A Conte controlled from behind the scenes by Travaglio’s grim motley crew is bound to remain stubbornly divided

There is a newspaper that works for Conte, promotes Conte, votes for Conte, and mocks Schlein, detests the reformists in the PD, condemns and hounds Matteo Renzi with ill will, and hates Calenda. Opinions – so to speak – that are quite natural for those who sided with Grillo, but also for a political lightweight like Antonio Ingroia, and consistently for all the escapades of the ideologically heavy-handed and politicised judiciary, from Scarpinato to Gratteri, from De Magistris to the convicted Davigo – people too ‘clean’ to pass on the files, though too cunning to refrain from doing so. It is a small newspaper that is both repellent and, in its own way, amusing; it is devoid of taste and any genuine understanding of politics, convinced that Berlusconi was a mafioso and a mass murderer, devoted to sensationalism and scandal-mongering, prostrate at Putin’s feet, and full of hatred for Zelensky and the Ukrainian resistance fighters.

It is in lockstep with the worst minds behind the Jewish genocide in Palestine; for that newspaper – which makes a profession of pandering to outraged public opinion – all those in positions of authority, from Mattarella (a friend of Minetti) downwards, apart from the hardline justice-seekers and, indeed, a certain Conte, are a bunch of thieves and profiteers or enablers of the aforementioned scoundrels. Such tactics underscore the lengths to which some are willing to go in order to sell and sell themselves to the highest bidder in the market of the banal, the opportunistic and the obvious.

The point is that this newspaper dictates the line to Conte; it is a permanent, sticky burden on the broad political spectrum, a major player in a cartoon-like primary election, capable of poisoning all the wells and preventing, at any cost, a decent resolution to the dispute over the sore points of the war in Europe, the resurgence of anti-Semitism, and a pacifism not steeped in fear and a spirit of surrender to the strongest. Newspapers are less influential in politics than they once were, just as politics is less influential in newspapers than it once was.

But the opportunistic orthodoxy with which the ‘justicialists’ act as hangers-on to the leader of the former Five Star Movement members, the calculated and stubborn way in which they push him into conflict with left-wing voters who are, in terms of history and practice, most closely aligned with Italian democracy – in its flaws and virtues alike – the feigned contempt they display towards anything that smacks of reformism, social-democratic or liberal, the systematic nature of their disruptive campaign in selecting targets to crucify and the PD leadership to strike down and sink without mercy – all this stands as a major obstacle on the path to unifying a broad political camp capable of competing with the centre-right, a unification pursued with a stubbornly unifying spirit by those who lead the party today. Bettini, who offers himself as a guarantee to that newspaper – as do all those who dislike being challenged by unscrupulous people – has proposed a compromise on Ukraine, namely that of defensive weapons, which is simply grotesque.

The editor of Il Manifesto is also making his voice heard – a newspaper of distinction, with an elegant tradition, perhaps a touch tedious, but with a style all of its own. In short, there is a growing number of those who would prefer not to lose sight of the meaning and value of an experience and practice of opposition that is contemporary with the government and the ‘stability’ majority. They have a point, but as long as Conte allows himself to be steered by a motley crew of Putinists and hardliners, I cannot see where these ‘honest brokers’ – destined to be defeated by the ‘super broker’ – can possibly end up.