Italian Elections and Politics 2022 - Our Time to Schlein

[Filuwaúrdjan]

That is to say, none of this has really affected the demographic composition of the Right's support, which looks as non-traditional and #trendz-based as ever. The CDX once again absolutely tanked in wealthy urban areas.

Though as the fundamental issue there is a broad 'underperformance' with wealthy pensioners - Italy's lack of a strong 'Tory' tradition has had curious electoral consequences since the financial crisis ended forever Berlusconi's characteristically brash and brazen ability to appeal to the crassest of crass bourgeois self-interest - on closer inspection that one turns out to be rather less about #trendz than it looks at first.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

To add to Al's point, the one thing that really stands out for Italy to be a "muh trendz" country is the South. If you looked at Al's maps North of Molise, then yeah, you could easily make the case that Italy is basically aligning on the same basic electoral geography as the rest of Europe, with only a few ancestral remnants of the old order here and there.

Though Italian social geography is so different to what is normal north of the Alps, that even this is a false friend. All of this is one reason why Italian elections - even when deeply depressing horror shows like this one - are so endlessly fascinating: what you see at first is not what that's actually there.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Absolutely hilarious map here. Lega's vote crashed utterly in the North (including both areas of traditional and newer strength) and in Central Italy but actually held up O.K. further south (actually increased in parts of Sicily hahahaha), where it has always been very weak, producing a quite ridiculous map.



Further collapse across the board, of course, including the final desertion of the bulk of what were once Forza Italia's core voters in Western Lombardy. What's left looks like a clientelist map more than a Berlusconi map.



Completely ridiculous map that to an extent tracks affluence, but which also has various other weird features all over the place.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Calenda is really a Tory isn't he? Save for the wrong random Southern strongholds and for a weaker result in Piedmont/Liguria this might as well be a map of the PLI at its post-war peak in the 1960s.

I suppose when you weld Renzi's little 'Genepool DCs For Unspecified Reform' clique onto the personality cult of some aristocratic dilettante that completely absurd map does have a degree of ludicrous logic to it...

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Regardless, nothing I wrote was incorrect. As I said, Schlein is the first person in a while to both identify as Jewish and lead an established party. "A while" is also a rather subjective time frame.

I was about to write that it's hardly a while since Ed Miliband but, wait, 2015 was eight years ago (how?) and you're quite young aren't you?

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Ah. I wasn't aware Miliband identified as Jewish.

He does (and notably, though careful never to comment directly on the reasons, refused all offers to return to the Opposition Front Bench until 2020), though in his case identification would not be important as such anyway as all of his known ancestors are Jewish.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Two bald men screaming 'it'sa my comb!' at each other: fantastic.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

No, if anything you could find rumours about him partnering with Berlusconi (or what will remain of Berlusconi's political faction at any rate) at some point in the future.

I wonder if he thinks he can just take over what's left of that vote when the old creep dies.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

No, if anything you could find rumours about him partnering with Berlusconi (or what will remain of Berlusconi's political faction at any rate) at some point in the future.

I wonder if he thinks he can just take over what's left of that vote when the old creep dies.

Taking over what's left of the "moderate" vote that was parked with Forza Italia and uniting it with his fanclub under an organization dedicated to dunking on both sides would be the dream scenario for Renzi, surely?

Exactly. I expect him to be lurking around a certain Milanese hospital with a pillow and a determined expression.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

That map of the Forza Italia list vote at the fateful 1994 election again:

[Filuwaúrdjan]

The striking thing about it to me is always that it is genuinely not like anything seen in Italy before, but that it nevertheless, as you say, has a certain hideous logic to it. And of course we saw it in various forms right up until Forza Italia collapsed as a major force and will - probably - never see it again.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

The schism in the Sicily DC over the Second Mafia War will also have been a factor.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Yes, they cocked their paperwork up. Which, in a way, was another portent of the near future.