We have to admit it: there is a certain aesthetic in the return to the past that never goes out of fashion (Giorgio Bocca called the “black thread”). All the newspapers this morning tell of the colonels of the former general Roberto Vannacci, as they sailed the Transatlantic of Montecitorio as daring during the vote for aid to Ukraine: Edoardo Ziello, Rossano Sasso and Emanuele Pozzolo (the one who on New Year’s Eve brought the little pistol from which a shot goes off but no one knows who pulled the trigger). They advance in compact ranks, like stars, strutting their stuff as if Montecitorio were the sacred ground of an epochal recovery and not the corridor where, until yesterday, they tried not to be noticed too much by the group leaders.
They are the new “futurist soldiers” following General Roberto Vannacci, the man who elevated paradox to military strategy. So far they are only a handful in the deaf and gray classroom. The leadership will follow: there is talk of 4 percent support for the general’s new “black thing”, called “National Future”, so as to designate its adherents as “futurists”, as in the times of Filippo Tommaso Marinetti. But there is already talk of reinforcements: the first to rush is Mario Adinolfi, a professional poker player, hardened by the campaign ofIsland of the famousalready a militant of the Democratic Party who crossed the front line and then broke through to the right and leader of the so-called “people of the family”, a specialist in zero point percent elections, recently conquered by Trumpism. Adinolfi would also like Fabrizio Corona to participate in the match, perhaps to place him in the confidential affairs office. Meanwhile, yesterday the general performed a maneuver that is not even taught in Nunziatella’s manuals: the paso doble. He voted with confidence in the government, but said no to sending weapons to Ukraine, complete with furious motions against it. And it is as if he had taken to the battlefield wearing the uniforms of both sides, one on top of the other, to make sure not to lose or, perhaps, to be able to stand with his feet in two amphibious boots without losing his balance. Which side is the former attaché of the Italian embassy in Moscow Vannacci, a declared Putin supporter? With Russia or with Ukraine? Could this be a diversionary maneuver? But diversion of what?

From left: Edoardo Ziello, Rossano Sasso and Emanuele Pozzolo, the three parliamentarians who joined Roberto Vannacci’s Futuro Nazionale.
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The Montecitorio chronicles tell of the new “political rumba” (copyright Corriere della sera). Under his command, the troop goes wild with quotes from Bonanima and tattoos like that of Edoardo Ziello who had the saying “Vae Victis” imprinted on his skin, the Brenno rooster who placed his sword on the scales of the defeated Romans. But behind the folklore of marches and “remigrations”, the horrendous bill that provides for the expulsion of all foreigners from Italy in the name of the defense of the race, which they contend with Casa Pound and Forza Nuova, these new futurists have become the real bellyache of the center-right. A tactical problem before an ideological one: too far to the right to be reassuring, too unpredictable to be manageable. While the government tries to give itself an institutional tone, they remain there, martial, like a noisy neighbor who blows trumpets at dawn while you try to sleep with the armored door. But in short, is Vannacci, the vice president of the League who left to found his own party, part of the majority? Yes and no. Perhaps. Depends. They are certainly a problem on that political side. If you ask Tajani, leader of the centre-right, he replies: “You have to ask the League.” – If you ask the Northern League members they get hives. If you ask Fratelli d’Italia you get no answer. If you ask “We moderates” there are so few that you can’t find them.
These patriots of the “new” course explain to us that the world must be turned upside down. Perhaps they are right: in an era in which coherence is a burden and memory a stumbling block, the only possible avant-garde is the one that votes in favor of those who support the exact opposite of what you declare. And the centre-right, which hoped for smooth sailing, convinced that it was a battleship, now finds itself a loose cannon. At least the X Mas raiders knew which ships they had to place the bombs under.


