Every nation treats its politics as theatre. In Britain, a man who lied his way to the leading role may soon be replaced by a woman whose very name conveys mistrust. In France, they tell an epic tale of Jupiter, aka Emmanuel Macron, brought crashing down to Earth. In the US, forever playing cowboys, Congress staged a riveting shoot-out at the not-OK Corral, dramatising the case of Donald Trump versus the People.
Outraged and desperate at the perennial perfidy and treachery of their leaders, voters mask their impotence with tears and laughter. Politics becomes entertainment and politicians mere players. Italy, briefly, was an exception. Mario Draghi – “Super-Mario” to his keenest admirers – was widely reckoned the country’s most able, effective and popular prime minister in many years. But like Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar, or so the story goes, Draghi was stabbed in the back last week by lesser people in Rome’s Senate, the victim of a rightwing plot. Evidently this was not what most Italians, impressed by Draghi’s Covid leadership, economic reforms and international influence, wanted to happen. La Stampa decried a political murder. La Repubblica’s sombre headline: “Italy Betrayed”.
