There is something deeply unsettling about Roberto Vannacci’s political success. Not so much for the originality of his ideas, which in reality have very little that is new, but for their extreme simplicity. A simplicity that does not equate to clarity, but rather to the reduction of the world’s complexity to a series of immediate, easily memorable and equally easily shareable slogans.

From the controversies surrounding gay rights to statements on femicide, from tirades against the ‘mixed-race society’ to rhetoric about immigration supposedly taking jobs away from Italians, via mistrust of the European Union and even the prospect of Italy leaving the euro, the common thread always seems to be the same: the search for simple answers to complex problems.

There is a mistake that many commentators keep making when analysing the Roberto Vannacci phenomenon: treating him as an anomaly.
He is not.

On the contrary, Vannacci probably represents one of the most consistent and accomplished expressions of a trend that has been running through Italian and Western politics for years: the gradual replacement of complexity with simplification, of argument with slogan, of analysis with emotional reaction.

For this reason, the success of his ideas cannot be dismissed as a mere folkloric interlude or as the result of some off-the-cuff provocation. That would be a comforting but profoundly mistaken assumption.
Vannacci’s true strength does not, in fact, lie in the originality of his views, nor in their cultural or scientific soundness. On the contrary, it lies in their extraordinary banality.

It is a cliché that takes various forms but always follows the same pattern: identifying a complex problem, reducing it to a simple explanation, and offering an intuitive, easily understandable and, above all, emotionally satisfying solution.

Thus, the migration issue is framed by the notion that foreigners are taking jobs and opportunities away from Italians. Cultural changes in society are interpreted as the result of a supposed loss of national identity. Issues relating to civil rights are reduced to a dichotomy between normality and deviance.
Economic difficulties are portrayed as the consequence of shadowy supranational powers or the impositions of the European Union.

Even the idea of a return to the national currency is presented as a quick fix capable of resolving problems rooted in decades of economic stagnation, low productivity, public debt and structural backwardness.

The mechanism is always the same: reality is stripped of its nuances and transformed into a simple, immediate, intuitive narrative. A narrative that requires no specialist knowledge, does not force one to grapple with data or research, and does not impose the burden of doubt. It simply asks to be believed.

Let us take, for example, one of the themes most frequently raised by Vannacci: his criticism of the so-called ‘mixed-race society’. Behind this expression lies a view of culture and identity that appears difficult to sustain in the light of any serious historical or anthropological analysis .
Italy, like any other European society, is the product of centuries of encounters, cultural influences, migrations, conquests and cultural fusions. Phoenicians, Greeks, Romans, Lombards, Normans, Arabs, French, Spaniards, Austrians: the history of the peninsula is the story of a continuous layering of peoples and influences.

The notion of a supposed purity of identity is not merely historically unfounded. It is an attempt to transform a complex and dynamic cultural construct into a static, reassuring and artificial snapshot. Yet precisely because it is so simple, this narrative possesses enormous communicative power.

The same applies in the realm of rights. Statements about homosexual people, just like those on femicide, follow a similar logic: challenging interpretative categories developed in contemporary public debate and replacing them with more immediate and intuitive interpretations. It is a strategy that finds fertile ground in a society that is increasingly wary of expertise and in-depth analysis.

In this sense, the problem is not merely what Vannacci says. The problem is the way in which his statements manage to fit into a cultural climate that is already predisposed to accept them.

We are, in fact, living in an age of short-sighted thinking. An age in which the speed of communication tends to favour simple formulas and penalise detailed explanations.
Social media has transformed public debate into a constant competition for attention.

In this context, a provocative phrase is inevitably more successful than a complex reflection; a slogan circulates more quickly than a line of reasoning; a reassuring certainty proves more attractive than an analysis that acknowledges the complexity of the issues.

It is here that the true political significance of the Vannacci phenomenon becomes apparent. His views are not powerful because they prove a point. They are powerful because they are easy to remember, repeat and share. They work perfectly within a media ecosystem that favours immediate reaction over reflection.

This is why many people are taken aback. Those accustomed to engaging in rational debate tend to look for data, sources, studies and counter-analyses. But the power of certain narratives does not depend on their verifiability. It depends on their ability to provide an emotionally satisfying explanation.

It is a dynamic that, in some respects, brings to mind what Umberto Eco described as the invasion of irrationalism into the public sphere: the belief that specialist knowledge is suspect, that experts are necessarily detached from reality, and that common sense is sufficient to explain enormously complex phenomena.

In this context, the recent claim to be ‘scum’ takes on a meaning that goes far beyond mere provocation.
It is not simply an insult turned on its head and transformed into a source of pride. It is the political celebration of anti-elitism, anti-intellectualism, and the permanent opposition between the ‘real’ people and anyone perceived as belonging to a cultural, academic or institutional sphere.

It doesn’t matter whether the statements are true. What matters is that they are perceived as genuine.
Their validity is irrelevant. What matters is their power to shape identity.

The point is that this trend did not begin with Vannacci. Rather, he represents the end result of a long process of the deterioration of public debate in Italy.
For at least two decades, politics has progressively abandoned the realm of planning and vision to take refuge in instant communication. Every political force, to varying degrees, has contributed to this transformation. Promises have replaced programmes. Announcements have replaced proposals. Instant consensus has prevailed over the patient construction of a vision for society.

Vannacci fits perfectly into this context and takes its logic to its logical conclusion. He does not offer a particularly innovative view of the world, but something simpler: the reassurance that problems have obvious causes and easy solutions.

It is the old adage ‘things were better when they were worse’ elevated to a political principle. It is nostalgia transformed into a method of governance. It is the belief that the past, whether real or imagined, can provide a sufficient answer to the challenges of the present.

The real issue, then, is not just about Vannacci. It concerns the cultural climate that allows this kind of language to thrive. A climate in which complexity is seen as a flaw, doubt as a weakness, and expertise as an obstacle to effective communication.

But history teaches us that societies do not progress by simplifying reality to the point of rendering it unrecognisable. They progress by understanding it in all its complexity. And it is perhaps precisely here that the real danger of the Vannacci phenomenon lies: not in individual statements, however controversial they may be, but in the idea that complex thinking is a useless luxury and that every problem can be reduced to a slogan, in the collective habit of preferring shortcuts to understanding, immediate reaction to argument, slogans to reasoning.
A race to the bottom that impoverishes public debate and makes it increasingly difficult to tackle the country’s real problems.

When this belief takes hold, politics ceases to be a means of interpreting the world and becomes merely a machine for generating consensus.
And at that point, the problem is no longer Vannacci. The problem is the quality of our democracy.

After all, banality is all the more dangerous the more harmless it appears. And that is precisely why it deserves to be taken seriously.