We all know that the old school teaching according to which History is not made with “ifs” and “buts” is a complete idiocy. Without bothering with a literary word like uchronia, it is precisely by making History with “ifs” and “buts” that we understand many things about the past. And also about the present.
Example. From a survey conducted by Odoxa in France, and made public yesterday, we learned that if Napoleon Bonaparte were to come back to life and run for the 2027 elections, 47% of voters – almost one in two! – would vote for him. We honestly don’t know if this is good news. It certainly is the fact that in a hypothetical run-off, the great Napoleon would beat the petit Macron: 62% of French people think that the Emperor would act better than the little president. Shit!
One interpretation of the poll could be that most French people would vote for Napoleon rather than vote for Marine Le Pen.
Or even just someone who thinks he’s Napoleon. A second interpretation could be that at this moment Macron would be beaten even by Obelix. A third, instead, is that no one remembers what it means – yesterday as today – to go against Russia. The famous campaign, and here we don’t use “ifs” and “buts”, ended very badly.
Changing the subject. We warn you right away that if they were to do a similar survey in Italy, with Mussolini, we absolutely do not want to know the result.
And above all, we don’t want to read the headlines in Repubblica the next day.