Attention in the digital age is still won with noise and agitation from the extremes, because the new votes are obtained from the emotions that confirm the convictions of each voter. And it is that nobody convinces anyone by going against them, but by agreeing with them.
But governing is just the opposite, because staying in government today depends on not arousing the vote of emotional punishment of others without losing yours. Hence the success of Giorgia Meloni's 100 days as prime minister, and her applauded turn towards moderation and centrism after 30 years of Mussolini's neo-fascism.
These dizzying twists are allowed today as never before by digital memory since, after all, it consists of a continuous present. And the contradictions between what has been said, renewable every moment with a tweet between the avalanche of changing messages, and the facts, always reinterpretable, today are just mere haggling.
Meloni appreciated the support of Putin's trolls during her years of opposition, but, barely installed in Palazzo Chigi, she has approved the shipment of arms and money to Ukraine; she has renewed the Italian commitment to the decarbonization of the Paris agreement; And, despite having led anti-European campaigns for years, she is now welcomed by the President of the European Council, Charles Michel, for her "frank, direct and sincere cooperation with the EU". Her anti-immigration proclamations were racist, but she has just visited North African countries as a statesman to improve their relations and immigration policies.
Reach the government from the extremes, but govern from the center. It is the lesson of classic politics, well learned by Meloni, both for Vox, in its regional governments, and Podemos in that of Spain and Junts when he was in Catalonia. We must also congratulate President Aragonès in this sense for having managed to take note in time of how little a tweet is worth (not having known it before cost us all dearly). And to Meloni herself who proclaimed as Mussolini "God, Country and Family", but today she continues without marrying the father of her daughter.
