Meloni and Arena. Vannacci goes after Salvini over Roggero and calls for Schlein and Conte to be ‘lynched’. To Chigi: ‘The General? Ask Renzi’

Is he daring? Roggero goes to prison whilst Vannacci stands on the shore playing with AI. He makes headlines with the nation’s trash. He edits a video from the Riviera, where he spends the winter, Gladiator-style, with Schlein and Conte tied up in the arena amidst shouts of ‘slit their throats’, ‘slit their throats’. He appears in a tunic, flanked by a fake Meloni, La Russa and his wife, who – in reality and in fiction – is giving the middle finger. It’s a stunt to reclaim the limelight that Salvini took from him with Roggero, with Meloni’s backing; it’s a way to halt Salvini’s march towards the Ministry of the Interior. Bonelli says: “It’s a video of unprecedented violence.” At Chigi, they retort: “He’s an egomaniac. Why don’t you ask Renzi about Vannacci?” Thanks to Vannacci, even Claudio Borghi seems like Voltaire and Tajani like our very own Diderot.

It’s a technique, Vannacci’s techno-rubbish: first he fires it off, then he parries it; the left hits back, and meanwhile Vannacci puffs himself up. Now he is aping Trump, even in his apologies (“Conte screeches like a crow, but it’s a satirical video”), experimenting with artificial intelligence and posting a video which, as Bonelli explains in the Chamber of Deputies, is nothing more than a ‘deep fake’ – a fake that ‘should be punished because there is a law passed by the right, Law 132/2005’. The faces of Meloni and La Russa are fake, but there are also those of Draghi, Lorenzin, Speranza, Boldrini and Prodi – both bound – begging for mercy, whilst Vannacci, the zero-tenth meridian, twirls his big thumb: death, torn to pieces. The Italians? In his “world as will and representation”, in this video, they are subjects dressed as beggars in the arena. There is also the equipment for torture, alongside the lions. The hammer and sickle are brandished by Vannacci’s Farinacci, this Giuseppe Barboni – who’s only missing a stockfish on his belt – the notorious gentleman who, in San Benedetto del Tronto, distinguished himself by hurling a passer-by’s bicycle aside when it was blocking the road. Why is Vannacci doing this today? He’s been overtaken by Salvini in this summer of dregs and forests. League members who saw Salvini on his two-day visit to Bollate, at the jeweller Roggero’s, are saying – jokingly, but not entirely: ‘Salvini is in his element. What if we sent him to be Minister of Justice, in Nordio’s place?’ Meloni has made a very clear-headed calculation regarding this affair: to leave the Roggero case to Salvini for two reasons. Firstly, Salvini was the first to sniff out and capitalise on the case, and letting him have the first claim is a way of helping him. Secondly, Salvini is Vannacci’s natural enemy, and Meloni has every interest in seeing them at loggerheads. For the past three days, a barrage of vitriol has been pouring in, even from America, from Musk, who seems to have stepped straight out of “La Zanzara” and who tweets: “Crazy. The judge and the prosecutor in this case are the only ones who deserve this verdict.”

In Italy, Calenda wins the “Tesla d’Oro” award with his response: “Musk is a fascist; he should mind his own business”. The latest bill, tabled by Claudio Borghi at Salvini’s behest – this extension of self-defence, to be applied to ‘any reaction’ – is a recipe for chaos, an invitation to shoot the first person who revs their engine beneath your balcony. And we already know that Futuro Nazionale will respond by tabling yet another proposal: more, even more. They want the new rule on the refusal of compensation, passed by the government, to be backdated. It’s a world championship of ‘an eye for an eye, a rifle for a rifle’. When the League members read Borghi’s text, they jumped out of their seats. Those League members who are genuinely concerned with security and justice – such as the Under-Secretaries for the Interior and Justice, Molteni and Ostellari – were the ones who jumped out of their seats. In its eagerness to follow Vannacci’s lead, the League has forgotten that it has already taken action – and with results – on self-defence in 2019. Under last week’s decree, signed by Piantedosi, compensation has been withdrawn where the accomplice of a robber is presumed. Meloni, who speaks of inequality, wants to broaden the scope and is referring to the compensation received by the relatives of a police officer who dies in the line of duty (compensation for relatives amounts to around 160,000 euros) compared to that received by robbers. Bonelli says: “There’s a terrible atmosphere in the country and you’ll see that in the end Meloni will strike a deal with Vannacci and make Tajani swallow it too. Vannacci is dictating the political agenda. In the video, she’s already treating her like a subordinate.” Giuseppe Conte asks Meloni: “In this case too, are you not going to condemn it or do you not agree with it?” It is rubbish that Meloni is hurling at the left. After the video, when asked ‘what do you think of this rubbish?’, those speaking with Meloni replied: ‘And what does Renzi say about Vannacci?’. Salvini uncovered him, but as far as Meloni is concerned, it was Renzi who trained him. Bonelli repeats: ‘Trust me, they’ll form an alliance’. All the ingredients of the worst sort of right-wing politics are there – the sort that Meloni had banished to the catacombs and which is now resurfacing in San Benedetto del Tronto and Bollate. There’s only one thing rising faster than the temperature: revenge and rubbish.