“The mid-term elections? A great demonstration of popular sovereignty.” Federico Rampini speaks

“For two years, America has been portrayed as a dystopian caricature: fascism, autocracy, a police state, militarisation. The first to do so were the American media and intellectuals, Hollywood and Democratic politicians. There has been wild speculation about the techno-dictatorship of Musk and his associates,” Federico Rampini, a columnist for *Corriere della Sera* based in New York, tells *Il Foglio*. “The election has disproved it all: a great demonstration of popular sovereignty, peaceful and calm.” It is proof of the strength of American democracy against those who have called it into question, even in Italy. “Anti-Americanism prevails over reality. Trump has always seen his actions thwarted and often blocked by ‘antibodies’. The most effective of these are the courts, including the Supreme Court. Then there is federalism: from California to New York, many states are governed by the opposition and local authorities carry weight. Finally, the elites – from academia to the bureaucracies – were working against him. These lobbies were defending their own interests; this was predictable. One only needed to know American history to avoid the nonsense about autocracy,” emphasises Rampini, for whom it was not a party that won, but the entire American constitutional system. “With a caveat to temper any excessive euphoria. The days when broad bipartisan agreements on major reform projects were possible are long gone. Polarisation and institutional paralysis are real problems.”

A Trump weakened at home may take his frustrations out abroad. “The first signs from Vance point to a return to MAGA isolationism. Even the radical left is certainly neither pro-European nor pro-NATO. And on protectionism, there are points of convergence between right-wing and left-wing populists,” he says. His latest book, “Argento vivo” (Mondadori, 19 euros), is a manifesto for the generation grappling with old age. What insights would he offer Trump, who has always railed against Joe Biden precisely because of his old age? “America is not a gerontocracy,” he says. In Silicon Valley, young people are in power, and the Democratic victory has brought a new generation to the fore: one that, however, knows how to make good use of their fathers and grandfathers – take the veteran socialist leader Bernie Sanders, aged 85, who attends so many of his thirty-something protégés’ rallies.”