Refugees, land registry and umbrellas

Even last summer Matteo Salvini showed up at the parties on the Roman terrace with the face of Vladimir Putin tattooed on his short-sleeved shirt. Which to brag about it he wore over his long-sleeved shirt. “Half Putin would be enough for me in exchange for two Mattarella”, he said with eyes swollen with devotion, feeling modern, unscrupulous, suited to the times tuned to the strong man in charge. In other words, he himself, who for a whole year had made himself big every night on TV with the weakest of all, immigrants a breath away from the shipwreck, in
exchange for an easy election gain. At least until it was his turn to be shipwrecked in the waves of Mojito and brown sugar from Papeete.

Revised today, with Ukraine’s massive tragedy unfolding, his personal human and political parable appears in the form of a tiny, yet instructive farce.: silenced and chased away worldwide by a Polish mayor who was accusing him of that shirt: “Go away!”. Apostrophe “Clown!” and “Buffoon!” by a couple of Italian photographers present on the scene. Laughed endlessly in the Mac World of social media, where he usually finds himself comfortable, sitting between mustard and cheese. Instead of going into hiding for a few months, behind a PTSD certificate from
stress », Salvini ran back among the crumbs of Italian politics. Where the all too easy rumba of the spoiler of struggle and government has started again, as during the last two years: close everything against Covid, no, indeed, reopen everything for businesses; yes to the Green Pass, indeed, no to the health dictatorship; more money for everyone, less taxes for everyone, compensation is not enough, we make debt, freedom, freedom, including the one (remember?) of ringing, live on TV, to a stranger: “Excuse me, are you dealing?”, risking to find , as would have happened shortly thereafter, an innocent Luca Morisi in a crisis of summer loneliness.

Not caring about the bombs and the humanitarian catastrophe of the refugees, he started dribbling into two new ideal high intensity battles: prevent the updating of the Italian land registry, frozen for thirty yearsprotecting the clandestinity of one and a half million houses built abusive, without charges, without checks, without criteria. Block the revision of the bathing concessionswhere the fortunate managers of every millimeter of the sea have always inherited, from father to son, the owner privilege, pay two lire rents to the state, but sell the umbrellas at their weight in gold.

Two scandals that the parties drag on, from government to government, pretending not to hear the calls of Brussels to put order in the disorder, promote free competition, support greater fiscal equity. Knots that Mario Draghi undertook to dissolve in this round, thanks to a government that for two thirds, at least this time, seems to listen to him. Except what remains of Forza Italia. And of course Salvini, who snorts most of all, gets in the way: “Now is not the time, let’s postpone it.” Which is the eternal trick of the consensus hunter: the status quo of the unknown innovation is getting better, the amnesties of the rules always better.