Sending Sunday’s protest into ridicule would be a big mistake. Because it wasn’t about Călin Georgescu, but about the causes that led to its rise. It was a protest about the state of society that feels abandoned by its leaders.
With an often poor understanding of state mechanisms and economic ones, a large part of society is a sure victim for charlatans apt to manipulate their negative emotions, the need to be heard, and to be spoken to in terms they understand.
We listened to what people were saying on Realitatea TV, a television station that no longer has anything to do with journalism, but is an agitation institution. Its aggressive and instigating tone is the main reason why teams from other TV stations have ended up being threatened, even assaulted at the protest.
Some protesters want the new parliament, legitimate, the expression of the people's will, they say, to abolish politics. Another was upset about what he considers the authorities' theft of land. Others have a problem with certain court decisions. Others accuse 35 years of theft. General discontent with the Constitutional Court and Iohannis.
Some want peace. Some want freedom, although their march through Bucharest shows that freedom is not lacking in this country. By the way, in Russia, the country from whose wisdom Mr. Georgescu wants us to draw inspiration, such a protest would have been impossible. The first 100 people who would have gathered would have been beaten and thrown into vans within a few minutes.
Many, mixed, some specific, others diffuse, some justified, others enormities, many tearful nationalist slogans, mysticism, and protochronism.
Speaking to those at home from the screen, unchallenged, among folk songs, personalities such as Florin Zamfirescu - who told them that associations of magistrates, the Romanian Academy, the Army, and the Church should abolish the Constitutional Court's decision to annul the elections. Gross ignorance or pure nonsense, it no longer even matters.
There is no doubt that among the protesters there were party militants brought with organizational instructions, there may have been paid individuals, we understand that among the organizers a person was found with tens of thousands of euros on them. But at such numbers, obviously, the majority could only come out of their own will.
The largest protest after "August 10" is a signal of the tension in society that cannot be ignored.
The mere fact that the "Simionist," the "Șoșocar," and the Georgist camps are at odds is a premise for extremists not to reach power for the time being. But, as I was saying, they are just a symptom of the disease that afflicts Romania and is now in an acute phase.
And the major ailment is the total breakdown of trust between the governed and the governors. People not only do not feel represented by this political class anymore, but they consider it a danger.
Too many no longer see the point of political parties, cannot accept that without them there is no democracy, that the alternative is dictatorship. Some even desire it, while chanting "freedom."
They attribute dictatorial powers to a kind of Messiah, currently Călin Georgescu, who is supposed to solve all their problems far beyond his constitutional and legal powers. If the desire to see him at the Cotroceni Palace were to come true, they would undoubtedly experience the greatest political disappointment possible.
But until then, they are experiencing the current one. And the lack of political culture and manipulation validate fantasies.
What the political class should understand, however, is that the phenomenon underlying this state of society does not just go away on its own, like a cold. On the contrary, it amplifies. And even if Georgescu were somehow neutralized, as long as the causes that generated him remain, the appearance of a replacement would only be a matter of time.
If Mr. Ciolacu manages to overcome his adolescent passion for TikTok, maybe he will think about what the people in the streets actually demand from him.
It's not a big mystery: seriousness, predictability, respect, and real communication, that is, trustworthy communication. Exactly what doesn't happen even after elections, if we look at the emergency ordinance, if we look at the election date, if we look at the ballet around the common candidate.
Perhaps Mr. Iohannis will eventually realize that every day he spends in his current position is a term of irritation, annoys, is defiant.
The annulment of the elections was a trauma for society, and a minimum political wisdom and even a minimum of common sense would have dictated that in order to overcome it, their reorganization should have been as rapid as possible. That is, in March, if not even sooner, by shortening the deadlines through an emergency ordinance.
Prolonging discussions, scratching heads, somersaults give the impression that the annulment was for Mr. Iohannis to gain a few more months of tranquility, and for the traditional parties to regain their breath and position themselves in the best electoral position. Which is annoying, as we saw on Sunday.
We are on a knife's edge. If the government does not quickly understand to do some common-sense, tangible things, the slide towards extremism will be massive and inevitable, with incalculable consequences even in the relationship with the EU and NATO.