That the cheerful Trump-Vance-Musk triangle is doing everything in its power to honour the ‘glories’ of the totalitarianisms that bloodied and darkened Western Europe in the first half of the 20th century is now a fact. Just as the unconcealed admiration that the American president has for the figure of thelast exponent of what was once the Soviet ‘underpower’ of the KGB is no longer just an impression. Also noted are his historical sympathies for the relationship between Hitler and his generals and his more contemporary ones for Kim Jong-un. In short, Trump has done and continues to do everything in his power to proudly claim that he is certainly not a Michelin Guide inspector of democracy, but neither is he a secondary school learner, given his poverty of vocabulary.

But how does Italian politics react to the Trumpian threat?

On the Left, it seems untrue that they can wave the usual anti-fascist flag against the rantings of Trump, Vance and Musk, but they stop at a mannerist anti-Trumpism when they insist on denying that the only way to maintain a space of freedom in Europe is to make it strong and secure even with the deterrence provided by weapons.

On the right, however, the collective onanism starts when the US president insults transgender people and inaugurates the anti-woke crusade. Some are so full of hatred towards all that is ‘different’ that, in order to rejoice in Trump’s crusade against diversity and inclusion policies, they go so far as to claim, in full Stockholm syndrome, that tariffs on Europe would be ‘an opportunity for Italian companies’ and define as ‘man of peace’ a guy who every now and then threatens bombings here and there.

Who knows how our sovereignists and nationalists would behave if, having taken Greenland and realised that of the ‘Middle Eastern Riviera’ only the lousy video with the golden statues would remain, Trump decided, taking the hint of an April Fool’s joke, perhaps after having confronted the ‘Sitting Bull’ of the assault on Capitol Hill, to take Sardinia in order to have not only one of the pearls of the Mediterranean – ready to live, with no need for renovation as Gaza would need – but also an outpost in the centre of the Mare nostrum. Someone is probably already ready to call that too an opportunity in order to have the role of consul-kapo.

The Trump-Putin axis: the worst of both worlds

The most depressing aspect, however, is the fact that many, too many, still do not want to understand that today it no longer makes sense to be ‘left-wing’ because they are anti-fascists or ‘right-wing’ because they are anti-communists, because both Trump and Putin embody the worst of both totalitarianisms that put the 20th century to fire and sword. Yet it would be enough for the left to start defining Trump as the worst of the communist dictators to send certain Italian Trumpians into a tizzy, just as it would be enough for the right to remember that Italy was liberated from Nazi-fascism thanks to the use of weapons, in order to easily unmask the fake and hypocritical pacifism of certain leftists. However, to do this, it would be necessary to be free from ideological dogmas, from those monsters that still prevent Italian politics from making the leap towards a European dimension of a right and a left that confront and alternate within the perimeter of a liberal democracy.

This is why the Trump-Putin ideological axis appeals to some on the right and does not displease others on the left, because it represents the true realisation of fascio-communism, that soup cooked with all the ingredients of the two ideologies with one basic objective: the realisation of the ethical state. So much did the Soviet Union do and continues to do the Putin regime, so much do Trump, Vance, Musk and MAGA aim to do, subjects for whom every aspect of reality can be reworked through the manipulation of information, the denigration of the past and the widespread control of ideas, undermining from the depths those secular values of freedom and equality that gave light and strength to the free world. All this in a context in which Big Tech ‘s social media are greatly increasing their political and social influence and proving to be such powerful tools that institutions are forced to adapt (not to say readjust) both culturally and normatively.

In the meantime, while those smarter than us, almost the rest of Europe, Canada, Australia, Japan and perhaps even China, have well realised that today we do not need overt dictatorships to start preparing a new global resistance, we are forced to witness the continuous, sterile and anachronistic duel between fascists and anti-fascists, communists and anti-communists.

In this collective madness that threatens the whole of humanity, it is not even surprising that so many Italian ‘liberals’ sympathise with either one or the other champion of freedom, while those who should or should have represented a serious alternative in the wake of liberal democracy prefer to concentrate on the race to see who has the longest dick in a battery of mini-dates, proving themselves increasingly unfit to represent an alternative and incapable of offering a political option that can make a difference in the various governing majorities of the democracy of alternation.

Meloni’s opportunism, with one foot in two shoes

Meanwhile, while the hens and cockerels of Italy’s henhouse look more and more like Renzo’s capons and continue in their rhetorical exercise from the Bignami of history and philosophy, Giorgia Meloni can afford to keep the country poised between Europe and Trump, between liberal democracy and democratisation, between dialogue and bullying, between law and international crime (the ways in which Trump declares he wants to ‘take’ Greenland are the same ways in which Putin annexed Crimea); in the meantime he goes to the top of the willing but also agrees with Vance who calls the Europeans parasites, all in the time involuntarily given to her not to take a position yet and allow her to study and understand when and how which side to take when the going gets really tough.