founding Italia Viva (IV), but believes it possible to continue playing a role in the PD through those comrades who do not follow him out of the party.
But politics does not forgive a leader who, within a few years, wastes millions of votes and goes from “brilliant on the throne” to counting the decimals of polls, so much so that he cannot even pass the threshold to enter that European Parliament where years before he seemed a dominator. He does not even succeed in the alliance with Carlo Calenda, although not all the responsibilities for the political (not electoral) failure of the Third Pole lie with him. Without a heavy party to lead, Renzi becomes a free hitter.
He is intelligent and astute: among the crows even a hawk seems an eagle. In the previous legislature, he succeeds with two skillful and fortunate moves. When Matteo Salvini opens the crisis of the Conte 1 government, Renzi does not follow the idiotic theses of those wanting to go to elections; he senses Giuseppe Conte’s transformative vocation and facilitates the formation of Conte 2 with another majority. Then towards the end of the legislature, he plays the Draghi government card but fails to prevent the crisis prepared by the M5S which, although heavily taxed, remains the first party in Parliament.
We know how the 2022 elections went. Renzi becomes the fiercest opponent of the Meloni government (despite the fact that it is the new majority that effectively defends the work of his executive, challenged by the PD Schlein version). Renzi moves closer to the left and the broad field, without noticing the genetic mutation he is undergoing: the man of 2014, become the half-man of 2016, and the little man of 2022, presents himself on the political scene as a loudmouth. “Am I coming too? No, you’re not.”
A coalition of jugglers keeps him on the sidelines; and Renzi is forced to doctor photos to appear seated at the same table as the four horsemen of the Apocalypse. To be admitted to the IV team, he had to accept in many local elections not to present himself with his own symbols but disguised as a civic list or whatever else. The inclusion of Matteo Renzi and his political force, Italia Viva, within the Broad Field represents one of the most divisive and debated issues of the center-left. The current landscape sees the coalition moving on parallel tracks, divided between the mathematical necessity to broaden consensus to the center and strong internal political vetoes. In recent days, from the stage of the Fiom festival in Bologna, journalist Marco Damilano, who was leading the debate, asked the three leaders of the progressive field Schlein, Conte, and Fratoianni: “Is the photo you took exhaustive of the coalition? Should this photo be expanded also with Renzi?”
But before the politicians could answer, there came – the Fatto Quotidiano recounts with enthusiasm – a roar of “No” and whistles from the hundreds of workers of the Emilia-Romagna Fiom. Yet Renzi has made many mea culpas: he tolerated the “champion” parties mocking the jobs act during the referendum promoted by the CGIL; he played the fence in the justice referendum; he schemed with Roberto Vannacci to seriously complicate the center-right, which will be forced to take him on board in 2027 and thus burn all the fascist credibility accumulated in 4 years under the crossfire of the ANPI. Yet the fatwa of the ayatollahs of the narrow field has not ceased against him.
It is dignified for a former Prime Minister who boasted friendship with Obama to wait for the coded call on his cellphone, perhaps with an invitation to enter through a side door? Matteo is not offended. It seems he shares Groucho Marx’s old joke: “I would never join a club that would accept people like me as members.” More of a loudmouth than him in the Italian political scene is only (since his election) the secretary of +Europa Riccardo Magi, who has reproached the new centrists for allowing, by going it alone, the victory of the right, as in 2022. Apparently, he cannot understand what damage a victory of this left would be for the country. After all, what can one expect from a former radical who urged a NO vote on the Nordio reform?
