The world moves forward as per the script of Il Gattopardo (The Leopard): “Everything must change so that everything can stay the same.” *
The critical or “antagonistic” political spheres apply abstruse, outdated, and unrealistic frameworks to it.
Paradoxically, this is much more evident on the right, despite the current winds favoring the right, than on the left.
We are not witnessing a Global South bloc against the West, let alone the much-acclaimed triumph of the people over the oligarchies.
What we are seeing is a paradigm shift, reflected both in national policies and the international framework.
We are in the midst
of a transitional crisis of epochal significance, rewriting geoeconomics and geoenergy, shuffling the cards into a multilateral and, above all, multi-alignment landscape. This is reshaping hierarchies based on a still unequal U.S.-China binary and a group of small, medium-small, or potential powers (including Europe).
Globalization itself is changing
with both centripetal and centrifugal trends creating an ever-greater interrelation between all players while also forming diversified and relatively separate areas.
The role of the state is partially resurging, but in a fragmented manner. It is stronger in internal decisiveness but less sovereign in technology, economy, and communication.
What is evident is that the political anchormen class and the court of progressives—focused on gender issues and the woke agenda—are no longer able to represent economic groups’ interests, explain changes, or even make them acceptable to the people. Worse still, they aim to impose ideological trends completely disconnected from reality.
This is where populism rises
When it manifests demagogically and opportunistically, it ends up being controlled, as happened with Italy’s yellow-green government, which accepted Giuseppe Conte as its imposed guardian and became the opposite of what it claimed to be.
Realistic populist choices, which align with reality, are of a different nature—such as the Meloni government in Italy.
I do not wish to evaluate the Trump 2 phenomenon or where it may lead here.
I will limit myself to considering
objective facts
The first is that it is reacting forcefully, including through purges, against the class of liberal scribes and political commissars—a kind of soft McCarthyism.
The second is that nearly the entire establishment now supports Trump: from Silicon Valley to Starlink, from Wall Street to newly aligned figures like Bezos and Zuckerberg.
If this represents a radical change (I wouldn’t call it a revolution), whether for better, worse, or both, it will only be possible because there has been a connection between the core structures of a system and innovative forces.
This is akin to what happened with Napoleon, Mussolini, De Gaulle, and Perón.
In these cases, we can indeed talk about revolutions or, at least, radical change.
And—for goodness’ sake!—do not interpret this as equating Trump with those figures; I am discussing dynamics, not values, principles, or models.
These dynamics
are the only ones capable of driving change or even revolutions.
Antagonistic populism, on the other hand, can only seize power in a vacuum and never achieves anything good—consider the Jacobins or the Bolsheviks. They always need someone to step in to fix their mistakes, save them from failure, and put them in line, effectively remote-controlling them.
Thus, they become tools of foreign or stateless finance and never produce anything viable.
There is another element to consider
in the rise of Trump 2: the ability to synthesize, what we might call “American-style archeofuturism,” combining regressive elements that act as a binder with futuristic elements that serve as a solvent. This synthesis is embodied by Elon Musk, steering in much more sensible directions than the Alt-Right, which at least managed to put cultural alternatives on the table. Again, I emphasize: I am not endorsing or evaluating this component but discussing its role, just as I might discuss the Bavarian Illuminati.
When I wrote The New World Order: Between Imperialism and Empire in 2002
for Barbarossa, I argued—and repeated in every presentation—that changes in orientation would come from progressive ruling classes (such as the Macron Doctrine, unfortunately an illusion, or figures like Elon Musk). **
I asserted that change would first emerge from the head of the system.
This is precisely what is happening.
To dispel any confusion or misunderstanding: I am not praising Trump or the system undergoing transformation.
For me, this will only be a good thing if and when it happens in Europe, and I am certain that, if it happens here, it will take a very different form.
I am also fully aware that these Captain Americas will try to advance their interests, often at our expense.
What I want to highlight are the foundational elements of this movement
which sees itself as revolutionary and presents itself as such. This movement will undoubtedly leave a mark on the future conception of ruling classes, censorship styles, common language, and even social engineering, which will likely be less woke.
But what I truly hope for is that we learn the clear lesson: antagonism is sterile; absolute populism is opportunistic and lacks prospects; there is no power to be seized for a revolution based on frustration and emptiness.
What matters is playing an active role
in producing imagination, coordinating autonomies, and generating new powers capable of intervening—through a domino logic—in the “archeofuturist” changes that, hopefully, will occur in Europe.
We must abandon many of the ballast-like preconceptions we have become accustomed to over time, which fossilize us and cover us with mold, often turning us into GMO creatures wagging our tails behind someone else’s pipers.
* This is a novel about the Italian Risorgimento in Sicily, universally known by the eponymous film by Visconti, masterfully played by Burt Lancaster, Alain Delon, Claudio Cardinale and Paolo Stoppa.
** There is only Italian version of this work
