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

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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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  • The left has its responsibility in this. People are struggling with the bills at the end of the month. The left speaks of minorities and has a similar neoliberal economic view. The politics on minorities are important and the left have to keep them in their program/agenda. Adopt a real left economic view.

    But, people don't care about you if you're talking about it in the news and debates. The left has to center their campaign around the daily struggles to speak to the people with the people language.

    The greens parties have a similar issue. People know them for ecology and ? People don't know the other parts of the program of the greens parties. They have to stop speaking about ecology and begin with the other topics so people knows how they can help them with the end of the month.

    These all need to connect with people again with the people language.

    • That's a typical fascist strategy, blaming other parties.

      • They do this shit in the UK, too - Conservatives have been in power for like 80% of the past 150 years, and the last time Labour were in power was nearly 20 years ago, and even then, they were run by neoliberals with no intentions to challenge the establishment even slightly, so nowhere near being actually left at all, yet somehow Labour and "the left" still get the blame for all of the wrongs in the country.

        The fact that Blair back then, and Starmer now are clearly puppets working for the same master as the conservatives (capitalism and the status quo), rather than being an actual opposition, or looking out for the best interests of the people even a little, escapes them, just like the fact that when a socialist did run for PM, and was wildly popular, the establishment's media went on an absolute rampage to discredit him and make him "unelectable" because he posed a real and actual threat to them.

        Anyone who looks at the state of politics (always, though it's especially obvious in recent years) and thinks genuine opposition could ever get in power, or that we could ever vote the existing power structure out, is being either wilfully ignorant, or has fallen for the propaganda hook line and sinker, and really shouldn't talk on the matter, because they're just making it worse by literally serving the interests of those they claim to oppose (by always shifting attention and blame somewhere else). (E: never mind the well established strategy of the right co-opting leftist ideas they never intend to follow, just to get the votes, while pointing to those who would actually follow those ideals and calling them "idealists" or just socialists as if those are negatives. and it works!)

        And all of this is by design of course, the illusion of choice, the bread and circuses, all designed to make us feel like we have a say, without ever actually giving us one.

        • That campaign they ran against Corbyn was truly something else, for fucks sake

          The fact the BBC got away with that sums it up nicely, People say Corbyn was unelectable but honestly, he was insanely popular until the attacks started. Speaking to people in person in my life what I noticed is everyone started to say Corbyn was bad but they had no reason to give other than " He's promised too much he can't do what he says " or " I just don't like him "

          Clearly the establishment knew what he was going to cost them with state run Electric, Railways & dialing back on the private healthcare

          • Yup, a disgrace all round. And it wasn't just that he's a vocal socialist, but that he'd been one all of his long and dedicated career, and had proven to stand by his morals rather than by what might seem popular, or profitable to him personally at any given time, like the rest of his colleagues.

            I'm under no illusion that Corbyn on his own would have been enough to turn this country in to a full blown socialist one or toppled capitalism, but the fact that they were scared enough of what he could have done (like you mentioned the renationalisation, but also putting money back in to the existing national services like social and health that the rich have been stripping for profit, and taxing them and their corporations significantly more) proves just how big of a threat they really saw him as (and he really was, even in spite of the smear campaign he came so fucking close. For the uninitiated, I think his Glastonbury appearance - I linked to my favourite part which still gives me chills but the whole thing is worth watching just for the sad reflection over what could have been - really made them realise they could never ever possibly even come close be that kind of genuinely popular).

        • And in Germany the CDU being in government most of the FDR's existence (and for 16 years before the last election) are loudly talking about being the "alternative" Germany needs (not coincidently choosing that term when the far-right AfD is the "Alternative for Germany") to fix all the decade long issues... after less than 2 years in opposition.

          Conservatives finally understood a simple truth. They only need the votes of their rich clients and the poor gullible morons for a majority and can ignore anyone between. And the populism used to achieve that is much easier and cheaper than an actual political program.

      • I'm not blaming the parties, neither the ideas. I'm evaluating the strategies of the parties, two radical, different things. The strategies are bad and inaccurate.

        A party need to adapt the communication to the audience and the target groups. Some do it with populism, what isn't right. Populism is never the answer. The communication of the left need to level up so people and voter are convinced. If the parties don't have a majority, the parties didn't convince the voter. When I speak to random people, they clearly speak about two topics. The first is how to pay the bills and the second is politics are disconnected. At the end, they don't elect anyone. What should we on the left do?

        Sure, we need to do some marketing and communication. But, I don't think it's a good strategy. We need to speak to the people, listen to them to target their needs. The ideas and the programs are the same. What changes is the strategy. It's to weight the topics to match the needs of the population. After that, you can build others ideas on top of that. Saying “capitalism bad” and explaining it during an hour doesn't work. Listening to the people, acknowledging and validating the needs, giving a short explanation, then people begin to think capitalism is bad even if the issue is neoliberalism. You adapt it to the audience.

        Last week, during an anarchist meeting, we spoke about why capitalism is bad. Yesterday, at another meeting, we spoke about why we struggle with two words about capitalism. The audience was different, but the topic was the same. I sadly don't see a lot of that.

    • The centre-left parties in Italy have been pushing for a minimum wage law since the early spring, when the biggest party (PD) finished its congress and a new direction was elected. The right wing majority has now voted to delay any kind of discussion on the law proposal for two months, and the right wing minister for external affairs has gone on record saying things like "minimum wage is a Soviet measure" and "we need a rich wage, not minimum wage".

    • The greens parties have a similar issue. People know them for ecology and ? People don’t know the other parts of the program of the greens parties. They have to stop speaking about ecology and begin with the other topics

      And right here you are falling for propaganda without even realizing it. It's not the green parties failing to talk about other issues. It's other (usually right wing - as basically all greens are also socially left) parties drowning this out, because they know they can divide people by pushing their noses into the ecological problems (and the economic hardships naturally linked to trying to reverse centuries of exploitation).

      (Btw... Just like it's also never actually the left parties talking all day about "woke" topics. That's also the right-wing parties creating an imaginary discussion because it's divisive.)

    • I would differentiate a little more:

      At least in Germany, there are three "left" parties that are also reflected by European equivalents. The more traditional left, the social democrats and the green. The green are indeed what you are describing with neoliberals focused on disadvantaged minorities. For the social democrats, on the other hand, the problem is, that they still think of wealth as a question of salary, while it's more a question of if you get a salary or gain your income from capital. In their eyes, somebody with a master degree is a wealthy person, which might have been true in the 70s but it doesn't reflect the widening of the gap between high-paying jobs and wealth for people with large accumulations of capital. Nowadays, most of the economy's productivity goes into the pockets of those high-wealth individuals and families. For the more traditional left there is the problem that they also try too hard to go woke, instead of focusing on the needs of people and they miss a lot of potential by adressing the lower classes and frustrated. So, my suggestion to those 3 types were:

      • Social democrats, you have to refocus on the injustice between work and capital and recalibrate your definition of wealth
      • Lefts, you have to learn more about the economy, leave the wokeness topics to others and adress the lower classes in a more populistic way
      • Greens, you have to face the reality that a race where the fastest wins and takes all, will not become more just, by adjusting the start positions, especially when the real killings are made by big betters that don't even participate in the race

      At least part of the Lefts seem to reorganise as a central figure of the party is said to may start her own party that does exactly as what I and you propose for it. However, this was looming for a long time and I think she will chicken out.

    • I fully agree. 60% of AfD voters say they are voting out of protest. It's a time of massive voter transition, and the left is just busy with minority politics, instead of giving these protest voters a new home. It's fucking annoying.

      You can make politics for minorities once you are (strongly) in the Parliament, but you can't win an election based on these topics.

180 comments