Giorgia Meloni beware of “false liberals”

Dear director, the liberals of the past no longer exist. And after cultural appropriation, now comes liberal appropriation. Also, with more variants of Covid-19. Even a badass like Giorgia Meloni opened the doors of Palazzo Chigi. To Carlo Calenda, who now calls himself a “liberal socialist”, laughing a little when he talks about the “convergence between Marxism and ideological liberalism”. From the meeting with the Prime Minister, it was to be expected some of his departures and in fact he declared: “Good chemistry with Meloni”, “I found her prepared”, treating the Prime Minister like a schoolgirl. It will end up that the “liberal socialist” Calenda will bring more problems than votes for the center-right. The list of those who call them “liberals after six” certainly does not lack “Giuseppi” Conte, the little man of all seasons, until recently boasted a “liberal approach” on the issue of mandatory vaccines. And yet, if someone like Stefano Bonaccini, in full candidacy for the secretariat of the Democratic Party, thinks, perhaps without his knowledge, as an “ordoliberalist” – a variant of liberal thought born and developed by the Freiburg school of economics – “waiting for autonomy of the regions but not without defining the essential levels of performance», the picture is complete.But the liberals, the real ones, from Cavour to Croce and Einaudi are turning over in their graves.

But, without going back too far in time, also the late Antonio Martino, former Minister of Defense and Foreign Affairs – son of Caetano, one of the fathers of Europe – to whom Nicola Porro dedicated his last essay “O Eterno Pai é liberal” ( Piemme Editore), which came out a few days ago, will not be happy with these characters’ self-celebratory abuse of liberalism. All of them, at least to understand what they are talking about, should read Porro’s book between a tweet and an Instagram story. But even those who know what liberalism is, like Guido Crosetto, who has always chewed it up, will find ideas and confirmations between the pages. And the liberals, those of the old militancy will love it. For now, however, they are increasingly infuriated, all the more so because those who are now sucking their ideas in inappropriately talk about the Third Pole and hold weekend conferences with chilling titles: «Milano Liberal Forum 22», with Elsa Fornero and Sandro Gozi.

All confirming the chaos that reigns supreme in the current Italian political scene, where many fill their mouths with the word “liberal”, adding in turn a different variant such as “progressive”, “democratic”, “reformist”. The liberal State guarantees civil rights, freedoms and fundamental rights (to a varying degree depending on the political situation of the State in question). And it is precisely on these fundamental principles that Porro wanted to pay homage to a gentleman from the past, whose coherence and political thought never discounted anyone, not even when voting ten years ago against the «Fiscal Pact» since he already knew that a large slice of economic sovereignty was being handed over to the EU. «One can compromise on details, one can mediate, but woe betide on principles», he said, confirming that «liberalism is above all a principle of human life. Liberals have always been around, since the days of the caveman, and they will never die: one of the key thoughts of Martino, Professor of Political Economy at Luiss and, before that, a favorite student of Milton Friedman at the University of Chicago. And yet: «The State, in the liberal view, should deal with the management of some fundamental issues, such as security, defense, foreign policy. But the rest, above all the economy, must have free rein, in fact free rein, under penalty of immobility”.
The book helps to pioneer the “false liberals” by offering us a true “fresh” of Antonio Martino’s thoughts and reflections, liberal inside and out, enriched by the personal memories of the author, who was his spokesperson in Farnesina. There is no lack of anecdotes about Silvio Berlusconi, whom Martino himself remembers as being a kind of “pusher” of ideas, recorded in no less than nine of the eleven videotapes in the candidate’s kit for Forza Italia. And since the trump card of Forza Italia’s political line was precisely liberalism, which however was lost in the midst of increasingly savage clan struggles within a party that had become the terrain of fierce battles worthy of the House (in Arcore) of the Big Brother. And given that, as Andreotti said, gratitude is the feeling of yesterday, Martino, in Porro’s essay, also recalls Indro Montanelli’s disregard for Berlusconi and his “Il Giornale” founded in 1974, with which he collaborated for a long time, defined as “a free newspaper rather than a liberal one”, financed for years by the Cavaliere, one of the few publishers that never truly spoke about the choices of its managers or directors. The frank and intimate conversation between the journalist and the recently deceased politician also covers more recent themes in Martino’s thinking, such as the invasion of small everyday freedoms with the various lockdowns and the anti-popular position on environmentalism, «a terrible beast» , because « disguised as a young man”. Martino, as foreign minister, always took Italy to the top and when Thatcher said to him: “Antonio, you live in a beautiful country, but very badly governed”, he replied with his typical Sicilian promptness: “My dear lady, the opposite would be decidedly worse.’ To return to the present day, the invitation to the Prime Minister is: “Don’t talk about Calenda, but look and pass”.