There's two problems here. One is the EU being dictated to by Germany, France and bureacrats. It is only when the unthinkable might happen, a country like Italy shakes the foundation, that they listen. The second problem is the Euro. In the past, countries like Greece, Italy and Spain had junk currencies. Prices for locals and tourists were cheap. and they could devalue when needed. Now they are pegged with the euro. Prices are levelled with other wealthier members and the only way to fix things is to cut expenditure (which they will continue to do forever) or boost growth, the latter seems impossible.
33
Bannon hard at work, but no fear, he's back - he says 'with a vengeance'. - at least according to his twitter feed. Keep an eye on him.
8
The good people of Italy have grow tired and weary of unchecked illegal immigration and broken EU promises. In short, Italians have no control of their own sovereign borders and are understandably angry.
It's little wonder they have resorted to a Populist Democracy.
47
June 2, 2018
The truth is stranger than fiction. And yes cheers for Italy's government ahead. The good news is the magnification of similarity by the leading countries on the planet and with we can expect such discussions as herewith rightly by Mr. Cohen. Indeed the demand is for history to not to repeat mistakes and cheerfully learn from our educated leaders that demand cooperative solutions - and that must also bring the Muslims oil states to the discussion of governing to halt the killing fields and the drought and economics horrors - and surely bringing light to planetary living humanistic and with universal light guiding sharing state of affairs dollar for dollar or EU for EU / Yuan for Yuan etc.
jja Manhattan, N.Y.
2
Roger,
This reminds me of Susan Sarandon saying that she wanted
Trump to win in order “to bring on the revolution”. This might eventually lead to positive change but a lot of people could be hurt in the process.
20
"The operation was a success but the patient died."
11
Apply that reasoning to the current American government, and wait for democracy to save us here. Or better, work toward throwing the bums out.
12
Mr. Cohen, you blatantly ignore bigotry, racial prejudice and ignorance as the primary causes of that voter anger. These causes far outweigh the hatred of liberal elitists and their globalization. Did you listen to the campaign speeches and literature in Italy and the United States. Did you see and hear the energy and enthusiasm of the "base" when racial and ethnic slurs were spewed from the candidates' mouths in Europe and the United States? In the USA, the fuel for the populist movement is Mexican immigration. In Italy (and other parts of Europe), it is African and Middle-Eastern immigration.
22
Well, I won't cheer for Trump's America.
9
- so when I went to school in Italy and did something really awful - I wish I could have had Mr. Cohen as my teacher to cheer for me!
4
If only we had had this good sense in supporting the Egyptian democratically-elected government, instead of supporting another Middle Eastern military strongman (Sisi) that ousted it. What a mistake that was! John Kerry; It's on you!; and much to my disgust David Brooks supported that coup. Lord!
4
Like all the establishment types, Cohen still doesn't get it or at least not fully. The system is rigged to favor the 1%. Of course, it always has been, but the last four decades have seen historically high 1% theft of wealth and income around the world. Certainly in the US. Reagan broke the unions and it has been straight downhill for the middle class ever since.
Whether under Reagan, Clinton, Bush or Obama, the massive transfer of wealth, income and power has continued and accelerated. The next 10%, including the bankers, computer people, the news media, and the upper level professionals have been conscious or unconscious aiders and abetters in the process. The liberal elite have been allowed to pound on all the social issues, just like the right wing on the other side, so long as it did not interfere with this wealth and income transfer.
The political convulsions of today, including the idiot Trump , are the result of liberal failure.
32
America could do Italy better than Italy. Lets all do Republican chaos. Reject German rectitude. Let's slop through letting the wealthy continued to rip us off. Wave the flag. Pump the cross. Dance around the quaint decaying infrastructure. America first! We can do Mexican market place too - better than the Mexicans. We are almost there.
5
Thank you for this viewpoint. I don't think it is wishful thinking either.
1
Ok, the President of the Republic in Italy CANNOT reject a minister based on his ideas! He can dismiss it if he thinks that he is incompetent (which he is not) or that he is corrupt, which he is not either.
If the majority of voters are critics of the EU, this problem should be faced, not rejected. It's called DEMOCRACY.
Plus, this idea that all the previous governments were all roses and this new one is evil and incompetent is rubbish. These two parties were voted in because the previous governments did only disasters.
In Italy there is still no serious law against corruption, conflict of interests, tax evasion, statue of limitations. Whose fault is that? Certainly not of the newly elected. Those are norms that don't cost anything and that would bring billions of euros to the state. And they are all in the program of this government. Whether they will keep their promise, we would have to wait and see. Not judge before before they even started.
Who were the competent and great leaders of the past? Renzi, who wanted to rewrite half of the constitution? Berlusconi (do we even have to talk about his scandals)? Monti, who imposed only harsh austerity measures on Italians paid mostly by retired and employees, while the tax evaders and the corrupted were not touched at all?
29
Thank. You. I wish you could post it 100 times
6
As long as you conflate liberalism with neoliberalism you will be part of the problem. Classic liberalism, such as expressed in the French and American Revolutions at the end of the 18th Century, would never have put up with the grotesque political power of huge corporations. Voters who were left behind by globalization and stood by helplessly as those responsible for the 2008 crisis remained largely unpunished are rightly reacting against corporate rule - even if their reaction is irrational and inchoate and liberalism gets thrown out, not for the first time in European history, along with neoliberalism.
25
Dear Roger,
I am from Milan, Northern Italy, you may know, one of the richest part in Europe. I did not vote for 5s or Lega. Your point may be right, but I am really worried about the deadly risk that such a government, with most of people not experienced and full of wrong economic ideas, poses to Europe. We cannot forget that a Country with 130% of Debt vs. GDP ratio, leaded by this people, could create a huge damage to Western economic and financial systems
16
History has demonstrated time and time again that people tend to become increasingly irrational and illogical when they feel their lives and livelihood are being threatened. If the leaders of the West (both political and economic) were really concerned about illegal immigration they could stop starting and funding wars, and stop exploiting the resources and labor of poor, resource rich third world and developing nations.
The profit machine of the global economy runs on exploitation. It benefits when the working classes (and you are working class if you have to work for a living) are squabbling over an increasingly smaller share of wealth and resources. It benefits from desperate and displaced people being blamed for all the ills of society despite the clear reality that they have little to no control over the hand they have been dealt. We blame people fleeing famine, endemic illness, and violence, but not those who caused these conditions on the first place. We blame immigrants for taking jobs from citizens, but not the employers who hire them to save money. We have a president who loves to talk about "America first" but continues to have his products manufactured in other countries and staffs his properties with cheap immigrant labor. The most simple test should be "put your money where your mouth is" because "actions speak louder than words." Cliches, but accurate.
29
One hopes they have the magic bullet. Just undoing whatever is done is not going to help. The real frustration is while one may have finally recognized a problem, the solution may not be what it seems to be. Still, it is something to cheer at least for no other reason than that a problem has finally found its moment.
My son, who visited Italy last summer, would agree with Jean-Claude Juncker's assessment with respect to southern Italy. He found northern Italy to be the opposite. There's also some truth in stereotypes, hence the reason for their becoming stereotypes.
10
Dear John
you are right. I am from Northern Italy. In my area we have one of the highest income per person in Europe (not kiddin') but Southern is another World. And, yes, some stereotypes are right.
7
Italians work hard, maybe harder than Germans. It is part of their culture. It is also part of their culture not to look like they are working hard - and in this they are indeed the very opposite of Germans.
15
Mr. Cohen, you are taking the issue of this new government in Italy way too seriously.
I have had the pleasure of living for over twenty years in Europe, and nowhere is life more pleasant than in Italy. The country was ungovernable long before this government, is ungovernable now, and will remain ungovernable regardless of who is in power (and I use the term "power" very loosely).
Yes, Italians are generally not as serious or hard working as the Germans, but they have two favorite sports: Soccer and a disregard of government and its laws, regulations, edicts, and policies. This is what renders the country pleasurable to a fault. It is mixture of "long live anarchy" and "La Dolce Vita".
Europe is lucky to have them. Where else would all these hard-working, serious northerners vacation, eat great food, drink gorgeous wines, enjoy the best weather in the world, and have fun.
23
No problem for a rich Republican.
4
Roger,
You lost again, or should I say the Liberals lost again.We used to refer to Liberals as bleeding hearts,but we were at the wrong part of the anatomy, the problem with Liberals are located in their minds, much like it was in the mind of Marx.We are mired in the thought that all people should be equal & it’s our responsibility to make sure that no one is left behind.This is contrary to human nature.
Reality, is not that dog eats dog , but humans strive to eat each other , we treat dogs much better than we treat each other. Trump sensed it & appealed to our darker instincts, & won the day.An example of this is the immigration problem.Liberals over look the infiltration of the murderous radicals that lurk in the swam of Muslims that have invaded Europe & tried to do the same in the United States, until Trump put up a Red Light & Stopped it, & by so doing , won the Election.Europe has taken a page from Trump, & the Merkel's of the World are looked upon as not, being in touch in touch with the real world.Much like you are Roger.
11
@Joe Blow
Er...sir you need to get up to speed on Italian politics. 5 Star is ultra liberal.
8
The mainstream needed a swat upside the head, and unfortunately, swats upside the head have consequences. They hurt. If the pain that people feel goads the moderate leaders into finding a fix that works, the system might survive in its current form. If not, it will go the way of the dodo bird, and all other creatures that fail to adapt.
Western Civilization and liberal democracy are at a crossroads that will define their future. I'm rooting for them, but it is still a contest that they could lose. The economy needs to be adapted into something sustainable, yet comfortable enough to keep people satisfied, while remaining capable of defending itself from xenophobia, nationalism, and competition from people who live and work in places where life is harder.
If our systems fail to adapt, I shudder to think what comes next. It won't be pretty. It's a tall order, but that's the kind of world we live in. Adapt or go extinct.
5
Oh, Roger, wrong again.
10
Italy’s problems lie within. The Euro and migration are easy to blame. But they need to work on fiscal discipline and corruption.
4
Seriously?
How long did it take for the royal rule of the Roman Empire to return to it's citizens republic roots?
How long did it take for the Holy Roman Catholic Empire to return to it's humble humane empathetic roots?
Dueling socioeconomic political arguments are susceptible to reasonable factual objective arguments. But ethnic sectarian national origin supremacy is not nor will it ever be so simply dealt with and defeated. Instead of cheering we should be crying.
4
The new Italian government will fail in many ways.
They will not fail when it comes to illegal migrants.
We need to face some facts: many reasonable people are being forced to support 'populist' parties because the 'mainstream' parties are failing to address illegal immigration.
The 'mainstream' parties are addicted to importing new citizens.
14
Roger, how right you are, a decade later and the bankers who brought down the system were never dealt with and 30 years of globalization and destroying middle class jobs was ignored. You are of course right when you say that those elected at the ballot box should be given a chance but that would appear to only marginally apply to European nations as we know, no matter who is in charge here the other party uses that fact as an excuse to do nothing or worse yet do everything it can to thwart whatever the other party is doing , at least on the surface, thereby maintaining the status quo on the big issues such as continuing wars, and allowing all monies to flow to the top. Even this nod toward democracy of allowing a vote does not apply to foreign nations in many parts of the world, if we or our ally in the M.E. don’t like the result. Egypt would be the best example of a recent repudiation of the principal you espouse. When their first duly elected President did not meet with Israels approval their was an immediate western back coup, the members of Morsis party were either murdered or imprisoned and a Westrrn approved dictator El Sisi was inserted, a Mubarak II if you will, so to continue to expound on the virtues of liberal democracy truly does ring hollow and is why many outside the liberal elite are choosing other forms of government. Vulture Capitalism, Neo Liberalism and globalization had their day and have failed the developed worlds middle class miserably.
3
Xenophobia and radical nationalism are like weeds in a garden. In a well-tended garden, they exist, but you hardly notice them. But let the gardeners fall behind in their duties, they spring back, and if the situation isn't managed correctly, they take over.
So here we are in 2018, noticing the weeds in our gardens, and wondering why the gardeners aren't doing their jobs.
Flash back to 1968, on the first day of my high school psych class, when the teacher, one Mr. Lovezzo said (paraphrased) "People act irrational when they face diminishing expectations."
In America, the Democrats have failed to stem diminishing expectations. They see a small class of people becoming ultra wealthy while they struggle by on less and less. This opened the door for Trump, who offered them a solution, that included liberal doses of xenophobia and radical nationalism. It worked. The weeds grew.
Maybe the problems are intractable. Maybe we've exceeded the carrying capacity of the planet, and maybe the Asians will out compete us now that they've learned to play on our level. Maybe there is no fixing it and our experiment with liberal democracy will fail. I hope that isn't the case, but the moderates on both sides need to come up a solution and sell it before the weeds take over.
6
You put your finger on the button: Angela Merkel's series of colossal failures is what brought us first Greece, then Brexit, now Italy and perhaps next, Marine LePen.
Ever since she came to power, Angela Merkel only had one objective: To stay IN power. The safest thing to do that is let things run chaotically and then take credit for the things that worked, while sticking the bill for her failures to her citizens.
Merkel's total failure first came to light after Fukujima when she shuttered all German nuclear reactors in favor of a lunatic renewable energy plan that would put Trump's chaos to shame. Unbelievably - actually, not really, Trump is doing that all the time, too - Germans don't realize that they are paying 4x as much for electricity as we here in the US, because there are not enough transmission lines to distribute the electricity. So Germans PAY Poland to take its electricity from the North and PAY double to buy electricity from.... French nuclear reactors in the South. All so the numbers of how much renewable energy Germany creates can be fudged. In fact, German CO2 production has INCREASED under that hare-brained plan.
And then, by waiting for the long-time coming refugee crisis to explode, she precipitated Brexit and thus the first step to European disintegration.
Merkel will be in the history books, side by side with Chamberlain and the other incompetent chancellors of the Weimar Republic.
14
Why dont European countries go to the sources of the immigrant flow; the actual countries themselves in north Africa, and elsewhere. Offer to help keep their citizens at home with aid and experts at solving their problems, ie peaceful programs not bombs, in exchange for stopping the desparate human river advancing north?
9
Italy in some form or another has been around for centuries. The EU has only muddled through a few decades. Which do you suppose will outlast the other? I do not see Italians transforming into “beige Belgians” anytime soon.
11
The new Italian government is not "anti-Europe; it might be anti-EU. Cohen doesn't seem to know the difference. As "Europe" doesn't exist other than as a geographic description of the westernmost part of the Eurasian continent, it is not clear what "Europe" really means to Cohen. Is the UK no longer in "Europe" if it leaves the EU? Is Switzerland not in Europe because it is not in the EU, nor part of the Euro Zone?
If by EUROPE, Cohen means a small area in which the NATIVE inhabitants are White and Christian, then he should say so. If the EU, a voluntary organization created to help post-war recovery and rationalize economies along what is now called neoliberal lines, is what he means by "Europe," then he is woefully wrong.
The EU is an attempt to homogenize a great variety of people with different historical experiences, local identities and social and political priorities and values. As such, it is meeting resistance from several countries whose economies had been adversely affected by the Great Recession and whose recoveries have been slowed by the imposition of austerity measures dictated by the EU to preserve the Euro. In addition, not all EU members are also members of the Euro Zone.
Cohen is critical of a government that has not done anything as yet. Is that his critique, or is it that he is acting as a spokesperson for the EU bureaucracy that is doing its best to crush the democratically determined national aspirations of several EU member nations?
12
''But a core beauty of the European Union is that its interlocking institutions AND THE EURO are designed precisely to ensure that no country can go off on what the Germans call a Sonderweg — the sort of wayward path of nationalism and mysticism and racism that led Germany, and all of Europe, to ruin.''
1
Mr. Cohen informs us that Italy received 60% of all migrants in 2017. He then writes that "I'm all for seriousness of purpose in government, and that cannot include handouts for which there are no funds." If there are "no funds", Mr. Cohen, how can Italy afford to provide food, clothing, and shelter - handouts if you will - to those migrants? I think one can reasonably understand, if not approve of, the resentment some Italians - whose country is broke - having to support those migrants flooding into their country. If one has great difficulty supporting his or her family, how can we demand that they happily support migrants they don't even know? It doesn't necessarily make those Italians racist fascists - but it does unfortunately open the door for repugnant politicians who at least acknowledge their legitimate concerns.
29
In reality , to add another stereotype, this government / coalition is only destined to last a few months before the infighting destroys the bonhomie.
Juncker has a point, Italy always gets the administration it deserves.
5
The premise of -- the flaw in -- this argument is that supporters of this govt and other nationalists will SEE failure as it happens and throw the bums out. Dubious.
The obvious conclusion is that every place beset by incompetent, malevolent nationalists must suffer whatever destruction to values, norms, economies, alliances, and future hopes these barbarians care to visit upon us.
4
Thank you for your optimistic take, Mr. Cohen. I think that, forced as your argument may be, you will be proved right ... as long as Europe avoids falling into an economic depression. I doubt Hitler would have succeeded without the humiliation of the Treaty of Versailles AND the Great Depression. At least that’s how I calm myself when I contemplate our current leadership.
4
It’s heartbreaking to see this anger and hatred in the world. I worked for years in construction and seen the hateful voters for Trump long before he ran and wasn’t surprised . All the machoism, racism and homophobia. Italy, Britain and the USA are the laughing stock of China and the rest of the world. Maybe Italy can elect another Mussolini. Dumb people want to be led. If we do not learn from history...we will repeat it.
2
It's the Euro stupid. The single currency( the pipe dream of Kohl, Chirac and De Lors) is the problem. We should have had a 2 tiered Europe, with solvent countries joining the currency and excluding the basket cases.
4
Really, Roger? Countries in the EU can’t go the direction of fascist Italy and Germany because . . . EU?
What world are you living in? Take a good hard look at Hungary, Poland, and, yes, Italy. If you don’t think this is extremely dangerous, then we, your readers are much clearer about what world you’re living in — a fantasy world.
9
"Italy has a lousy government that may in the end be good for Europe." You are stating the reverse of the Obama nation with Change and then Hope.
And the Untied States has a lousy government, coalitions-wise, that may be good for _______ (you name the region).
1
Stand proud Italy. Listen to your people. Get out of the EU if you want to. Close your borders if you want to. Get away from Germany if you want to. Rule your own country! Congratulations!
15
Good for Italy for coming to its senses and waking up, uber-liberal NYT opinion writers notwithstanding.
11
Cohen is anything but uber liberal - whatever that is supposed to mean.
1
You “have immense respect for the wisdom... of voters?” Really? Roger, many (most, it seems these days) people vote based on ideas they hold that cannot be classified as “wisdom.” Hitler also won election because he “intuited a seeping anger.” Were Germans in the early 1930s “wise?” Roger, people are idiots. It’s amazing the human race has survived this long.
9
Hitler was appointed after he lost a democratic election.
4
Many of the Italian problems (financial included) might be solved at zero cost with a serious politics against tax evasion, corruption, conflict of interests. At least the "populists" that gained a free election have a program to go and solve them Let's give them some credit before any judgment. Of one thing I'm sure, the Italian press will be soon ready to incense this new government, as always did, uncritically with all predecessors.
2
Mr. Cohen's observations recall my favorite bumper sticker which reads: "America - a fine old Italian name!"
If Joe in Chicago and Guido in Florence were bothered to think about it, they would have to agree on the similarities in their respective cultures. "We can do good and clever art in the kitchen, the design studio, the music hall ... but we are not like the Dutch who seem to have a mystical gift for gently subduing obstacles to make the improbable work for the good of all with no significant disturbance to the Earth, their own citizens or their neighbors."
I suspect the key cultural distinction is the bemused acceptance with which Joe and Guido reflect national attitudes of belief that business, politics and religion are inevitably operated by racketeers, as established in the legends of the Borgia's and the Robber Barons.
Meanwhile, Sophie, from her executive desk in the Hague, is joined by her fellow citizens in rejecting that as an intolerable illness. Her perspective is rooted in the Dutch conviction that rational prosperity has two components; the economic and the moral. To a remarkable extent they apply that with an insistence on the common sense of justice - for all - without exception. And they make it work as evidenced by their ranking as one of the happiest countries in the world.
So today my cheer goes to the Netherlands and their culturally comparable neighbors. For Italy and the U.S., I'll reserve a prayer for enlightenment and deliverance.
5
Salvini, besides being a vice-president for Conte aka the figurehead prime minister, will head the Italian version of the DHS, suffice it to say that on immigration he is a Trump on steroids. His party , the Lega Nord, makes the Le Pen's own a moderate ensemble of well meaning folks.
Di Maio, also a vicepresidente for Conte, will head the department of labour development never having worked a minute his entire life, but on par with Trump has a superficial knowledge of the language, re. the grammar mostly, although he had been putting appearances in the hall of some university for no obvious reason. The founder of his party, the M5S, is the notorious clownish comedian Beppe Grillo, enough said.
I do not share Cohen's sarcastic optimism as the aforementioned duo will do great damage to our democracy, as your president seem to be bent on doing, although not on a planetary scale.
I wish they had run on a MIGA prop, smart enough not to do it!
5
This is a complex and fair argument.
But as a citizen of the US now governed by Donald Trump and his gleefully destructive, racist, authoritarian cronies and family members, I disagree with one of Mr. Cohen’s key arguments.
“It’s much better to have them fail on the inside than have them rail from the outside.”
When autocrats and selfish fools are elected to lead a counter and they “fail on the inside,” many people—children, women, men— in that country suffer. Most of these people will never speak to a journalist or tell their stories to any politician. And the angry adults among them may well still blame the EU, or globalization, or immigrants, or the New World Order, or Jews for their misery, and revel in the nationalist animosity invited and ignited by their awful new leaders.
As we, here, have learned ...
What’s the solution? I don’t know.
9
There is only one solution, which I can describe, but I have no idea how to make it happen. We need to reverse the economic decline faced by many Americans. Ordinary people need to believe that they can have a more prosperous future, and it needs to happen. Otherwise the xenophobes and nationalists will take over.
It's simple to say, but difficult to do. The Democrats have their work cut out for them if they want to stay relevant.
3
First, in 1933 Hitler didn't skin the election, not eve close. Hundredth thought him a clown he could control. Bad idea. Bigger bad idea, forming the EU and not forming a union. people don't tell a part of anything except another layer of beurocracy run by Germany. Italy has been a failed state since it was founded. There is an old saying which I will translate. Garibaldi made Italy but he didn't make Italians. Until Milanese think Sicilians and Calabrese are Italians too, they will continue to be the place the Romans tried to govern. unfortunately, rather than an outlier, what happened in Bavaria recently indicates that this tribalism is everywhere, certainly in the USA.
Maybe it is time to step back and look at the world in a different way before we destroy it. New groups in other parts of the world are demanding recognition and tribalism is the internal conflict pulling them apart. We need a new order that recognizes individuality but allows all to play well together. A new United Nations with lines drawn not by colonialism but by how people want to be organized.
4
It really annoys me to hear the oft repeated claim that "liberals lost touch with people's anger". Sure, granted economic stagnation for some caused anger, but in actuality "liberals" won by almost 3 million votes. Trump is President through the outdated quirk of the Electoral College.
Another contributor to the anger is the right-wing radio spewing hate and lies, Fox "News", social media, and of course, the underlying racism of the right exacerbated by having a bi-racial President - particularly since he was so much more accomplished than they are!
16
No matter how I look at it, it's hard to raise a cheer for Italy and it's awful new goverment.
I've been skeptical of the Euro as a single currency since its introduction, but don't consider myself as being anti-European Union.
At the same time, there's no doubt that Italy, like Greece, has gotten the shortest possible end of the stick between that, and the austere measures the E.U. has put down on them.
Like many Germans and other Europeans, I do find fault with Angela Merkel's policy that opened the door wide in 2015, and became instrumental in facilitating the rise of the right-wing nationalist populism we're seeing across the continent, and even here in the U.S. today.
And while nothing alarms me more than seeing the Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) sitting in the Bundestag, and increasing in its popularity, I am also not surprised why the same thing is happening now in Italy.
After all, the E.U. left them holding the ball with Lampedusa, and only further componded the situation by sticking to the Dublin Regulation, meaning that asylum seekers had to be returned to the countries were they first landed.
Germany already had a Hitler.
And I do not wish another one on Italy, Europe, or the United States.
4
Is it ok if we nickname you “Roger Incoherent”? This piece on Italy seems to be at war with itself, and we are left with nothing to take away except a residue of optimism about. They watched helplessly as Silvio Berlusconi gave the green light to kleptocracy, then rubbed it in their faces on the evening news, which he personally owned. This is the “establishment” in Italy — the establishment we are asked to shed a tear for as it bids “addio” (to the sound of a toilet flushing). If you hear the launch of a prosecco cork or two, please pardon the Italians, who truly are sorry to see their establishment get run over by a railway car of popular of popular frustration.
Is it fun to insult Luigi Di Maio? I guess it is for some people, but I myself have nothing but respect for him. He’s 23 years younger than me and full of life, full of passion for his homeland. I’ve watched countless hours of his speeches on YouTube, and I’ve never seen him tell a lie. He’s been wrong a time or two, but it was never a deceit. He truly is putting his best out there, and I see in him a fine public servant. Being only 31 years old puts him in touch with the generation of Italians hardest hit by the euro currency, EU policies, and the corruption in their own government — it’s HIS generation that was tossed aside by the caste. If you don’t like Di Maio’s rèsumè, I don’t know what to tell you except perhaps that George Washington and Thomas Jefferson were farmers.
5
Cohen continues to be the NYT's most consistent, soberest, wisest commentator. There is a domestic analogy to what he is arguing. In the 1920s, the second iteration of the Ku Klux Klan gained political power and office in a number of northern and western states. In Oregon, they won a number of town, county, and state positions all the way up to the governor's office. They had real power, and they promptly used it to install all their worst impulses, including passing a law that closed all Catholic schools and forced a Protestant theology on the public school system (overturned by the Supreme Court) and major changes to spending and taxation that led to broken budgets and embezzling charges. The KKK was functionally in power for about eighteen months before being swept from office statewide. A few of those supporters and their offspring are still around, but every effort to rehabilitate the movement or give it a makeover has failed utterly because people here still remember how incompetent and evil the far right is. Cohen is right: the course in Italy is to let the League and Five Star, which did win a democratic election, try to run a county. They're math is faulty and their agenda is wicked, but let the Italians figure this out; they will.
3
1. True, the Euro Union strait jackets Italy, and they are angry about that.
2. Plus they have a culture that for a long time has “struggled” with racial equality. Still lingering is Mussolini’s portrayal of Africans as sub-humans, made during his invasion of Ethiopia.
3. I’ll bet the Russians sent lots of money, and lots of social media interference to Italy during their election. Explains the new govt’s desire to lift sanctions.
4. This govt is likely doomed to fail. Lower taxes, increase spending?? And when it does, let’s hope it doesn’t forget the democratic traditions that led to it.
1
"Italy has a lousy government that may in the end be good for Europe.
I’ll take the long view and raise a cheer for that."
Meanwhile, how many must suffer while the world awaits their failure (similarly in the U.S.A., by the way)?
2
Very encouraging sings coming from Europe. Finally people are starting to wake up. This leftist utopia that their handlers promised has not materialized, the only thing that happened is that they lost their countries and their culture. Shocker....
5
Jean-Claude Juncker is the EU's Hillary Clinton, principal architect of his own haughty marginalization. He might as well have labeled Italians as "deplorable," making even moderate citizens glad to have poked him in the eye.
If the new Italian government truly "brings together bigotry and incompetence to an unusual degree," it learned how to do this from American voters.
3
There’s a lot of truth in stereotypes. As a generalization it’s perfectly true that the Germans really are emotionally repressed and and obedient and consequently very well organized and it’s perfectly true the Italian have a great deal more corruption more mafia and more vivacious love of life. Deal with it.
You are entitled to your opinion Roger. but the people voted and wanted this government. They really don't care what you or anyone else thinks about this government.
You just demonstrated why America is so hated around the world. People like you feel you have a right to cast aspersions on a democratically elected government if its views and policies don;t meet some phony criteria you have.
4
I have a strong feeling that we have just about reached the crest of this so-called populist tide and it is soon to break.
1
Mr. Cohen, I generally applaud your columns for your astute analysis, and for your obviously even-keeled approach to difficult issues. That said, I join Rick Gage in challenging the statement that "liberals" have ignored the plight of the common man. For all her flaws as a candidate, Clinton espoused policies that, down the line, focused on the common man, and proposed to address the factors that gave rise to his plight. Likewise Sanders. I think part of the problem, one of many we face and perhaps central to all, is that our world is increasingly and unavoidably complex, and the solutions are thus also necessarily complex. But on the campaign trail complexity is a hard sell, whereas the red meat of raw, unthinking emotion is a piece of cake. More than anything else, Trump recognized this early on, as he has practiced playing on emotion and illusion his entire career. Certainly mistakes have been made by Democratic administrations as well as Republican, with Clinton's own husband's administration ironically the poster child of the negative impact of political expediency. But this non-stop talk about the forgotten "angry masses", both here in the US and abroad, is getting us nowhere, and continues to set the table for would-be demagogues. And that way lies disaster.
5
Excellent point, Michael. I think both your point and the points raised in the article hold - we cannot rush to push all the blame onto voters for not fully grasping the complexities of policy making for this trivializes their concerns and is emblematic of the elitism that is often overlooked among the “liberal elites”. In the end, political victors are those who can identify problems faced by various constituents and proceed to sell, then implement, effective policies to solve them.
1
Yes, but Cohen is right about the failure of elites. If the Wall Street progenitors of the Great Recession had done perp walks off to hard time, there would have been no Trump.
2
How about the "illiberal" elites -- Republicans -- who opposed training program funding, structured tax cuts for the rich, and fought regulation of Wall Street?
Italy as a magnified NY subway?
Something is being dissed here, but I honestly can’t tell what.
Meanwhile, the current, and almost certainly about to disintegrate new government lacks any guys with ties hanging below their belts, which puts them somewhat more advanced than what we’ve got.
You want Italy to shape up, get sober, and act responsibly? Let’s just move the place far northward, away from all the sun and beaches and vineyards, and antiquity. Maybe Lapland. (Excerpts from my book: ‘Theory of Climatic Worldview’ soon to be printed when my publisher in Milan gets around to it.)
3
Italy has received billions in EU funds to develop the south. It has all been for naught. Compare this with Poland (yes, that whipping boy now demonized by the great and the good in the West), which has received a fraction of the funds Italy has squandered but yet has achieved fantastic economic growth and was the only country in the EU to avoid the 2008 recession. Yes, the Italian governments are not "serious" but seriously corrupt.
3
It was Italy and Greece who accepted most of the immigrants who were running to save their families lives. The locals offered food and housing as best they could. And these two countries were not in the best of economic circumstances. Yet they reached out to strangers who were in peril.
And the European Union, in their arrogance, shoot down these two countries.
Perhaps if the EU were to act more humanely they would not be in peril of having member countries considering leaving.
You can only punish people so much, then they revolt
The same is happening in this country and it is not good. It gave us Trump and Company. They are systematically trying to tear down our country and what it stands for.
I am not surprised that it is also happening in Italy.
3
I admire Mr. Cohen's optimism. Let the democratically elected incompetents fail, throw the bums out and replace them with people capable of cleaning up the mess.
But, a cautionary note. Remember how long it took the good people of Kansas to finally confront Brownback and his ideological allies?
If it takes the Italians as long, the country may so damaged that it will take years to recover, if it ever can.
1
We should let republicans fail on the inside too. I hope that happens... so far it’s not.
1
In February a man by the name of Luca Traini shot 6 men of Nigerian dissent in the city of Macerata. Mr. Traini had run as a candidate for the League in an earlier election. He was defended by the League in the leadup to the election. I would join Mr. Cohen in giving a cheer for watching a government made up of Northern flat taxes and Southern proponents of an universal income deal with a budget deficit 132% of the GDP, but the problem is that the head of the league now runs the Dept of the Interior, similar to our police forces. He claims he will be deporting 500,000 persons of African dissent immediately. Unfortunately there is more concern in this piece about racism against Italians than about the racism of Italians. What if the killer in Chancellorsville had killed six demonstrators rather than one? What if Trump had gone on to praise him personally and welcomed him to run for office? The world would have recoiled in horror, rightfully. It is my firm belief that we are about to see a reign of racial terror in Italy that will rival that of the American South during the reconstruction. Are we allowed to talk about the black bodies in Macerata or is mentioning that racist? We let the Fascists in Italy by with no consequences in WW2, they were allowed to switch sides quietly. Today there are virtually no memorials or museums in which the Italians take responsibility for the crimes of that regime. Are we about to allow this to happen again?
2
While I would agree that establishment types, in our country and Europe, have been somewhat oblivious to the disruptions caused by globalization, they also understand and do try to manage the complexities of a global market place. Trump and now his European apprentices see no complexity in the world---build walls, slap on tariffs, deport children, exit the European union---which emotionally is a strong message even though intellectually it is a absolutely dumb. The simple truth of course, is complexity is here to stay, which new common sense office holders will soon find out.
As mr.Trump's administration could be the catharsis the US needs badly, so might the new Italian government be the cure the EU (and the Euro) is waiting for.
Mind you, sometimes it takes strong (and sometimes lethal I am afraid) poisons like strychnine to heal the patient. Of course, it was an absurd idea to allow Italy with its totally incompatible economy to participate in the Euro in the first place.
And of course, it is a rather silly idea to expect from Eastern European states after decennia of foreign occupation and autoritarism to be broad-minded and wordly enough to lend a hand with Europe's immigrant problem. It's the Ministry of Silly Walks move now in Italy, as it is in Poland and Hungary. Let's hope the cure just reforms the patient.
1
So then, what is the workable alternative to globalism? So far, what we are increasingly witnessing are attacks on immigration (no matter the cause), a savage tearing down of bedrock societal norms (the rule of law), and growing -- not declining -- income disparity. Throw in reckless rhetoric and a complete lack of government direction or even shared goals, and it looks to me that democracy itself is in the crosshairs, with authoritarianism, racism and bigotry in the ascendant.
If these trends metastasize, things are not going to end well for democracy.
1
"Failing from within as opposed to railing from the outside" describes the predicament that Trump is in. He would much rather have started his tv station and spewed his lies than really govern. If anyone thinks he will be this quiet, elder statesman when he's out is in for a huge disappointment.
Mr. Cohen, the issue becomes (and it will) when individuals who seek to advance national interests first succeed. Krugman and countless other libs/progressives claimed economic woe if Trump were elected. They were wrong and will continue to be wrong. I hold both a J.D. and an M.B.A. so avoid only dumb people believe nonsense. The reason outsiders are winning is because "the experts" keep making statements of certitude (when at best they are educated guesses). Remember, Brexit and the impending disaster. By the end of the week the pound had regained more than it lost.
I am an unapologetic Conservative, but I am going to give you solid advice on how to avoid future failures. Stop making false assurances and threats. Much of the reasoning on the left which is stated as fact is simply a series of moral choices (i.e. higher wages / universal healthcare). When these things are done people will lose their jobs (because of increased business costs or have to wait longer. Lastly, explain why there will always be an underclass. Adam Smith wasn't a racist, but a realist. Seek to empower the individuals (so they take responsibility) and destroy this collective mindset nonsense. Every person is an individual so encourage them to take control of their own destiny.
3
Well put. Democracy with vigilance. Now, off to the World Cup!
Superb recognition of the fact that today's "Let them eat cake" in defending the faults of our world trading system is "But look how much poor people are saving by buying Chinese-made goods at Walmart."
3
...so the forgotten people have raised their voices to elect the most incompetent people on the planet to govern...what could possibly go wrong, indeed!!
Maybe, Physicians are not necessary to perform surgery or Lawyers to understand the law, Scientists and Mathamatisions surely anyone can perform these jobs? Just look at trump's cabinet, this proves that experience and knowledge are unneeded.
1
Mr Cohen's response to Italian, and European, concerns over a wave of immigrants and refugees is another example of liberal blindness to reality with severe political consequences. A wave of immigrants who mostly do not share European values, climate, languages, culture, many of whom are taught to hate rights for women, religious minorities, gays, have no experience with a free press, are destabilizing Europe. Rioting and killing over cartoons, vandalizing Jewish sites, mass groping of women, terrorism with trucks,,,,are some of the consequences that happen when immigration overtakes what can be done to assimilate.
The solution is to try to improve conditions in the countries of origin, promote birth control where unsustainabe population growth is rampant (the dredful Trump regime, andering to our religious zealots is doing the opposite, trying to close birth control clinics) and encourage rich oil states to absorb some of the refugees that cannot be returned. Don;t let Europe get swamped.
3
Roger goes off on a new government elected not by stupid people but by people who have been run over by earlier governmental ideas that now seem, oh how to put it "They are right that almost three decades of globalization since the end of the Cold War has left too many people behind in too many Western democracies, starved them of hope or even a say, and given them the impression that the system was rigged by elites in Brussels or other metropolitan hubs. The 2008 financial meltdown and the subsequent euro crisis came and went with near total impunity for those responsible"
Why even write an article as inelegant as this and ask questions then answer them? Perhaps the answer is the answer.
2
North Western Europe is generally better organized, more stable, less corrupt, economically more developed, more decocratic and working harder than East and Southern Euope. Over the years it has become clear that North Western Europe is supposed to bear the burden of the backlog of the ever growing list of peripheral countries in the East and South. This has undermined the confidence in the EU as a whole.
It really is highest time to create European Union with different speeds (2 or 3) and a limit the number of countries that participate in the Euro currency. Otherwise all is lost.
3
No one seems to remember that when the euro came in all the Italians did was to convert to the same number of euros as whatever their currency was. The lira. Brussels elites? It's all about money. Always was, always will be.
Ah, but when and how will the rich Germans and the unelected Eurocrats finally have to share their wealth and power?
When and how will the elites who spent 3 decades betraying the middle and working classes in Europe and the US to construct a new aristocracy for their privileged families have to change their ways?
On those fundamental subjects Roger has no suggestions.
6
Mr. Cohen:
Your column on Italy's new government seems to be all over the place; i.e., it is too general.
Because of the importance of the European Union and Italy's role in the EU, I hope in the future you will write columns that give us more specifics about Italy's new government (e.g., metrics, policies, campaign promises, laws, foreign policy, etc.).
4
Mr Cohen’s article is accurate, although too optimistic. He cannot provide those specifics because there are none - just promises of tough anti-migration measures and the introduction of a flat tax and a guaranteed income scheme. It’s not his column that is all over the place, it’s the new government’s program.
2
The end of the Cold War was not the triumph of democracy and capitalism over dictatorship and socialism. It was, instead, the rise of corporate control over both the economic and political systems.
Of course the corporatist world is not uniform. In China, the state controls the companies; in the United States the companies control the state. There, the media answer to the government; here the government answers to Fox News and talk radio.
And in the developed world the economic condition of the 99% have at best stagnated, while the ultra-rich become ultra-richer. (The rise from abject poverty in the third world is a success story of globalization, but that is all but meaningless to the unemployed steel worker in Youngstown, Ohio.) The Great Recession devastated the masses, but the elites who caused it escaped any punishment for their misdeeds.
So it there any wonder that the people are turning to radical "solutions?" Yes, we are now heading into revolutionary times. And, as we found out in 1789 and 1918, these often do not end well in the short run, although things do work themselves after decades.
And do not expect the Italian experiment to end all that well … think of that country starting in the early 1920s.
32
While I agree with most of the sentiments expressed here, Juncker wasn't far wrong about the Italian system of governance which largely functions as a spoils system which is exactly why these two totally incompatible siblings couldn't resist the temptation to get their hands on it.
Now they have ample opportunity to fail because Italy's economic circumstances haven't changed. Their public debt is still 130% of GDP and two thirds of it is owned internally. They're already running a mile from promises to leave the Euro because all their public debt and most of their private debt, not to mention Italian savings and investment, are denominated in Euros or dollars. Watching these comedians wrestle with reality is going to be very entertaining.
14
Remember, Italy's true government is the bureaucracy, not the. elected officials. During the last few months, the country still functioned and would probably continue to do so. We have this view of institutions as bad. We cleansed Iraq of Battista and had no one to pick up the garbage or turn on the water.
@Anthony Mazzucca
Actually sir I largely agree with this, the bureaucracy works reasonable well although the clerisy from junior clerks to top officials is somewhat infected with the disease given the prevalence of nepotism and other pernicious practices. Believe me I'm not down on Italy, I would love to live there, there is far more to its economy than most Americans, and reports of Italy's death like Twain's have usually proved exaggerated. But it's definitely a fairly corrupt political system even recognizing that all political systems have elements of corruption in them
"Still, they won. The results of democratic elections have to be respected. I have immense respect for the wisdom, however hard to discern, of voters,..."
I agree with the first part, but the "wisdom" is often not there.
Juncker is wrong in putting out stereotypes. He confuses government with people. However, there are things that have to be set right in Italy's institutions, particularly its labyrinthine judicial system, the endemic nepotism and fecklessness of the political class and, yes, their corruption. not to mention the eternal problem of fiscal evasion. Given these obstacles, it is a wonder that the common people with their hard work, dedication and patience manage to keep the country going.
11
You're right about the mess that is Italy's politics. But Cohen is right that the "remedies" proposed by the European Union to correct the situaation are totally wrong –– as was clearly shown in nearly identical circumstances in Greece.
1
Economics is broken. Presumably, commentators like Cohen, trade theorists like Krugman and equilibrium acolytes like those in economics departments in every major central bank in the world would prescribe a healthy dose of German exports to solve Italy's problems. Trade is a transfer of utility after all. And government needs to be made safe for austerity and private lenders. Democracy will get to the truth eventually. Doesn't have to a bumpy ride. Poor article.
4
@Private
Economics is merely an organized system of thought or branch of knowledge. It's no more broken than botany or literary studies.
9
Not a lot of modeling in literary studies.
@Private
Ever considered remedial classes?
All democracies will eventually have to provide its citizens with the powers to decide their futures through worker owned cooperatives, otherwise meaningless work, stagnant wages, concentrated power in the hands of the elites will continue to fuel their rage. Further, the major sources of insecurity have to be addressed with what we already know what works - single payer health care, free college tuition, adequate family leave, etc.. It is all affordable given the record breaking wealth in this country.
22
@Tomas O'Connor
Didn't you know they tried that already? Didn't work out too well.
This sounds like a good dose of socialism. I grew up in England after the Second World War. The country was broke, the infrastructure was run down or bombed. The Government (borrowing money from the USA) took over the health service, railways, road transport, electricity, water and much else. Some of this worked (more or less, including the National Health Service) much of it didn't and was eventually sold off.
What did exist then was a ratio between the highest paid and the median wage of 5 or 10 times. Now we have ratios of hundreds - a major social problem today.
2
It is American democracy that has chosen to turn white people into a minority, and it is therefore American democracy that I now detest.
This is the equivalent of a coalition between Bernie Sanders’ supporters and Richard Spencer’s supporters.
It is a coalition of people who know something is wrong and ascribe the causes to amorphous concepts like “Globalism” and “open borders” and think fixes like term limits, throwing out the old ways and people and isolationism will fix things.
Globalization is not the issue. It is multinational companies who bribe their way through countries to line the pockets of the CEOs. Immigration would not be an issue if the governing elites of wealthy countries were not so casual about provoking or continuing regional wars for control of resources.
In Italy, part of the appeal of the 5 Stars movement was that it would eliminate the same old left hands washing the right hands. But the answer is not electing people with no relevant experience. They will be beholden to the bureaucrats ( the farcical “Deep State”) and the lobbyists ( the real “Deep State”), because they are the ones who know where the metaphorical light switches are.
13
“The tide of popular rage” is a powerful quote. Perhaps we spend too much time explaining why this rage is wrong, or calling these raging people bigots, and predicting their elected leaders will fail? Time that could be spent recognizing this rage exists, and it must be addressed for the good of us all?
I don’t have a deep understanding of Italian politics, but I hope that the elected officials have some success in addressing the issues the country faces.
10
Mr. Cohen, I so much wish that I could share our optimism!
However, Italy being my Motherland and where I grew into adulthood, I doubt that as a society and as a Country, it will be able to learn from the mistakes of its past. The fact that the likes of Bannon, Putin, Le Pen, Salvini and Di Maio have gained favor, respect and votes seem to confirm that too many Italians lack the strength and/or willingness to recognize their personal weaknesses and failures, preferring to place the blame on the imperfect organizations and institutions they themselves have created and to which they apathetically belong.
Alas! The syndrome is currently not much different in the Country that adopted me 50 years ago: the Former United States of America does not seem to have learned much from its mistakes either.
Pity.
49
I heard Bannon on tv trying mightily to conflate the two Italian parties as disaffected populists. This is madness. It's like equating Bernie Sanders and Trump. The goals in each instance are diametrically opposed. Take cutting taxes--who wins? The corporations who are already in power. It strengthens their hold ,even if they coyly offer a basic minimum income, knowing that their future plans discount vast swathes of the populace.
On the other hand you have those who work to empower the common folk to improve their lot. Not with handouts just to keep them alive, but with education and healthcare so the next generations can govern themselves more fairly with less greed.
So you have the capitalists and the socialists. Let's not pretend they are the same. Yes, in a more perfect future they could conceivably work together, as in say Norway. But for now all we can hope for is that the European union holds together.
16
Since 2011, that is since the last Berlusconi’s term, we’ve had 4 Prime Ministers. I say that just to explain how changing and unstable is politics in Italy, a place where somebody is never happy about our leaders, where all we do is demanding for a change that in the end we often never like. Now the leaders are populist parties, that stir up racism and hate against UE, that wants to do policies that in reality are unaffordable for our country. I think that we have to let them govern: if they will do well, that will mean that we were wrong to think they’re unfit to govern. In the other case, that will mean that democracy has won and that maybe we can restart looking at the future in an optimistic way.
15
"The 2008 financial meltdown and the subsequent euro crisis came and went with near total impunity for those responsible."
Same thing happened here, we threw the bums out, replaced them with a man promising to "follow the law", but then declined to prosecute or even investigate the Wall Street pirates who were instrumental in this crash. Obama saved Wall Street, but forgot main street, resulting in the loss of his base and both houses in 2010. The results are as we see today, a packed Supreme Court and a man elected as president on a promise to distance himself from Wall Street. A man who sounded like Bernie Sanders on the campaign trail (better health care for all, infrastructure), but once elected, packed his cabinet with Wall Street heavies.
I suspect that the same feelings of frustrations drove the Italian vote, the realization by voters that bankers rule their lives and their elected officials, and there's nothing they can do about it other than "throw the bums out", two bad choices.
11
and really - Hillary Clinton giving those speeches to Goldman Sachs - drove voters away - and the democrats seemed unable to understand this....
1
"They are right that almost three decades of globalization since the end of the Cold War has left too many people behind in too many Western democracies,"
Precisely right. But how did we get there ?
Through the advice of economists that did not understand the political consequences , nor that in a global economy wages those exposed to it must fall to the global average. Instead contempt for those left behind.
To cite Paul Krugman 1997
"I guess I should have expected that this [pro globalization] comment [in the NYT] would generate letters along the lines of, "Well, if you lose your comfortable position as an American professor you can always find another job--as long as you are 12 years old and willing to work for 40 cents an hour." Such moral outrage is common among the opponents of globalization"
A fine example of a liberal elite's contempt for those laid off in the West as work moved to countries with workers willing to work for less.
Didn't these complainer see that it lifted millions out of poverty in China? Moral outrage !!!
Yes, globalization lifted millions out of poverty in China.
But its citizens can not vote in Italian , or for this matter, American elections.
7
The EU is toast.
3
Yes, Hitler party was able to form a government, but the methods used before and during the election were not democratic. I don't understand the reference.
3
The reference is to Hitler's rise to power using the democratic process and to his gaining power through back-door shenanigans with other parties. A lot to fear from that analogy, as Poland is currently teaching the rest of the world.
Well, Cohen mentioned Hitler first.... German elites - to say nothing of the mandarins in London, Paris, and a dozen other capitals - were pretty certain that the Nazi government Hitler formed would do some necessary dirty work then be sidelined as laughingstocks by the arrogant traditional parties of government. That's the danger of "cheering" for an "awful new government", whether in Italy or, dare I say, in Washington, D.C. Can Cohen imagine Trump in the first year of a second term?
11
"Can Cohen imagine Trump in the first year of a second term?"
I can imagine it. Indeed, I hunger for it.
If Roger bothered to live in Italy (south of Rome, on the Adriatic coast, say, or Sicily) for several years and got to know it he might understand why Italy has splintered the way it has.
It’s not a real country. A language, yes. And Garibaldi might have forced a traditionally splintered nation into a kind of political federation later maintained by the likes of a Mussolini only through force. That's because it’s actually nine different, highly distinct regions led economically and held together by Milan.
I don’t see how the Eurozone can keep its much weaker southern members (Greece, Italy, Spain, Portugal).
2
It may not be able to, or want to keep some of its autocratic eastern European members as well. The UK is trying to leave not because it doesn’t like Europe, but because it dislikes the anti-democratic EU rulers in Brussels.
1
The UK may think that that is the reason but the disdain with which the process of of having treats its own parliamentary institutions should be cause for pause.
If Roger Cohen, who used to drink absinthe in Paris with Ernest Hemingway and Gertrude Stein, can support the Italian government, then so can I.
6
For the sake of consistency, shouldn't Mr. Cohen similarly raise a cheer for President Trump's government? Or that would go too far in this newspaper?
12
You best re-read the end of the article. The new Italian govt hasn’t started yet. While Trump has been in office for more than one disastrous, embarrassing year.
So no, no cheers for Trump.
Cheer for what? Giving big away a prize negotiating tool for nothing? That’s just great
Mr. Cohen has a point and global inequality is rising. It has been for almost 40 years ( https://theconversation.com/global-inequality-is-on-the-rise-but-at-vast... ). The idea that Italy faces problems of its own making does not help with any specific solutions.
Europe is actually better off (i.e. less economic inequality) than those parts of the world that have 10% of its total income (8 countries/regions). That does not make them immune to the problems generated from that inequality or from mass migrations that have occurred from even less stable and more economically skewed regions.
There are sound--albeit not certain--arguments that the only thing that can reverse the trend is some sort of regional or global catastrophe: https://press.princeton.edu/titles/10921.html ("The Great Leveler: Violence and the History of Inequality from the Stone Age to the Twenty-First Century," by Walter Scheidel, 2017).
I hope I can sustain some of Mr. Cohen's optimism in spite of gathering storms.
2
Cohen can't stand it that he has been so wrong for so long. It's time to say so long to so wrong Mr. Cohen.
12
I've long held that we have exactly the same situation with President Trump, a very bad man and a worse President giving racism, sexism, greedy oligarchic folks a bad name. May it be so. Their time will pass....
7
There is no irony in the mere fact that there is a "coalition." Right wing fascism always needs willing yet naive co-conspirators. Italy is a lot like the U.S being stitched back together with the Confederacy. No matter how long it may take, it never works.
7
The Italian president together with the ECB and 'Brussels' caved in, are caving in,
because the threat of a ECB/Germany scorched earth strategy as was used as a threat to Greece doesn't work anymore.
Unlike Greece that wasn't ready for it, the Italians of this coalition are very well aware of the Yanis Varoufakis 'parallel digital currency' blueprint based on the Tax ID’s.
It is very easy, the technology is now a lot better understood, for instance Modern Monetary Theory has an immense following on Italy's universities,
they're fully ready for anything that might be coming their way.
Now this new Italian government of the uninitiated just must not stumble over their first careful steps concerning New Monetary Policy that has never been done before,
not messing up the Italian economy whilst reducing the tax rate and providing basic income, and you would end up with a far better and fairer society,
but for dumb of immigration policies, where Italy has been flooded by immigrants and refugees like so many other countries of the EU,
but the main culprit of this crisis, NATO’s own military policies of scorched earth in Libya and the whole of the ME (apparently for the sake of Israel’s long term interests).
You cannot carpet bomb a dozen or so nations and then not see the causes and effects.
oh, by the way, clean the oceans of plastics, idiots.
4
Cleaning the ocean of plastics requires many countries to cooperate.
2
God, I hope you are right
2
I hope Mr. Cohen's 'long view' allows for a moment when action to intercede, if not reverse, disastrous polices will be needed....short of war, of course. The world stood by while Hitler led his country in directions that ultimately led to an almost ruinous war. Millions of lives were lost in the process. Will it come to this with 'leaders' like this motley crew in Italy with Bannon, LePenn, et al cheering them on?!?
6
You are wrong twice: Last year the majority of immigrants LANDED in Italy. But few want to stay there. No jobs, no handouts. Most are trying to head north to the countries with generous handouts and jobs.
Italian society at large IS corrupt. Everybody is playing along when taxes can be avoided. E.g. when your dentist ask you "with or without invoice?" (Without invoice you get 20% off of your treatment). Ripping off tourists wherever they can (count your change, study your car rental contract IN DETAIL before you sign it, etc.). Italy should be N° 1 in the world: Sun, fresh water, sea, beauty, creativity, central location, best food, etc. But it all goes to waste due to their FURBISMO. They would need a decade or two of German discipline and playing by the rules. But instead they elected some snake oil salesmen that are telling them that Germans should shoulder the Italian debts. Ten years have passed since the crisis started. And Italy has been sitting on their behind all this time. Becoming ever more Greece-like by the day...
39
I disagree. You obviously have an issue with bargaining the price and failed
Italy is one of the few countries who actually gave the immigrants a lifeline. Took money away from their own needed citizens to provide for the immigrants with the Popes blessing
Immigrants who chose to emigrate to Germany did so for jobs which Italy is short of even for their own citizens
5
I’m tired of getting pick pocketed at the train stations.
I’m tired of vendors trying to sell me fake luxury sunglasses on the beach.
I’m tired of being blackmailed for a free parking spot or having my windshield cleaned again and again at the light.
It’s high time something changed in Italy for the better!
15
Many train stations have implemented policies that make the stations safer.
PS I had my wallet lifted in Lucerne, Switzerland. My sister’s wallet was lifted in Geneva.
4
Then don't visit. Try some of the bad neighborhoods in LA or Detroit or NYC.
2
Yes, we need a leader in Italy who can get the trains to run on schedule!!!
So: they won, so they get to destroy the savings of the Italians, and once again, send the world economy into a tail-spin. Is that really the point of democracy? It was NOT anti-democratic to exercise the checks and balances of the Italian constitution.
5
What is it with NY Times writers who keep saying Trump won because of his thoughts on this or that? Hillary Clinton won the popular vote. Trump won because of gerrymandering, because of the electoral college, because of voter oppression in many different arenas.... and then there is always Russia. No, Trump didn't win because he was onto something about people being left out by globalization (true as that may be) because a goodly portion of his voters were quite wealthy. Can we at least get the basics straight here?
187
This is so true. All the 'Trump was on to something' pap assumes that Trump won by legitimate means, and that's a huge, unproven assumption to make.
If Trump had NOT won, none of us would be having any of this conversation.
26
Cohen maybe is belonging to some International intellectual élite that just doesn’t care about their motherland and doesn’t know how the real people live their lives outside the NYT ecofriendly-gilded building.
He simply never had to deal with the “inefficiency” of Italy.
Try to deal with crazy taxes, companies that don’t pay you as supplier, and burocracy... then you will understand both LEGA and 5stars.
8
Trump defeated sixteen competitors to win the Republican nomination. Was this victory due to "gerrymandering, the electoral college, and voter oppression?"
Why deny that his oft-vile words moved people, and were one critical factor, amongst others, that enabled him to win the presidency?
6
The good thing about Italy is: you don’t need to worry too much about any Italian government. There is no country in Europe where the government changed more frequently- without actually changing anything in the country. Italy is an example of how a (quite) modern country can function without a functioning government.
Italys micro administrations and “famiglia” structures are so established that they always work - somehow - improvised though. Just like an Italian Pizza is never haute cuisine but always ok.
7
There is a word for it: Catharsis
Meaning cleansing by extreme change. And if there is a nation that is really in need of that, than it is america. Just look at your democracy. Democrats, Republicans, don't tell me this is really all the choices you want to govern you ? Deep inside, i hope, you feel your representatives are segregative, hatemongering, insincere, out of touch mandarins for the fat cats. But this kind of distorted democracy has festered so deep, that a change will only happen if you break this system downside-up.
In europe it is not that severe. There is also an incompetence, nepotism, arrogant political class. But most european democracies are able to vote for a radical change. It happened in greece, and now is happening in italy. This will give the european politicians an opportunity, to reflect on themself. I have heard about the Book of former adviser of Barack Obama, Ben Rhodes, and one quote catched me - after the victory of Trump, Obama asked: 'What if we were wrong?'. Did it really need a Trump to realize, that the citizen don't want just another government, but want to break the whole system, political and economic shocks accepted and included.
Roger Cohen has a point, for the short term prospect the new italian government is a catastrophe. But we have been longing for that for decades. We all want a radical change, not just a correction.
4
“Radical change” has no virtue on its own, nor does it carry any weight as an objective. Venting anger is fine, but you should channel part of your mental energy towards constructive ideas on how “radical change” should look like.
Mr. Cohen is Jean Claude Juncker who knows (almost, but not quite) how to hold his tongue, as in: "almost three decades of globalization since the end of the Cold War has . . . given [many people in European democracies] the impression that the system was rigged by elites in Brussels or other metropolitan hubs." Has "given them the impression"!? "Has made them properly dead certain" would be more like it. I join Mr. Cohen in welcoming the new Italian govt. Unlike him, I have no idea how they will fare, but I wish them well in the twin tasks that were always ignored by past govts. of challenging the EU bureaucratic apparatus (and breaking with it if necessary) to get their economy moving (thus creating jobs) and dealing with a far-too-large influx of illegal, undocumented migrants who have put a strain on an already strained Italian budget and have decayed the quality of life in many Italian cities.
3
If the rest of Europe had stepped up to shoulder all the expenses of the expansive Mediterranean coast instead of leaving the Italian taxpayer on the hook then this would not have been a hot political potato!
You can thank Merkel and Soros for this fine mess!
4
Juncker has some chutzpah to talk about Italian corruption. He's been Prime Minister and Finance Ministery of a country which made money-laundering its main business. How is that not corruption on an epic scale?
People in southern and eastern Europe are fed up with the northerners pointing the finger at them. If Italy is so corrupt, if Greece is so feckless, how come they were happy to have them both in their precious euro? Did they just notice these countries' structural problems now? Or did they make sure their own countries' structural issues would not be affected by the euro?
6
Dedar Mr.Cohen:
What a more clear perspective you have just edited, on ITaly.
Put it to meditate and also implant in Mexico a sore of plan to take adventage when such similar situation is or will arrive in our country. We should pay attention to italians actions to alíviate or at least clear their future. best of luck to them.
"Italy has a lousy government that may in the end be good for Europe.
I’ll take the long view and raise a cheer for that."
The sad truth is that we cannot know where current events will lead, in Italy, Spain, France, Germany, the US or anywhere else. We are, as we have always been, hopelessly subject to the moods of our masses and the actions of those who hold power. Perhaps our Western institutions are strong enough to hold the line against ruin, and perhaps not.
Roger, I admire your confidence in your principles. However, I suspect that most of your fellow liberals do not share your confidence. It's easy to predict the failure of the government in Italy, a mishmash of pie-eyed socialists and discreditable fascists. But...what happens if somehow they succeed? I doubt that will happen, and I am not overly concerned about how Italy is governed. More interestingly, let's apply your principles to the American situation. Surely, you and your fellow liberals consider Trump to be similarly repugnant and incompetent. Frankly, I agree with the first of those adjectives, but am not sure about the second. What happens if Trump succeeds? What happens if the economy continues to improve? What happens if he continues to extract small, but real trade concessions from our trading partners? What happens if he achieves a peace agreement with North Korea that dismantles their nuclear weapons program? Will you give him credit? Will you give the Italian government credit if somehow they pull off a miracle and improve life for the Italians? Ultimately, are you willing to judge a government on its outcomes, or only on its ideology and "character"?
3
One could say the same thing about Trump - let him fail while in power so his voters learn their lesson.
I wish it worked that way. Instead of learning, people who are conned by populism and worship oligarchs tend to double down on their support.
9
"It’s much better to have them fail on the inside than have them rail from the outside. It’s better to have them lose support through failure than gain support through bluster."
That's what I thought about Trump in Nov 2016. So far, his support amongst the GOP has only solidified.
2
Is this our only choice? Let the populists rise and fail, cause who knows what damage in the process?
By now it is well recognised that a significant factor in the current spate of populist leaders is the fact that a large group of people have been left behind by globalisation. And yes, this was the fault of governments in not planning for the effect of globalisation on their countries (though for conservatives any planning (read government interference) would no doubt would have smacked of socialism.) And agreed that it could not go on as the gulf between the haves and have nots grew steadily wider, but surely there is a better way than allowing dangerous populists to take power? You only have to look at the serious damage Trump is doing, not just to the US but to the entire world to know that this course is infinitely worse than any alternative.
8
IF A LOUSY GOVERNMENT Can be good for Europe, how can a horrible government be good for the US? We're about to find out what happens when foreign as well as domestic policy take on the characteristics of a food fight at a child's birthday party. Such as started by Trump during his boyhood. I'll be interested to see what the global political stage looks like with countries lobbing birthday cakes and ice cream at each other. Meanwhile, I'll also be looking for the horrors of Italian leadership to outstrip Trump's antics. That will take some talent--to be so atrociously awful. Maybe they'll come up with a solution of how to build a wall along the US Mexico border.
3
How about the reverse 'long view': wasn't globalization a key factor of the Roman Empire? And of the Italian Renaissance. And for that matter, in the rise of the U.S. these past 400 years? What's fundamentally different today? Any ideas?
Mr. Cohen fails to see the two major reasons for anti-EU sentiments in Europe. Firstly, it is not globalization per se that is opposed, but the rising income and wealth inequality resulting from policy actions directed by a self-centered oligarchy.
Secondly, Cohen (as so many other commentators) automatically equates an attitude against unlimited immigration with bigotry and racism. To be protective of one's culture and traditions--which, beyond a certain point, are adversely affected by large and continuous waves of immigration-- does not necessarily imply viewing the immigrants as inferior, but feeling protective of one's cultural identity and uniqueness. Failing to understand this distinction gives power to those that pursue narrow nationalist agendas.
104
Hello Griz, is it heathy and worthwhile to attempt to maintain one’s cultural identity at the expense of a society moving forward?
2
I hear frequently that globalization has led to drastic inequality leaving many far behind economically. Yet tell that to the millions around the world in Asia, India, Latin America, and in Africa whose circumstances have improved with better employment opportunities and greater income. Of course economic growth and improvement is uneven! Inequality was and is built in at the starting line. Disparities in natural resources, intellectual capital, and cultural have a profound affects. Factor in exploding global birth rates and the natural tendencies of humans of all stripes to self interest and near sighted perspectives on policy and we can see the consequences. The long view is absolutely critical as is realism about expectations and progress truly achieved.
7
"Factor in exploding global birth rates..."
Not in Europe and especially not in Italy which has an unsustainably low birth rate.
5
I keep reading that the EU failed Italy on migration but let's be honest here; the deal was that all nations protect their own external borders so that the internal borders between EU nations may be open. The Italians failed spectacularly at keeping their end of the bargain.
I remember scenes of the Italian coast guard picking up refugees in dinghies INSIDE Libyan coastal waters!
The Italians were perfectly content operating a ferry service between Sicily and North Africa so long as they knew the scary brown people would keep moving North. But when Austria closed its border with Italy, suddenly it didn't seem quite as appealing anymore.
Italy failed the EU just as much as the other way around.
7
Not to be rude, Erik - but I think you need to pull out your atlas and look at a map. "The deal was that all nations protect their own external borders..."? Which nation borders the Mediterranean at it's nearest point to mainland Europe? AH! That would be Italy, which has borne the brunt of people fleeing the catastrophes and bloodshed to the south, caused in large part by US policy, aided and abetted by their European allies.
I too remember scenes of the Italian coastguard - rescuing refugees in Libyan waters - 150 souls had been in the water for several hours, 8 women drowned when their boat capsized. The coastguard was nearby and had the moral and legal obligation to rescue them. Are you contending that those 150 people should have been left to die?
Finally - the Italians did not operate a ferry service between North Africa and Sicily. They performed their legal, ethical, and moral duty to rescue people fleeing war. The EU in its infinite wisdom pulled out of the mission, and like you - determined it was better to let men, women, and children drown at sea than to deal with the political fall-out that would result should they not appease the racist, xenophobic rhetoric coming from the European alt-right movements.
19
How to best help refugees is open to debate (frankly I prefer the solution of asylum application centers on African soil, even as far away as Sub-Saharan Africa, so that people don't have to make the appalling Mediterranean journey in the first place).
My problem with the Italian authorities is that they failed to hold up their end of the bargain with regards to the Schengen agreement. These rules are pretty clear.
I also frown at the hypocrisy of how the Italians were more than willing to help refugees while Europe's internal borders were open, but sharply reduced their missions in the Med when France and Austria closed their borders.
Hypocrisy, thy name is Rome.
It's a bit rich to then start complaining that "the EU has abandoned Italy".
You say that three decades of globalization has 'left behind' a class of people in Italy and many other countries, and I applaud you for focusing on the real issue, but saying 'left behind' is part of the problem, not part of the cure.
Globalization has successfully set in motion a new world economic order which has resulted in a vast equalization of income and wealth worldwide. Billions of the formerly extreme poor have moved out of extreme poverty and other billions have entered a new global middle class. Income and wealth for these people as multiplied over the last thirty years.
But when inequality is reduced two things must happen: one group has its relative wealth increase, while another group has its relative income remain stable. The groups who were formerly advantaged and entitled to opportunities that other groups had no hope of haven't been 'left behind' as much as shunted off to the side while the other groups catch up.
If you state it like that, it's a success story, which it actually is, not a story of failure.
14
Here in the U.S. many rich people and corporation have gotten richer by gaming the tax system and hoarding profits. An estimated $7.5 trillion untaxed dollars are moving around the globe via shell companies. (Trump has over 400) and other means. Wages have not risen here in America and this inequity being duplicated in other countries is a huge problem.
62
Yes there is that type of inequality which is not being addressed. However, taking all the richest people's wealth and distributing it equally around the world would not amount to much, maybe $200 each. It should be addressed, but it's not a solution.
2
It's a start. The goal is not to redistribute wealth but for everyone to see that the system is fair. The goal is to butress the system. If people believe the system is fair, lots can be accomplished by government. If people don't, nothing can.
Cohen here takes as given that "out-with-the-old-order" political movements offer "incompetence."
Rejection of failed ideas, is assumed "incompetent."
Those ideas failed. Indisputably failed. More of the same is incompetence too.
The measure of competence is not rejection of failure, it is the new ideas offered.
So what are the new ideas of 5 Star? He doesn't say. If he even knows, he's not sharing.
Understanding and discussing real new ideas is too hard for 800 words. We don't get that. We get assumptions. Establishment assumptions.
In his conclusions, I agree with Cohen here, for his main reason. The winners get to win. The solution for those who don't like it is the next election. If this election leads to trouble, the voters deserve that too. We'll survive. Offer something better next time.
But LePen and the League? She did not win, and they are hemmed in by coalition. The voters were not that stupid, they just rejected failure to which they'd given far too many chances already.
Don't insist that the old failure is the only other option, or you'll get more of LePen and the League.
3
Roger,
I spend a lot of time in Italy since many years. I agree with your view of the new government, but it has become somewhat boring to see references to the financial crisis and the lack of punishment of those responsible. The truth is that no individuals were responsible. The financial crisis was a Minsky moment occurring after a build of of speculation fueled by excess debt
1
My French village and the small towns nearby have been thoroughly giutted economically by EU rules. So many store fronts are now shuttered. Family-run fish farms, small-time cheese producers and the famous "nation of small shopkeepers" have steadily been put out of business in part by EU-mandated health inspections. These were businesses that existed for generations. Meanwhile, Walmart-style supermarkets led by vast corporations with lobbying power have overwhelmed the local-local commerce, pundering jobs, lowering quality and paying minuimum wages. One town with 3,500 residents now has 12 barber and beauty shops. No mystery there. At least until now, you can't get a haircut at the supermarket or order it online. The anger is palpable. Frexit before long.
76
Don't you think this is the result of a industrializing of logistics, infrastructure and competition ?
Most people just find it much more convincing to drive to a big parking lot and buy all the stuff they want at one place.
And all this barber and beauty shops are an despair-adaption because politicians and their high paid advisers didn't see this transformation coming and didn't prepare their nations to it.
The right action isn't rejection, but facilitating the transformation. Sadly rejection is easier to implement, because you need no ideas.
24
Please explain how it is the EU's fault that even the French prefer cheap industrial foods these days distributed by hypermarkets and German discounters. The money saved are diverted into cell phones, flat screen TVs, Netflix and weekend vacations on EasyJet. This is called free market choice and has nothing to do with EU regulations. And thank God for laws on food hygiene!
15
The white race is learning the hard way to share the world. Let's not knock each other but get on with globalization. Look up at the sky at night and remember what a tiny fragile speck we are in this universe.
3
It's good to see Cohen taking the long view. Stiff upper lip, and all that.
Italian political disasters somehow never quite live up to their billing, always seem to disappoint. Much of the drama turns out to be cultural style. Plus Italians have a lot of practice at doing this sort of thing. They are unlikely to panic at the first sign of disarray. Not imagining that Italy is the "leader of the free world" also helps; it puts politics in a more realistic perspective.
"Italian political disasters somehow never quite live up to their billing, always seem to disappoint."
They did Mussolini. He created Fascism, and inspired a young man just starting out to do much the same things ten years later in Germany. That man later said so himself.
Mussolini also inspired Churchill and many others in the 1920's, who at first only saw positives. There were actually some positives, even if the trains never did really run on time despite claims.
It was the negatives that overwhelmed, and cause Churchill and so many others to turn away after about ten years.
Rejecting failure is one thing. New ideas that are actually better is quite something else. We've been through all this.
What we can take as lesson is the importance of coming forward with those better ideas. Don't leave it to LePen or the League. Don't insist on establishment failure as the only alternative. We've seen what happens with that.
Now THAT is disappointment.
6
If most countries today have too few good jobs and pay and benefits for their people, how do we expect immigration to help? Or, how do we expect to actually 'help' the immigrant have a good and decent life when we can't even do that for our own citizens?
Yes, it is all economics. People can't see global warming until they are fed and housed, educated, with a job that respects them and gives them a feeling of belonging in their community. Why is this so hard to talk about or deal with?
Too greedy we are; and we've now elected that base instinct into the Presidency and all of Congress. So, tax cuts for the rich are the one issue that's already taken care of. Mission Accomplished.
Greed is destroying this good and noble and sacred land.
27
Without structural changes on how the Euro is managed the Euro zone is bound to stagger from one crisis to the next. It is German rigidity that is feeding an anti-EU frenzy and so far Germany has been unable to rise to the challenge. We can count on the incompetence of the far right politicians to decrease their popularity while in power, but one can only hope that happens before they damage the EU beyond repair while colliding with German obtuseness.
27
What has western democracy brought since 2016? Brexit and conservative governments in the US, Poland, Hungary, Austria and now Italy. Even Macron is becoming conservative on the subject of immigration and deportation of failed asylum claimants, and Angela Merkel, although still in power, is weakened, and her opposition, AfD, ascendant. This trend will increase, Next to watch is the upcoming election in Sept in Sweden.
This is all a push back on:
-globalization that causes job losses in the west and ironically simultaneous mass migration to the west, and a real challenge to national identity
-an economic model in Europe that favors German banks who impose drastic austerity measures on Greece and other southern countries.
-A common EU currency that favors highly industrial countries with export surpluses, at the expense of less industrial southern European countries that have trade deficits.
-A flawed political model in the EU where the stronger EU states try to intimidate the smaller states e.g. dictating immigrant quotas as Merkel unsuccessfully tried to do to Hungary and Poland.
The liberal world order is descendant because it has not served the common citizen but instead the global corporations and ironically non-citizens who want to migrate on mass to the west even though they do not have that right.
80
You are wrong on so many points:
German banks benefitting from the Euro? There are no big relevant German banks left. All gone under during the Euro crisis. The once mighty Deutsche is on the border of being snatched up and merged with a foreign competitor. In fact, this scenario may be their only chance of survival.
Large EU economies forcing their will onto smaller ones? Merkel TRIED to force the eastern countries to shoulder their share of the immigrant flow. But thanks to EU rules those exact same countries were easily able block these efforts. The same way Poland was able to block a reduction of the tens of billions of Euros they receive annually from the wealthier nations, all while spitting in their face and dismantling its democratic checks and balances.
30
All true, but incomplete. What is missing is the better idea. So far, we have defense of the failed, and rejection of the failed, but not a coherent better idea.
We await arrival on the scene of the inspired better idea, and a charismatic leader for it. The scene is set. The moment is pregnant.
9
And your solution to fix it? Not authoritarian rule, I hope?
8
Meanwhile the Poles stayed out of the Euro, doubled their GDP, and have seen PPP wage growth of 6% pa for 20 years. They are also being threatened by the EU.
12
Poland receives €10.6 billion from the EU every year. It is by far the biggest recipient country of EU funding. Without these funds, the progress you note, would not have been possible.
Poland signed up for the euro, as have all newer member states. It's a condition for joining the EU. It starts when their economies are at a sufficiently healthy level, to do so.
Perhaps Poland (and Hungary) should stop biting the hand that feeds them.
110
They've also become more and more authoritarian and anti-women's rights, but hey, GDP is rising.
6
Roger, can you guarantee that the democratic institutions in the United States and Italy, especially, the free press and independent judiciary, will survive authoritarian, populist rule?
I think the election of Barack Obama in the U.S. had blind-sided the liberal democratic forces to see the widespread dissatisfaction and alienation built up over decades among so many people. Bannon and Trump were smart enough to realize this. Unfortunately, they do not want to reform but to destroy the Western liberal world order.
16
I actually live in Italy and IMO the more things change here the more they remain the same. While it is a generalization, as a rule, the Italians are not fond of their governments decisions on allowing Muslims and Africans into their country. They blame the EU for "forcing" them to accept the latter. And to quote a famous line from a famous writer, they are sick and tired and can't take it anymore. Hence the rise of several groups who oppose the forced acceptance in the recent election. But the Italian government is like the weather. If you don't like it, wait a short while as it will change.
97
It's more a case of the EU not being able to force anyone else to accept migrants.
And really, apart from bona fide asylum seekers, why should they?
This mass migration is depleting countries of their working population, making a few traffickers very rich, ruining the islands that are their first stop, and all to bring them to a country that already has high unemployment. This is not sustainable.
22
Roger from Bassano, instruct us please, when was the last time the Italian government fell, was it because it ended its mandate or was it because of a crisis...remind me...
2
I am if the opinion that a Democracy is the people's business. How can Democracies allow swindlers, grifters, and other assorted swine get into power? If you find yourself being taken advantage of, wouldn't you do something about It? Just asking.
5
I know almost nothing about Italy. But I hardly could cheer for America's awful government. And I don't wish for Italians what we have done to ourselves.
130
Mr Cohen,
Here In Buffalo - where the Middle West begins - and where we know a lot about "lake effect" - we do not often get such a salubrious gust of wind (dare I use the word Zephyr) as is contained in this super-fine essay.
You are, sir, among your journalistic peers at least, the epitome of equilibrium. You not only stand on your own two feet, but you take your stand where the ground is firmest under them. And I salute you for that more than anything.
10
Juncker was right to call out the Italian populists for blaming their problems on the EU and the Euro. That is his job, protecting the institutions from attacks by national politicians who build their careers on trashing it. The childish response that "Europe will soon learn to respect us" shows what feelings they are basing their appeal on. Italy continued to elect Berlusconi when it was obvious that he was running their economy into the ground while enriching himself, and they threw out the responsible Matteo Renzi. By all means, let the Populists have their day. The South of Italy, like Wales, will soon understand that their interests lie with a strong EU that also has the support of Northern Europe, and not with a regional party like La Liga that want to institute a flat tax.
63
It doesn't matter if Juncker is 'right' or not. In politics, appearances count, and if the head of an unelected body in Brussels treats a country like naughty children, citizens of that country are going to resent that - and start looking very carefully at what Juncker himself represents (apart from drinking on the job).
6
Well, over 73% of registered voters in Italy voted (compare that to our own 58% in 2016). Those currently taking the helm had the majority of votes. The five star movement made huge strides back in the 2013 election and came in third back then - so they have had voter appeal for awhile now. What that says to me is that many in Italy are disenchanted with the current state of affairs - and are looking for a government that can push back against Brussels. I'm sorry Mr. Cohen, but this is what democracy looks like.
29
Pushing back against Brussels by requesting that 300bn USD of Italy's debt be written off to finance an early retirement program, unconditional income for the poor, and a flat income tax of only 15%. Sounds like a great plan!
It's like Trump telling China the US will cancel the Treasury Notes they own, abolish Federal Taxes, and hand out free healthcare and social security for all.
You need to work for and earn what you spend. But I am not surprised that the average mid-West voter does not understand this concept. They've been living off credit cards and cashing out home equity for 2 generations by now...
9
I think that was the whole point of his column, actually.
5
to Beyond Repair: "the average mid-west voter does not understand this concept" - what the Mid-West voter wonders - is if the government can bail out Wall Street/1% after they caused the 2008 meltdown (700 BILLION of tax payer money) - why not offer financial relief to the other 99%.
As a one time gambler, I would put up our "Trump Awful" against theirs any day of the week.........
7
How, exactly, was Bannon “instrumental” to this election? Americans really need to stop seeing themselves in everything in the world. Like in the election in France, which if the American media was to be believed, was a referendum on Trump and Brexit.
In reality, it was just an election in France.
Anyway, no matter, Italy’s government, though entirely democratically legitimate, will fail. Not because of the incompetence of the M5S and Ligua, or the awfulness of their policies or whatever; but because the world is run by the financial industry, and Italy simply won’t be able to break away.
To use another NYT contributor’s work as reference, we’re all in the “Golden Straitjacket”, except (as I believe Mr. Friedman knows well) this jacket is golden only for those already feasting with golden spoons.
Something’s gotta give, either the Italian government will buckle, or it will be made to kneel. Their economic and social program are unsustainable in the Euro, and let’s see the Conte government shortchange the Italian people who own 2/3 of the State’s debt by converting that all into worthless Liras.
The only concrete change this government will bring about is by delivering the lethal blow to Macron’s desired EU reforms, which were put into a medical coma by the Germans, and seem to have just been euthanized by Rome.
31
It will "fail" because every government in Italy since WW2 has lasted about a year on average.
3
Excellent post. I'm hoping (somewhat against hope) that when the Eurocrats finally back the Italians into a corner, that they (the Italians) will discover their long-missing pair of coglioni and refuse to be cowed. If this (admittedly long shot) reaction happens, the euro and possibly even the EU itself will collapse and perhaps some other humbler, more flexible pan-European organization will be born from the ruins.
2
This Italian government is likely to go the way of the left-wing Greek one that's been 'ruling' for two years by German diktat.
The trouble isn't that Europeans keep voting for anti-elite parties and getting more of the same. The trouble is that the challengers themselves are so poor in experience and ideology and so unable to come up with true alternatives.
2
Let them eat polenta made from spite, and drink wine distilled from ignorance. Sometimes, it's the only way to learn a hard lesson.
Right, GOP ???
17
It's fascinating to watch one NYT columnist after another being forced by reality to publicly and rather awkwardly come to terms with the fact that their worldviews of the past thirty, forty, and fifty years are being emphatically rejected by the citizens of one developed country after another.
In retrospect, it's difficult to comprehend how the pundits could have been so wrong, about so many things, for so long.
And now everything seems to be crashing down all around them.
Globalization has failed, and we've only begun to reckon with the consequences, which will be profoundly destabilizing for the world.
The euro has failed, yet all the really smart people are still in denial about it.
And Cohen's beloved EU has failed, rather spectacularly.
Time to rip off the band aid and dissolve the monstrosity that is the EU and move on. It is simply overwhelmed by the challenges of the 21st century.
And if clowns like Juncker are all that stands between us and the killing fields of Europe, as many, including Cohen, seem to believe, then we're in deep trouble, because the EU is going down.
The more scrutiny Europe gets, the worse it looks, and the opportunity cost of focusing on Trump's tweets as Europe collapses will be yet another blemish on the reputation of journalism.
42
"Globalization has failed, and we've only begun to reckon with the consequences"
Globalization has side effects and complexities. It needs fixing. That is not the same as total failure and rejection.
Those who have been in power do not recognize the problems, do not admit them, and do not want to fix anything. They want more of the same.
Rejecting them is not the same as rejecting everything that has come in the last decades. We can do better. We can fix this. We don't have to be Luddites about it.
35
To say "globalization has failed" is like saying "the weather has failed." Globalization has suceeded spectacularly. You may not like the weather where you are.
What failed was 30 plus years of failing to ensure that the benefits of globalization were shared and the costs mitigated. In the United States it started with Reagan and continued with 30+ years of basically conservative economic policies. I can't speak about other countries.
But globalization, like immigration, was an unstoppable force. Read your history. You might slow it down (we should have) but you cannot stop it.
38
Hi there, mr TB
A few examples of the good that EU brought:
-shedding dislike for germans in Denmark
-otherwise impossible improvement in roads in Poland
-austrian academics moving to fulfilling jobs in Holland
-the (shortlived) Nokia adventure adventure in Copenhagen
-British retirees with health problems moving to Spain
-Serbian expats able to move freely between Serbia and Denmark
-italian lecturers at the University
-adults moving from Baltic states to work in EU, thereby giving parents tolerable housing and putting kid sisters through Scholl
So it's not All bad.
15
It's so disconcerting to read the flippant tone that post-Trump liberals use to invoke Hitler comparisons. They sound like beauty queens but instead of vacuous pleas for world peace, we get "Oh, and also don't forget Hitler" with a smug smile and curtsy to the judges. It's almost as if our opinion class is so isolated that they cannot imagine real life consequences of policy for the masses, and they don't seem to care. They have to go all the way back to Hitler to illustrate politics gone horribly wrong. Every story about populists usually has one or two lines about those left behind by globalization. For those left behind, their being pushed out of the job market, and as a consequence society, is the only thing of importance and it's seemingly an after thought to those puzzled by the rise of populism. Oh, and also, that's how you got Hitler ;)
22
Rejecting the euro need not imply the rejection of the European Union. The ability of countries to regulate and adjust their currency at the local level provides more flexibility to respond to the tumult of international trade and inflation fluctuations.
The shared values of European democracy as well as military security interests does not demand a common currency. The common currency was a lovely idea but the numbers just do not work out well for Italy or Spain or Greece.
Ultimately, this all boils down to bank loans. A ruthless and exacting business that carries no concern for the welfare of nations.
14
Or they could go the other way, to an EU-economy like the US national economy. What they can't do is stay in the middle, neither one nor the other.
In fairness, those who did the Euro knew that. Many of them meant this as a step toward the ever greater union that they wanted. They meant it to force the issue. Well, it has.
3
Yes! Someone must stop the banks forcing their loans on innocent citizens...
2
This is shear nonsense. The German banks took a risk in buying high risk and thus high interest bonds issued by Greece and now Italy and rather than have the banks take a 'haircut' the EU aka Germany forced austerity measures to insure the German banks were paid the interest on the bonds while Greece was plunged into despair.
Meanwhile while Poland and Hungary slide into autocracy but remain fully subsidized by the EU who will not hold back EU funds to force these countries into least a sham democracy.
The Euro keeps Germany exports flowing into the EU by keeping the value of the Euro stable. But if Germany had the Mark its value would have risen relative to the other countries domestic currencies and its exports would have shrunk.
Dissolution of the Euro as a common currency would be the best thing that could happen to Western Europe.
20
Those dangerous high interest loans were spent in Germany on German exports. Germany may look good in comparison to the debtors, but it is at bottom just the same, an economy built on bad debt. The issue then is who will pay the bill and take the loss.
Quite true. But let's not forget that a lot of French banks are also heavily into this scam too.
Hear, hear!
Placing the rigidity of the single currency, the euro, aside for now, any democracy worth it's name requires active participation, and hopefully contribution, of it's citizens. If the Italian society becomes complacent, expecting goods and services from their government (within the European Union), and do not help with their own efforts (and yes, paying taxes must be part of the deal), the results will leave much to be desired. You mentioned 'competence' in these new leaders, but not having the experience, may prove disastrous ("theory went to swim, but drowned for lack of practice"). The proof is in the pudding. Let's hope that stupidity won't be the order of the day, trying to get rid of the current 'goodies'... that were taken for granted till now. I am impressed to see, in the same picture, characters so different in philosophy and ideology...that the need to coordinate may require a special magical potion called tolerance; and the will to work together; and if so, the courage, hard work and perseverance to see things through. And speaking of awful governments, there is no question that malevolent Trump wins the medal, to the detriment of an otherwise powerful country, adrift in it's own labyrinth.
11
"The 2008 financial meltdown and the subsequent euro crisis came and went with near total impunity for those responsible."
Remind me again, who was responsibly in this country for the lack of prosecution of "those responsible" ? Eric somebody or other? And who was his boss? I seem to be hearing something about $400K speaker fees from "those responsible"?. Please tell me it's not true.
24
You seem to have a difficulty with names, but try to name " those responsible". Which laws did they break..?
Nobody and all were responsible for the financial crisis, but particularly those byuing housing with debt they could not afford to service. You would need to build a lot of prisons to house them if you consider being stupid is criminal...
4
There’s something to be said, when discovering that the delightfully piquant paste you’ve been troweling onto crackers and wolfing down with such abandon is made from crushed Madagascar hissing cockroaches, for offering a cheer before excusing yourself for a pressing visit to the WC.
Good for Roger.
However, despite the apparent ickiness of Italy’s new government, this must be their 4,237th since the end of WWII, and all of them were headed by exemplary and qualified Italians. Who knows? Maybe, for them, “the xenophobic League and the out-with-the-old-order Five Star Movement”, personifying “bigotry and incompetence to an unusual degree”, will prove to be the ticket for l’italia caotico.
It could be better than finding out about Madagascar hissing cockroaches.
It seems that some inside the core Euro-bastion are beginning to doubt that Angela Merkel’s and Brussel’s vision about a unified, continent-spanning government representing the ends of being and ideal grace, is going to be strategically viable; while an increasing number outside are developing an active hatred of it. Clowns to the north of me (Britain), Jokers to my south (Greece and Italy), here I am, stuck in the middle with you!
Italy always had ineffective governments, because Italians don’t like to be governed (except when free cheese is doled out). If government ever can be fixed, it must first fix THAT. But if they fail yet again, maybe they should consider bringing back Silvio. At least he was entertaining.
14
Angela Merkel’s vision about a unified EU? This universe’s Angela Merkel, or is this an alternate universe we are discussing?
Why do so many Americans follow European politics so distantly and yet still make confident assertions about this topic?
Or is it that American media covers European politics so terribly that even knowledgeable Americans don’t seem to get it?
Merkel is no federalist. No major EU government today is federalist, not even Macron. Except for some Belgian governments, there have been no federalist governments to speak of in the history of the European project.
Angela Merkel likes the EU in as much as it benefits Germany. She likes the open market (a boon for German sellers; and producers who use cheap Eastern labour), she likes the EU’s free-trade negotiations.
She does not like the downsides. No solidarity for other States ruined by German over-production, no long-term financing commitments. If Germany really wanted a federal EU, they would have actually done what even the IMF is recommending now by investing domestically and reducing their humongous (and EU Treaties defying, just like other “lazy Southern” countries’ budget deficits) export surpluses.
But ultimately, Berlin, like Paris, like Rome, like Madrid, and so on and so forth, really care about themselves.
Merkel is no federalist. Nor should she (or anyone for that matter, considering how dissimilar so many EU States are to each other) be.
16
Un Laïcard:
I'm reminded by your comment about how much I like Nice, but would like it that much better if it weren't so filled with Niçois. Not dissimilar from my take on Paris. Among other things, rarely do I laugh as much generally as I do at the sight of a local man of "belly" sporting a speedo on one of your beaches.
You flog an ideological perspective. Merkel has been maniacal in maintaining the EU undiminished (and is failing). And why do you assume that those of us who know this depend solely on U.S. publications to understand European politics and sentiments?
1
That made a good point with real humor. I liked it.
Italy did have a good government for about twenty years, but it was before WW1. Their society can do it. They just haven't.
Why? It was broken by WW1, kept broken between the wars, and yet further smashed in WW2. The Post-War chaos was centered more on "don't go commie" than on creating anything that works, with a lot of meddling from outside in favor of corrupt "not-commies."
The League and 5-Star don't actually offer any ideas to fix that. But they do reject the utter corrupt failure they've had. It is a start.
That may actually be a lesson for other places, including the US. Offer something better, not just a defense of failure against its rejection.
2
I have to take issue with the statement "Trump won because he intuited a seeping anger that too many liberals had ignored." I saw a liberal President and a Liberal party that tried desperately to help the poor and the underprivileged middle class beut was blocked at every turn by the unprecedented use of the filibuster, the Hastert rule, the courts and the right wing media. Consider the Republican Governors who refused to accept Federal dollars (surely, a first) to expand their medicaid roles under Obamacare. As well as the court battles that delayed or erased some of the good Obama wished to bring to the least among us. A Republican Congress that cut off unemployment insurance benefits to those who lost jobs during the downturn. Not to mention the refusal to invest, even when interest rates made borrowing money a fiscally sound move, in infrastructure, job training and education that could have lessened the anger and made the recession shorter. Mitch McConnell, rightly, understood that if the Republicans could make life miserable for the average citizen, they would blame the man at the top not the men who were stopping forward progress. Liberals didn't ignore the anger or the angst, they thought it would be best to try to solve the problems together, while Trump found a way to claim victory through division, fear and hate. You can call that a victory if you want but those cynical strategies are not in the liberal's playbook.
394
Why do I get the impression that some in this forum just don't LIKE Trump?
Well, that and about $10 will buy you a Pat Paulsen Pez dispenser.
7
Is there anyone who actually LIKES Trump? I think that's a stretch, even for you, Richard.
It's possible to make a case for supporting Trump, I suppose, though I'm not the one to make it. But nobody in his right mind could possibly LIKE Trump. What's to like?
So much whining about the EU and the nasty Germans, but Italy's problems lie squarely with Italy. Squabbling governments patched-together with dodgy coalitions, the likes of which would make the Israelis blush, a total lack of interest in any kind of meaningful economic reform, and a nation whose citizens consider tax-evasion to be a matter of personal pride.
Alitalia, the pathetic, basket-case Italian airline, is a good metaphor for the entire nation, perpetually teetering on the edge of fatal bankruptcy caused by a deadly combination of lazy workers, the overly-aggressive unions which protect them, and the bumblingly incompetent managers who let them get away with it.
45
You've obviously never been to Italy to write such a comment. There are certainly a lot of things wrong with Italy, but, after having lived there for a number of years, I can tell you that Italians, Italian families and many of the small businesses that make up the country are as hard-working, intelligent and efficient as any American or Australian.
16
Would you please provide proof that airline employees are lazy?
In my experience I have found them to be efficient, pleasant, accommodating and helpful
Unlike American airline employees who begrudge getting you some water and want nothing to do with you.
14
Deeply embedded structural reasons––modern Italy is an unwieldy patchwork of kingdoms and duchies that continue to resonate loudly with their discrete populations; topography; mafias––render Italy beyond repair. The northern regions prosper; the south is in a continual state of expensive renovation, undone by corruption from pay to play, and from periodic earthquakes.
Add massive immigration of North Africans to the mix––it must be said that Italy, generous and humane to a fault, has done an extraordinary, job in trying to integrate and accommodate the immigrants––and you have the dark side of every country: the attraction of authoritarian rule.
The E.U. must either accommodate the reality of Italy's Italian-ness by eating some of Italy's debt or cut Italy loose.
31