Senator Diana Șoșoacă is the archetype of the free Romanian, with traditional values, a contagious nationalism and an extremism that would take you by surprise, if it were not so obvious. A kind of Donald Trump "from the country", she doesn't have the money of the mogul from overseas, but, according to her values, she wants to make Romania great, again.
Romania would be a fascinating country, if it were not so sad. More divided than ever, this people anchored in the past have never really agreed on anything, especially in post-December history. The only time the Romanians "shook hands" was in the referendum to reduce the number of parliamentarians and the abolition of the two chambers, in 2009. About 80% of Romanians then jumped up in the polls because they solved a burning problem .
Nothing happened with that referendum. We went in vain, and with that "in vain" the confidence in the political class eroded a bit. Thus, in 2020, we reached the lowest turnout in the last 30 years. Also last year, AUR gave a political marketing lesson to the "experienced" from PSD, PNL and USR-PLUS. If someone had asked George Simion (AUR leader) and Diana Șoșoacă (ex-AUR senator, currently independent), who learned in the first year of the pandemic, they would have answered you in two steps. 1. There is no pandemic. 2. Guys, that's how politics is done in Romania, on the grass, in crowded bathrooms, with live shows on Facebook.
From several points of view, AUR won last year's elections and brought to the fore an increasingly vocal part of the population. Șoșoacă is making waves in the online space not only because he has some people who are very good at understanding Facebook algorithms, but also because they represent us Romanians. Maybe not you, but the people of the country, those with elementary and secondary education, those who are more and more.
Not the other way around, but those with higher education, two faculties and three master's degrees don't have much children or only one, incredibly late. The fascinating part is that, while for you, a career in the corporation is a priority and you don't have more than one child or two at the age of 35-40, in the country or in poor localities, without too many possibilities, the "bubbling" birth rate. I don't know if you know, but we live in a country where whole families are supported only by child allowance. They are seen as a source of income, and education is incredibly low on the list of priorities.
Beyond my opinion on the subject, below they will argue with clear statistics and some historical references why it is inevitable to be led by a character like Șoșoacă. It doesn't have to be, because this seemingly absurd transition isn't happening next week, maybe in three years. But we have to face the future at some point, and "written in the stars" is that education is no longer a priority for Romanians, and the birth rate is constantly declining, although it is a general trend, it does not apply in poor families, without possibilities , without access to accurate and consistent information.