Right and South, mutual distrust

For decades, Naples and the entire Mezzogiorno have not been familiar with the political right. The times of the indifference of Guglielmo Giannini or of the monarchists of Achille Lauro are long gone. And the right-wings that later characterized the Second Republic (liberal, or conservative, or populist right-wing, i.e. very different from each other) originate – all of them – in the North, not in the South. This applies to Silvio’s experiences Berlusconi, then Umberto Bossi, then Beppe Grillo. This does not mean, however, that the South has a left-oriented social fabric, in the manner of the red regions. Historically, indeed, the South has constituted the electoral reserve of the DC, has given its votes to the Cavaliere, has cultivated niches of social post-fascism (Neapolitans will remember Alessandra Mussolini). And still the land of choice for grillismo, the one on the right of the origins, the one repainted on the left by Giuseppe Conte. The South has often chosen government parties, ministerial status, protested its condition of delay by claiming assistance from whoever occupied the control room from time to time. Today (perhaps) things are changing and offer unusual challenges. Giorgia Meloni’s party – that is, the majority shareholder of the executive – seems to have very few kinships with the social right of yesteryear.

Of the old MSI – radical, socializing, different – of Giorgio Almirante, the party of the Brothers of Italy retains only the flame. And, having freed himself from those roots that had often been strong in the South, he appears willing to take very different paths with respect to the electoral preferences – and moods – of the more fragile regions of the country. Talk about active policies and attack the basic income. It promises the agenda of differentiated regionalism. He insists on the meritocracy of training, on corporate productivism, on the network of VAT numbers. It brings about a reform of guaranteed justice. Now, if we consider the options expressed by the South (and by Naples) in the latest policies, and that is the hand-to-hand success achieved by a party like the M5s, it is easy to conclude that the government intends to move in the opposite direction. Meloni seems to want to pitch the tents of a classic conservative party. With recipes that fatally deny welfarism, social egalitarianism, the priority of territorial cohesion, the anti-market forces that – not from today – come from southern voters. A challenge that is no longer the Northern one of a League in evident decline, but the overall challenge – I would say organic – of a conservatism oriented towards preferring the development of the strongest territories over the defense of the most fragile territories, which wants to give space to the most animal spirits than to focus on the weaker social groups. And that in the South – implicitly but roughly – he limits himself to recalling the (not immediate, however) utility that can come to him from the growth of the country. A perspective difficult to digest, below Garigliano, for objective – structural – reasons and also for questions of mentality, expectations, habits.