The ‘vannaccismo’ algorithm has broken down, and it has nothing to do with the Russian servers being bombarded

How do you say ‘the world turned upside down’ in Russian? It is certainly too early to say; we are aware of that, and time will likely prove us wrong. The subject in question is clearly capable of surprises and remains unpredictable. And yet, something is happening. In recent weeks, the ‘Vannaccism’ algorithm, so to speak, seems to have suddenly jammed – and this has nothing to do with the Ukrainian bombardment of Russian data centres, which for a few hours made life more difficult for the international troll community. You will have noticed it too. For some time now, General Roberto Vannacci has been struggling to make the news, struggling to make the front pages of the newspapers, struggling to remain the centre of attention, and seems to have been swallowed up by a grey veneer of normality that transforms every potentially frightening message of his into terribly boring content.

Vannacci began to struggle to find a voice in the daily debate immediately after the largely inconsequential by-election in Reggio Calabria, which the general had imbued with far-reaching political significance. ‘It will be our Saxony,’ the general had said, but in the end, nothing came of it. The percentage Vannacci secured in Reggio Calabria – where he was running alongside a party bigwig who had long been a mainstay of Forza Italia – reached very high levels, just as the polls for his party remain high; indeed, according to the most skilled pollsters, many of these figures may even be underestimated. Yet the ‘Vannaccism’ algorithm follows a different trajectory to that of public support, which, over the past two weeks, has begun to lose a few notches; on Monday, according to SWG polls for La7, Vannacci had even lost two points. The interesting point is the reason why the general is now on the defensive and struggling terribly to make headway.

The Left, which had staked everything on the general and his ability to tear the centre-right apart to the point of defeating it, has realised that backing Vannacci could be dangerous: giving him too much space means helping to put him centre stage, and contributing to Vannacci’s rise might not be a good idea because, if the general were to gain too much support, who’s to say that the centre-right won’t then reach out to Vannacci to win the elections? The Left has therefore attempted to modify its approach to Vannacci—a shift that is understandable—and several in-depth talk shows have followed suit, especially on Mediaset, where Vannacci’s “Futuro Nazionale” is now discussed primarily in the past tense.

However, the disruptive element in the ‘vannaccismo’ algorithm coincided with a sudden, dramatic political escalation that took hold on the right, and which we could summarise with an acronym: ‘Isg’ – isolate the general. First, Meloni defined the boundaries of the alliance: ‘I will not, and will never, side with anyone who is against defending Ukraine’. Subsequently, the centre-right attempted to shore up its right flank by raising a commotion over issues such as schools, the burqa and the presence of foreigners in classrooms, responding to Mattarella on the percentage of foreigners in schools, and investing time, money and, of course, reams of demagoguery on security.

Demagoguery is rife even in the new anti-Maranza decree: before enacting new laws, it might be worth figuring out how to enforce the ones that already exist. The ‘Vannacci-ism’ algorithm, for the time being, is struggling terribly to go viral as it once did. And today, now that even the President of the Senate, Ignazio La Russa – despite claiming that the adverb ‘categorically’ does not exist in politics – maintains that there is a zero per cent chance of the centre-right forming an alliance with Vannacci, the General, once a central figure, finds himself on the sidelines, playing catch-up, even on his own issues; for whilst the centre-right seems to have made a choice – to go it alone – the General is forced to accept that choice because he would not want to go it alone, not least because he knows that the polls lie and that what a centre-right voter says today – ‘would you vote for Vannacci?’ – might turn into a different vote if, come the crunch, the choice were to be a different one: ‘Would you vote for Vannacci, outside a coalition, knowing that by doing so you could help the centre-left win?’

The polls may tell a different story for some time, but Vannacci’s presence on the political scene—and the scale of the threat he poses—has produced a distinct outcome, separate from the xenophobic, racist, anti-Western, Trump-like, crypto-Putinist barbarism embodied by his electoral platform. The left has stopped making Vannacci the centre of attention, as have the talk shows. The right, rather than engaging in a generic pursuit of Vannacci – courting him, flattering him, pandering to him (Maranza aside) – has chosen, on certain issues, to challenge him; and in doing so, it has also decided to transform the defence of Ukraine – not exactly a marginal issue – not into a battle to be hidden away, but into a banner to be waved. The ‘Vannacci-ism’ algorithm no longer works as it once did. Getting it to work again is not a matter of fate: it is simply a choice. This applies to the right, but it also applies to the left. How do you say ‘the world turned upside down’ in Russian?