Italian Divorce

Family affaires and physical problems are private issues which should be excluded by political discussions. This is what happens in a normal democracy, not in Italy.

In Italy things go quite differently. Politics and the way politics are conducted and managed in Italy have dramatically changed during the recent years thanks to the consequences of TV monopoly and the too many conflicts of interests in confusing politics and TV communication. In particular the most subtle mergering between politics and TV doesn't happen into the information domain (too difficult and obvious) but rather through TV shows and advertising control. The public opinion's anaesthesia and conformism are no longer transmitted on conventional ideological ways (as in the case of information) but through the penetration within the national cultural tissue of well defined lifestyles and models amplified by TV shows and advertising.

In Italy politics and shows have very soften borders. Often it is difficult to understand where the former is ending and the latter is beginning. The main goal is to transform political arena into a sort of an extension of TV shows: being unable to bear a confrontation on an indeological field, it has been realized an axis' translation moving politics to the show domain where the confrontation is moved as well and where the italian leader is surely stronger than his political adversaries. This explains the attempt to reduce space and role of Parliament (considered a boring place and having a low audience index among TV spectators), the potential and real presence in elections of candidates from TV shows (increasing the party's share), his spectacular gaffes in harmony with many italian B-movies.

Watching these films it is possible to delineate the recent homo italicus profile: cynical, shrewd, arrogant, davil-may-care, opportunist, individualist, luxury cars, always on fashion holidays, working less and gymn more, cheater, beautiful young women, no links above all family links...

We are going toward a perfect symbiosis between the leader and the politics' consumers. It a long lasting process based on a method well known in marketing and among banker promoters: "nobody can understand you better than me. I've got the same problems. I'm like you!".

Surely the italian politicians of the past were not perceived as "one of us": they still belong to a different dimension: today on the contrary the mortal embrace between politics and TV has made politics a topic good only for sensationalist magazines.

Even this recent family fact is destined to become part of this process with surely great impact according to an electoral and consensus point of view: considering the present italian social composition, this event is contributing to make the leader even closer to his clients.

He is always and always "one of us".

But never like me...