Matthew Salvini has focused his forces in Emilia-Romagna, where the victory of the Law seemed easy in the wake of the Italian crisis experienced by the leftist parties. This would hit the Government of Rome hard and would probably lead to national elections, in which the law would win easily.

It was as good as all battle plans. But the best plans can fail. As has been seen, Salvini has had an amateur who wanted to become Napoleon: he believed that he was stronger than he really was and has touched him to get lost. It is now withdrawn and it may not be politically alive.

While we know that the world does not care so much about Italian political circumstances, I think we could draw some lessons from these elections. We have seen how the techniques of propaganda which have been developed in recent times and which have led the right to power elsewhere in the world have failed.

Matteo Salvini has followed on the propaganda level everything that the election preparation manual says. His propaganda machine is called ‘The Beast’ and over the years he has worked on the open road by Silvio Berlusconi, who led Donald Trump to the presidency of the United States.

The idea is to focus on the parts of the lowest cultural level of the population. Use tactics to extend fear, look for enemies of all kinds, turn them into demons, promise people that salvation is in a far-right government. In his work as Minister of the Interior of Rome, Salvini has hardened a campaign of fierce hatred against immigrants, communists, leftists, intellectuals, etc. And ‘The Beast’ has used technologies to guide party propaganda on social networks, as Cambridge Analytics has done before. Everything is always very aggressive, focusing on the most irritating parts of users of social networks.

But it hasn't worked. The left stood face to face: [What Salvini has today], Napoleon would feel a similar astonishment when he was unable to defeat the Russian troops in the battle of Borodin. The Italian Left is often regarded as an exhausted thing, but it is clear that this is not the case, at least it has not been completely exhausted. But in addition, Salvini may have failed in the excessive use of his electoral tactics. Too many fears, too many grudges, too many threats.

Salvi has, without a doubt, a capacity to attract people from the population’s most humble culture, but to be a leader… He has never had a trade, has not worked at wages, has no university degree. People have realized that Lega’s only plan is to reach power and, if necessary, continue to expand fear.

Another error by Salvini was the elimination of the problem of the climate and the environment. He has done his best to dodge the issue and when he has been forced to face it, he has gone mad making jokes and gestures. I did not want to say a word about the comfortable position against the science of its supporters, nor about the mockery that goes straight to Greta Thunberg. It also seemed that Salvini had no idea or plan. He didn't realize that a politician can't ignore climate change anymore.

Therefore, on this occasion we have seen for the first time the techniques of propaganda that seemed unbeatable with Trump, Bolsonaro and others fail. At the same time we have seen the failure and disappearance of the movements of the 5 stars. The M5S has been another effort to use the Internet in political processes. Its basis has been the use of the Russeau platform for decision-making on the web on some issues (to some extent, it was just the opposite of the ‘The Beast’ model). Rube Goldberg as a giant machine [Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia The Rube Goldberg machine is a complicated mechanism, designed intentionally, but intended to achieve easy realization], the M5S decision system worked well… until it became pott.

Surely yes, The Beast, Russeau and the other electoral methods will be developed and modified on the basis of the experiences acquired in these elections and in successive elections. But, just as the Internet has been a real revolution in the methods of winning in the elections, it does not seem to be of great help to do what needs to be done after them. That is what has led the hole to M5S, which will probably sink Lega if he succeeds in gaining power in Italy, but that is the case. With our communication technology and strong models, the whole policy is still based on the slogans of 4 to 5 killings: “America (or Italy) Make Big Again” ["Make America (or Italy) Great Again"]. A nice idea… but how exactly?

[Ugo Bardi, chemical and expert in environmental climate energy, has published in his blog Cassandra's Legacy the book "The Right-Wing Steamroller: First Trump in the us, then Bolsonaro in Brazil, now Salvini in Italy... No, wait! Salvini was Defeated! ! Here we've translated the input. "What can sink us like the Roman Empire?" We've published a long chronicle in the Larrun supplement.]