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What’s Happening in Italy Is Scary, and It’s Spreading

What a difference a few months can make.

Ahead of Italy’s election last fall, Giorgia Meloni was widely depicted as a menace. By this summer, everything — her youthful admiration for Benito Mussolini, her party’s links to neofascists, her often extreme rhetoric — had been forgiven. Praised for her practicality and support for Ukraine, Ms. Meloni has established herself as a reliable Western partner, central to Group of 7 meetings and NATO summits alike. A visit to Washington, which takes place on Thursday, seals her status as a valued member of the international community.

But the comforting tale of a populist firebrand turned pragmatist overlooks something important: what’s been happening in Italy. Ms. Meloni’s administration has spent its first months accusing minorities of undermining the triad of God, nation and family, with dire practical consequences for migrants, nongovernmental organizations and same-sex parents. Efforts to weaken anti-torture legislation, stack the public broadcaster with loyalists and rewrite Italy’s postwar constitution to increase executive power are similarly troubling. Ms. Meloni’s government isn’t just nativist but has a harsh authoritarian streak, too.

For Italy, this is bad enough. But much of its significance lies beyond its borders, showing how the far right can break down historic barriers with the center right. Allies of Ms. Meloni are already in power in Poland, also newly legitimized by their support for Ukraine. In Sweden, a center-right coalition relies on the nativist Sweden Democrats’ support to govern. In Finland, the anti-immigrant Finns Party went one better and joined the government. Though these parties, like many of their European counterparts, once rejected membership in NATO and the European Union, today they seek a place in the main Euro-Atlantic institutions, transforming them from within. In this project, Ms. Meloni is leading the way.

Since becoming prime minister, Ms. Meloni has certainly moderated her language. In official settings, she’s at pains to appear considered and cautious — an act aided by her preference for televised addresses rather than questioning by journalists. Yet she can also rely on colleagues in her Brothers of Italy party to be less restrained. Taking aim at one of the government’s main targets, L.G.B.T.Q. parents, party leaders have called surrogate parenting a “crime worse than pedophilia,” claiming that gay people are “passing off” foreign kids as their own. Ms. Meloni can appear aloof from such rhetoric, even suggesting unhappiness with its extremism. But her decisions in office reflect zealotry, not caution. The government extended a ban on surrogacy to criminalize adoptions in other countries and ordered municipalities to stop registering same-sex parents, leaving children in legal limbo.

[...]

Journalists, too, are under pressure. Sitting ministers have threatened — and in some cases pursued — a raft of libel suits against the Italian press in an apparent bid to intimidate critics. The public broadcaster RAI is also under threat, and not just because its mission for the next five years includes “promoting birthrates.” After its chief executive and leading presenters resigned, citing political pressure from the new government, it now resembles tele-Meloni, with rampant handpicking of personnel. The new director general, Giampaolo Rossi, is a pro-Meloni hard-liner who previously distinguished himself as an organizer of an annual Brothers of Italy festival. In the aftermath of his appointment, news outlets published scores of his anti-immigration social media posts and an interview with a neofascist journal in which he condemned the antifascist “caricature” hanging over public life

This is not his concern alone. Burying the antifascist legacy of the wartime Resistance matters deeply to the Brothers of Italy, a party rooted in its fascist forefathers’ great defeat in 1945. As prime minister, Ms. Meloni has referred to Italy’s postwar antifascist culture as a repressive ideology, responsible even for the murder of right-wing militants in the political violence of the 1970s. It’s not just history to be rewritten. The postwar Constitution, drawn up by the Resistance-era parties, is also ripe for revision: The Brothers of Italy aims to create a directly elected head of government and a strong executive freer of constraint. No matter its novelty, Ms. Meloni’s administration has every chance of imposing enduring changes in the political order.

[...]

Success is hardly inevitable. Ahead of last week’s election in Spain, Ms. Meloni addressed her nationalist ally Vox, declaring that the “patriots’ time has come”; in fact, its vote share fell and right-wing parties failed to secure a majority. Even so, Vox has become an enduring part of the electoral arena and a regular ally for conservatives. Despite their growing success, such forces have for years been painted as insurgent outsiders representing long-ignored voters. The more disturbing truth is that they are no longer parties of protest, but increasingly welcome in the mainstream. For proof, just look to Washington on Thursday.

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152 comments

  • Thank you for your write up. It's becoming harder and harder to stay up to date on all the new wannabe fascists in Europe.

    I'll drop in with my thoughts on it in Germany. In Germany, the far right party is at 20% in recent opinion polls. Scary. But 60% of the potential right voters say they just vote them out of protest. It wouldn't be that hard for the other parties to turn that ship around, but I don't see anything happening. The big parties are following their utterly liberal ultra capitalist line, which of course makes people poorer, which generates a lot of displeasure in these uncertain times. People are looking for simple answers. And while "smash capitalism" would be the simple correct answer for 98% of people, sadly there is no party that propagates that. So "it's because of the immigrants, it's because of the dictators in the EU" from the right that gets fed to the people as a simple answer, and they get the vote.

    But IMO, this protest vote only goes to the right because of a lack of alternatives. The problem is our left party is too busy with wokeness topics (which are important, sure, but they still just don't resonate in most people) and in fighting among themselves. So nobody votes for them as a protest as they absolutely lack any substance right now. And our left still has a "Russia problem" as they mostly emerged from the letters of eastern Germany. This is course doesn't help. So people vote for the right.

    I still hope a new left party would emerge, but as long as there isn't, and as long as the big center-"left" party doesn't change course, I see the rights just getting stronger. Especially since the center rights adopt talking points from the far right, as they see it gets them votes.

    Another interesting (and scary) fact is, that the several right parties in Europe formerly were totally against Europe. They still are, just not openly anymore. Now they learned that in order to destroy the EU, it's easier to get voted into it, closing ranks with all the other nationalists, and starting to dismantle it from within.

    I'll just repeat what @superkret@lemmy.world said, build networks, maybe we gonna need them soon!

    • But 60% of the potential right voters say they just vote them out of protest.

      voting for nazis "out of protest" is just a thin veiled excuse for voting nazis

    • It wouldn’t be that hard for the other parties to turn that ship around, but I don’t see anything happening.

      Yes it would be, because what the Naziparty offers is simple solutions and scapegoats to complex problems. That is also why the conservative party CDU is happily joining in on it. Both parties represent neoliberal business practices, the AfD even more so, while blaming the fallout on minorities. The people that vote for them are brainwashed to think that anything not capitalist is pure evil. The AfD went on a "it feels like in east Germany" platform with great success in the eastern parts of Germany, despite most of their elites never actually having lived in East-Germany.

      In the same wake the Left party is not too busy with wokeness. They represent these topics while primarily representing economic alternatives to the right. But the Right wing media propaganda as well as the "anti communist" propaganda from our state media is focusing on the "woke issues" to undermine the economic platform of the left.

      Note that the issues aren't just in the political space. It is a concerted effort by capitalist elites to shift the responsibility and blame away from them and onto immigrants, LGBT people, people protesting for measures against climate change etc.

      It is the same as in Italy and the other countries. Fascist playbook 101 where the Naziparty is pretending to care about social issues, while assuring the economic elites, that they wont touch them and instead blame the worsening situation on scapegoats. The former conservatives are now turning proto-fascists happily radicalising among the Nazis to help them into power to secure the power of their members and benefactors.

      You can have the best policies and focus on these topics, but with a mediascape dominated by right wing propaganda and a false "red scare"-responsibility feeling in public broadcasting, where the left is still met with the same false stereotypes like in the 1970s there is only so much they can do.

    • I think a big issue is that very few people are interested in actively participating in politics/democracy. Membership in political parties is decreasing and it becomes more and more difficult to fill seats in local government. What we are left with are a set of politicians in it to line their pockets, or crazy zealots. If you want to change join the party that most closely aligns with your preferences, and make sure your friends do too.

    • This comment and the fact that it's also massively upvoted perfectly demonstrates the problem. Not an analysis of the problem or an solution, but THE problem: You are brain-washed by propaganda and living in some opposite-world were right is left and left is right.

      So let's start at the top:

      "But 60% of the potential right voters say they just vote them out of protest."

      Nope, that's bullshit. That's an excuse. And that quota will decrease with "voting fascist" becoming socially accepted behavior.

      (Also, just like the last time the fascists will not get more votes until they come to power. They will be elevated to power by other parties, the ones pretending to refuse any cooperation today. That's another 70-80% -those proclaiming to never form a government with the AfD- that is completely imaginary and just cheap talk. For some parties this might be actually true. For a lot of people it isn't. And the weakest link right now is the political failures for decades now leading the biggest/conservative party with his own brand of right-wing populism.)

      "It wouldn’t be that hard for the other parties to turn that ship around, but I don’t see anything happening."

      Because that's also bullshit. There is no simple real life solution to imaginary problems and invented scape goats. Only if you believe the AfD's propaganda already you believe in non-existing fantasy measures that the governing parties simply refuse to take.

      "The big parties are following their utterly liberal ultra capitalist line"

      And now you totally lost it. Yes, there is a party with an ultra capitalist line aiming for no social secuitry net, no taxes for the rich. It's called the AfD. It's in their program even, as they don't need to lie when most people are too lazy to actually start reading it over the propaganda fed to you in easier form.

      Not surprisingly, the people wanting this know. Or who do you think is financing the AfD? Billionaires, old remains of aristocracy, multi-billion "familiy business" pretending to be middle-class, rich land owners. Those are the AfD clients. You are just a tool.

      "The problem is our left party is too busy with wokeness topics"

      And the next right-wing narrative. "Woke" is a right-wing invention. There are also no "woke topics" heavily pushed by left parties. It's the right that is doing all the talking. They again invented some imaginary issue -in this case things like "gender inclusive language pushed by the left"- to fight against. The problem as usual: The issue doesn't exist. They fight against an imaginary forced use of certain language, while nobody is forcing anyone. They are also the only ones actually regulating how we are allowed to speak (AfD and CDU locally banned use of gender inclusive language in parliaments already).

      The Afd (and to a lower degree the conservatives) are the ones pushing the issue to have something to rally their voters against. Here's who is actually talking about Gender all day:

      "And our left still has a “Russia problem” [...] So people vote for the right."

      No, the Left is very fragmented and diverse, so they have probably still a few people individually more attached to Russia than the West. The actual Party with a "Russia problem" is the AfD again. They got partly financed by Russia, they parrot Kremlin taking points. But -as seen- you already live in a propaganda-induced alternative reality. So why should one more delusion matter, right?

      "I still hope a new left party would emerge"

      Let me guess? Some new left party, like that clown-show Wagenknecht is celebrating... parroting far-right talking points and Russian propaganda while pretending to be left? A.k.a. the living embodiment of the horseshoe or "far-right for pussies afraid to openly stand for their far-right bullshit"?

      Congratulations. You are spreading AfD bullshit while either pretending or being so confused by propaganda to actually believing to fight against the far-right.

      Sorry, to say that. But if you are an average example of the voters (and the fact that this piece of written diarrhea is heavily upvoted supports my fears here...) then we are truly and utterly lost and the fascists will win.

      • You sure write a lot for saying so little. I suggest to step out of your bubble for once and actually talk to people. Why do you think so many people upvoted? Because everybody is brainwashed except you? Oh lord.

        Also, I know who the AfD is, but thanks for the lecture. I know about their ties to Russia, their capitalist views, and that Weidl is married to a Sri Lankan woman and yet yells "Festung Europa" and hates on gays. But all these facts don't matter. People don't vote AfD for their program, they vote them for their talking points, and because of the political climate, that they party create themselves. The other parties need to adress the points that AfD uses and dismantle them. There are ways how you can critically discuss immigration, climate change politics, and economic imbalance without a right wing perpective. That's basically all I wanted to say. You misinterpreted way more in my answer then there actually was.

        That graph with the gender mentions actually is really nice. But still, this doesn't matter. What matters is what the public sees and hears about them. Sure, in part it's the (social)media that fires against the left for i.e. the gender discussion, but the bigger part is that the left is totally aimless, leaderless and profileless, lost on it's track.

        Sadly, the tone in your reply is really hateful and annoys me to hell, otherwise I would really like to dicuss with you.

        Also, just to have it said, I fucking hate Wagenknecht.

        Good riddance!

        • Why do you think so many people upvoted?

          Because populism works. You invent or change facts to create simple problems or simplify complex problems ad absurdum and then present easy solutions. People like easy solutions and tend to believe it when it would be to much work to actually fact check the whole premise.

          Which is exactly what you did there. For this reason a lot of people just quickly read through it decided "yeah, sound logical" and upvoted. And for exactly the same reason I picked the most bullshit claims from your comment in order and described how and why they are bullshit.

          Your response? Not only ignoring the facts I mentioned but explicitly saying that it "doesn’t matter. What matters is what the public sees and hears about them."... Fine, so you reject reality for narratives and actually think the latter is what matters. Good to know.

          That also explains why you feel attacked by facts and perceive me as hateful... you do know that there actually is a medical term for people choosing the fantasy they want to believe in over factual reality, don't you?

152 comments