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Is Italy’s Next Prime Minister, Giorgia Meloni, A ‘Fascist’? Hardly
The Federalist ^
| 09/27/2022
| David Harsanyi
Posted on 09/27/2022 12:13:02 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
The Italian right is illiberal within the normal illiberal standards of modern Europe.
Giorgia Meloni, as you’ve doubtlessly heard, is the “far-right” next prime minister of Italy. So says virtually every news outlet in the United States. And anyone familiar with the left’s perfunctory use of “ultra-conservative,” “far-right,” “hard-right,” or “semi-fascist” to describe those who take positions to the right of the Democratic Party’s latest platform, should be skeptical.
Then again, trying to decipher European elections through the prism of American politics is a frustrating endeavor. But here is a cataloging, as best as I can pull together, of the claims used to portray Meloni as fascist:
Meloni “bemoans” the chronically low birthrate in Italy and wants to implement pronatalist policies. Now, I think the prospect of technocratic policy curing low birthrates is dubious, but if incentivizing social behavior is now a fascistic endeavor, what does that say about the left’s agenda?
Meloni defends Europe’s “Christian identity.” The American left acts like the mere mention of “Christian” is xenophobic and fascistic. People get furious when this atheist points out that nearly every Christian-majority nation in the world can boast of democratic institutions and high levels of freedom—with a few exceptions of a few places like Russia—while most non-Christian-majority nations can’t. There are thorny ideological and historical reasons for this reality, but reality it is. When Europe embraces a competing faith—be it secular universalism, multiculturalism, communism, fascism—things tend to go poorly.
Meloni opposes gay marriage, which isn’t legally recognized in Italy. (Nor is gay adoption.) Instead, there are same-sex civil unions, which offer gay couples nearly the same legal protections as marriage—laws that Meloni does not propose overturning. Recall that most Democrats, including Barack Obama, held the same position on the matter until 2012. Wrong or right, I don’t recall reporters referring to it as fascistic, or ideologically “far-right wing.” Did the definition of “fascist” change in the past decade?
Meloni opposes abortion and euthanasia. Every story mentions the protection of life as an evident sign of democratic backsliding. It took some digging to ferret out the official right-wing coalition’s position. Outside nebulous language about life, Meloni promises to fund “alternatives to abortion.” Using state power to shut down pregnancy centers (and looking the other way when political terrorists firebomb them) is quite fascisty. Offering pregnant women the means to keep their babies, not so much.
Meloni opposes illegal immigration.
Meloni is a moderate Eurosceptic. (She is also pro-NATO, and supports the West’s military backing of Ukraine and closer relations with Taiwan.)
Meloni is a critic of “wokeness” and the idea of malleable gender identity, the position of basically the entire world until a few minutes ago.
Unlike the Tories of Britain or Likud in Israel, contends The Washington Post, Meloni is a “norm-wrecker.” Anyone who spends five minutes studying postwar Italian governance will probably tell you the country could use some norm-breaking.
Meloni’s party uses a tricolor flame logo that “harks back to an earlier, more extreme political movement formed shortly after Mussolini’s death,” the Post notes. Numerous outlets inform us that the populist right-center coalition, including a party led by former prime minister Silvio Berlusconi, has its “roots” in Italy’s postwar fascist movements. In and of itself, this is meaningless. It’s like saying Democrats have their “roots” in preserving slavery and segregation. Meloni has denounced fascism, contending Italy had “handed fascism over to history for decades now.” The National Alliance shed its fascistic views long ago. In the 2000s, its leader Gianfranco Fini visited Yad Vashem in Israel and called Mussolini’s regime “absolute evil.” Maybe it was all just a decades-long ruse to gain power, but it’s a context worth noting. Many did not.
Meloni refused to vaccinate her daughter, arguing that the probability of someone aged 0–19 dying from Covid-19 is the same as being struck and killed by lightning. (To be fair, it’s probably lower.)
Meloni is, believe it or not, also a fan of Tolkien, and even attended a “Hobbit Camp” in 1993, when she was 16. In Italy, The New York Times explains in a 1,500-word deep dive, “The Lord of the Rings” has “for a half-century been a central pillar upon which descendants of post-Fascism reconstructed a hard-right identity” for people “looking to a traditionalist mythic age for symbols, heroes and creation myths free of Fascist taboos.” Really, a central pillar? I’m not a scholar in Italian politics, but this seems unlikely.
Meloni has defended Viktor Orban, “the orchestrator of Hungary’s autocratic turn.”
Who knows? Perhaps tomorrow Meloni will have the trains running on time and embrace a corporatist economic system like so many “liberal” Eurozone nations. I’m a minarchist at heart, so everyone looks like a fascist to me. More likely, though, the Italian right will be illiberal within the normal illiberal standards of modern Europe. It will be no more illiberal than “democratic” socialist parties, and no less authoritarian than the present German government, which regularly sends police to break down the doors and arrest citizens for saying stupid things on the internet. The difference is that like Orban, the Italian right promises to use state power to blunt the European left’s agendas on social policy and immigration, rather than use state power to enforce them. And that will be enough reason to call them “fascists.”
David Harsanyi is a senior editor at The Federalist. Harsanyi is a nationally syndicated columnist and author of five books—the most recent, Eurotrash: Why America Must Reject the Failed Ideas of a Dying Continent. His work has appeared in National Review, the Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, Reason, New York Post, and numerous other publications..
TOPICS: Culture/Society; Foreign Affairs; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: bloggers; europeanunion; fakenews; fascist; giorgiameloni; italy; meloni; nato; rightwing; searchandfind; searchworks
To: SeekAndFind
And our MSM goes along with the LIES...... HOW SICK THEY ARE!!
And people listen to them!!
To: SeekAndFind
“Meloni opposes illegal immigration.
Meloni is a moderate Eurosceptic. (She is also pro-NATO, and supports the West’s military backing of Ukraine and closer relations with Taiwan.)
Meloni is a critic of “wokeness” and the idea of malleable gender identity, the position of basically the entire world until a few minutes ago.”
Sounds good.
3
posted on
09/27/2022 12:18:50 PM PDT
by
ansel12
(NATO warrior under Reagan, and RA under Nixon, bemoaning the pro-Russians from Vietnam to Ukraine.)
To: SeekAndFind
I doubt many under 40, and anyone under 30 even knows who
Mussolini was, let alone what made him a Fascist. In walks
the Communists and of course anyone with their head glued on
straight, has to be termed a Fascist. Why they’re the next
Mussolini. (Mussolini who?)
The absurdity of the Communists in the U. S. is so glaring,
that by accusing Conservatives of being Fascists, they are
saying our Founding Fathers were Fascists. That is so
patently absurd it defies any glimmer of sound logic.
Washington refused more terms in office, because he didn’t
want to be seen as a king, or have control of power for a
longer period than he deemed healthy.
Fascist? LMAO The absurdity is grade A prime.
4
posted on
09/27/2022 12:22:17 PM PDT
by
DoughtyOne
(I pledge allegiance the flag of the U S of A, and to the REPUBLIC for which stands.)
To: DoughtyOne
If a modern Liberal Elitist (Rat, Progressive, Leftist, etc.) actually studies what Fascism is. He\she\Trans will see their own principles staring back at them!
Note that doesn’t mean Nazism! Which is really Hitlerism with a veneer of Fascism! Fascism is not necessarily antisemitic\racist!
It’s all radical utopianism!
5
posted on
09/27/2022 12:31:29 PM PDT
by
Reily
To: DoughtyOne
Exactly. I mean just look at how the Constitution was designed to limit the power FedGov. Does anyone think Fascists are fans of limited government? Was getting the government out of our lives one of Mussolini’s themes? Nope, the only people on Earth who like limited government are American conservatives. Yet we get called fascists by the government loving, liberty hating commies and their corporate aligned Rat party.
6
posted on
09/27/2022 12:38:58 PM PDT
by
Yardstick
Meloni’s party uses a tricolor flame logo that “harks back to an earlier, more extreme political movement formed shortly after Mussolini’s death,” the Post notes. Numerous outlets inform us that the populist right-center coalition, including a party led by former prime minister Silvio Berlusconi, has its “roots” in Italy’s postwar fascist movements. In and of itself, this is meaningless. It’s like saying Democrats have their “roots” in preserving slavery and segregation. Meloni has denounced fascism, contending Italy had “handed fascism over to history for decades now.” The National Alliance shed its fascistic views long ago. In the 2000s, its leader Gianfranco Fini visited Yad Vashem in Israel and called Mussolini’s regime “absolute evil.” Maybe it was all just a decades-long ruse to gain power, but it’s a context worth noting. Many did not. …
Leopards do not change their spots. Failing to listen to the Bible has always brought our greatest crises. Never mind the name “Italian
Social Movement”.
Even worse here, the author defends the Democratic Party, whose most horrible modern-day deprecations do indeed stem from their roots in preserving slavery and segregation—the latter of which has been accepted in a number of colleges and universities today.
7
posted on
09/27/2022 12:39:26 PM PDT
by
Olog-hai
("No Republican, no matter how liberal, is going to woo a Democratic vote." -- Ronald Reagan, 1960)
To: SeekAndFind
The German media was particularly virulent with their ‘fascist’ attacks.
8
posted on
09/27/2022 12:42:15 PM PDT
by
SpaceBar
To: Yardstick
That’s certainly how I see it. Exactly!
Thanks for the response.
9
posted on
09/27/2022 12:54:09 PM PDT
by
DoughtyOne
(I pledge allegiance the flag of the U S of A, and to the REPUBLIC for which stands.)
To: Reily
I believe the definition is that the government controls the
business environment, makes all the decisions. (some variant
of that)
In modern interpretation, there is a control issue, and it
can get pretty rigid involving government persecution.
I agree about racism. No, that was just Hitler being Hitler.
Of course his minions followed along too.
10
posted on
09/27/2022 12:56:35 PM PDT
by
DoughtyOne
(I pledge allegiance the flag of the U S of A, and to the REPUBLIC for which stands.)
To: DoughtyOne
And isn’t “the government control .. makes all decisions “ pretty much what Ratland and to some extent establishment Republicans want?
One could argue with considerable justification that we’ve been semi-Fascist in our economics since FDR days. The Rats are only now catching up in using Fascist authoritarianism on the normal every day life & the culture.
11
posted on
09/27/2022 1:05:03 PM PDT
by
Reily
To: Reily
Yeah, I believe you’re on the right track classification
wise.
12
posted on
09/27/2022 1:12:50 PM PDT
by
DoughtyOne
(I pledge allegiance the flag of the U S of A, and to the REPUBLIC for which stands.)
To: SeekAndFind
She is not a fascist. She is not a Nazi. She is not another Mussolini.
13
posted on
09/27/2022 2:07:17 PM PDT
by
Rummyfan
(In any war between the civilized man and the savage, support the civilized man. )
To: SeekAndFind
Is Italy’s Next Prime Minister, Giorgia Meloni, A ‘Fascist’?Of course she is. That's exactly what all fascists look like. You can't trust them:
14
posted on
09/27/2022 2:07:17 PM PDT
by
gw-ington
(My Preferred Pronouns: senile, sleepy, puppet, laughing, hyena, stolen, election.)
To: SeekAndFind
Anyone not a globalist is called a "Fascist".
"Democracy" means the will of the unelected moneyed elite.
15
posted on
09/27/2022 2:40:24 PM PDT
by
Salman
(It's not a slippery slope if it was part of the program all along. )
To: Salman
16
posted on
09/27/2022 3:02:10 PM PDT
by
Vaduz
( )
To: SeekAndFind
The article overlooks a few claims that give me pause: for example, in the past, she reportedly made statements praising Mussolini.
(I use the word “reportedly” because I’m not fluent in Italian, so I’m relying on what English-speaking writers are claiming.)
She was younger then, and maybe her opinion has changed. But, I’m not jumping on the bandwagon for her until I see what she does.
To: DoughtyOne
Fascists are socialists.
Nazis are socialists (name derives from National socialism).
They were called ‘right’ because they were to the right of the Communists, although still far to the left from us conservatives. Ultimately Communism and socialism devolve into a totalitarian regime with no freedoms.
Biden’s government falls into the fascist category, and that makes Biden’s comments on Meloni so ridiculous, accusing her of what he himself is.
To: Toughluck_freeper
I wouldn’t argue with that. That’s the way I see them also.
I believe that Biden and company are downright full blown
Communists. They grasp nothing about economics, except
how to kill it.
I do agree with the Fascist label as well, but I want folks
to know this guy is a full blown disciple of the ideology
of those who destroy to gain control.
We can think 1917 and the 1930s. This is how Hitler came
to be. PC wokeism isn’t something new. It’s been around
before, and it was pretty dang evil last time.
This time most folks were doing pretty good, when Biden
came in to work his magic. More is being destroyed now.
Biden’s a collectivist, as is Obama, and Soros > IMO.
We can add 90% of Congress to that list.
19
posted on
09/30/2022 3:26:03 PM PDT
by
DoughtyOne
(I pledge allegiance the flag of the U S of A, and to the REPUBLIC for which stands.)
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