Italy to get first fascist Prime Minister since Mussolini

[MCMLXXXII]

ROME — Italy doesn’t feel like a country that’s about to swing to the far right.

Two-thirds of Italians say they’re optimistic about the future of the European Union, whose stimulus helped buoy the country — and boost the image of the bloc — after the pandemic’s economic shock. What’s more, the country has been led for the last year and a half by economist Mario Draghi, a paragon of centrist stability who continues to earn high approval ratings.

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But if the national elections on Sunday go as expected, Draghi’s successor as prime minister will be Giorgia Meloni, a firebrand from the Fratelli d’Italia (Brothers of Italy) party who wants her country to push for more autonomy in Europe, blockade the Mediterranean against undocumented immigrants and defend a traditional family identity she says is under attack.

A far-right politician is poised to become Italy’s first female leader

Crucially, in a country rebuilt after the ruins of war and fascism, Meloni would be the first Italian leader from a party with a post-fascist lineage — as well as a tricolor flame logo that harks back to an earlier, more extreme political movement formed shortly after Mussolini’s death. She would take power 100 years after the March on Rome, the death knell for Italian democracy before World War II.

Here are the factors — historical, contemporary and structural — that have made such a scenario possible.

Ping-pong politics

Instability is at the heart of Italian politics, and incongruous zigzags are a feature of the system, not a bug. Since the end of World War II, Italy has cycled through governments every 400 days or so. Careers rise and crash at super-speed. Voters coalesce around parties and then drop them. To the extent that there’s any recent constant, it’s that 40 to 50 percent of voters tend to favor the right. And Meloni, in recent years, has pulled votes away from competing parties — in part because Fratelli d’Italia has remained in opposition.

[Ripster42]

I'm sure italy never had anything like this happen. Nope, nothing like that. No history of that happening at all.

[Kaleredar]

I'm sure italy never had anything like this happen. Nope, nothing like that. No history of that happening at all.

Hmmm, yet another case of "Russia knows that promoting right-wing leadership in adversarial nations makes them more insular, less stable, and overall weakens them?"

[PC2]

It's time to Make Italy Great Again with their first female Prime Minister! #MIGA

European right wing leaders are post-fascist though so they aren't going to convert their countries into non-democratic dictatorships. Like the OP said this is just "ping-pong politics".

Also apparently this Italian lady is really into the Hobbit/LOTR which is cool.

[MCMLXXXII]

It's time to Make Italy Great Again with their first female prime minister! #MIGA

European right wing leaders are post-fascist though so they aren't going to convert their countries into non-democratic dictatorships. Like the OP said this is just "ping-pong politics".

Also apparently this lady is really into the Hobbit/LOTR which is cool.

Sigh. You should read up where the Fratelli d'Italia came from. It originated from the Movimento Sociale Italiano, a party formed in Mussolini's fascist Salo Republic. There is nothing great about her being elected Prime Minister.
It's like someone in Germany saying in 1946, that NSDAP was a decent party, let's continue and then delivers the chancellor in 2022

[Ivanstone]

It's time to Make Italy Great Again with their first female Prime Minister! #MIGA

European right wing leaders are post-fascist though so they aren't going to convert their countries into non-democratic dictatorships. Like the OP said this is just "ping-pong politics".

Also apparently this Italian lady is really into the Hobbit/LOTR which is cool.

Please tell us when Italy was great. Was it when the trains ran on time?

Hungary would like a word with you.

She probably identifies with Sauron.

[Polyxo]

Please tell us when Italy was great. Was it when the trains ran on time?

Hungary would like a word with you.

She probably identifies with Sauron.

when the moon hit the sky like a big pizza pie ofc

[Cynical Asshole]

It's like 1939 again but with some roles shuffled around. Russia = Nazi Germany, China = Japan, Italy as itself again, and Ukraine = Poland.

[Evil Midnight Bomber]

It's like 1939 again but with some roles shuffled around. Russia = Nazi Germany, China = Japan, Italy as itself again, and Ukraine = Poland.

No need to recast. Italy totally nailed it the first time.

[jonnysensible]

probably not enough to change the constitution and get rid of institutional antifascism laws or make a real presidential system but enough to fuck around with barriers to abortion laws and still do alot of damage. I give it 18 months till Salvani collapses the gov. because of economic control.

[zorkuus]

Good. Let's stop giving EU money to them. Ultra conservatives are against handouts anyway... right?

[Kaleredar]

It's like 1939 again but with some roles shuffled around. Russia = Nazi Germany, China = Japan, Italy as itself again, and Ukraine = Poland.

Thankfully Russia is far less competent than Nazi Germany, China is nowhere near as bloodthirsty as imperial Japan, Italy is largely irrelevant, and people learned their lesson with WW2 and are ensuring that Ukraine does not share Poland's fate.

[Nymrohd]

Meh let's see if she can last for more than two budgets.

[Evil Midnight Bomber]

Good. Let's stop giving EU money to them. Ultra conservatives are against handouts anyway... right?

They're against giving handouts.

They absolutely love getting them.

[Corvus]

Don't see it lasting long seeing whom she is allied with. At the very least she is pro-NATO and pro-Ukraine so it isn't the total disaster it might otherwise have been.

[Lenonis]

Am I the only one who finds the concept of a female hard right wing leader as kind of a contradiction?

Isn't part of the whole hard right wing "traditional family" schtick that women shouldn't have careers but rather raise their kids at home? Ergo, isn't her running for office inherently contradictory to her beliefs?

Or is that part of the "traditional family" just a US thing?

[MCMLXXXII]

Am I the only one who finds the concept of a female hard right wing leader as kind of a contradiction?

Isn't part of the whole hard right wing "traditional family" schtick that women shouldn't have careers but rather raise their kids at home? Ergo, isn't her running for office inherently contradictory to her beliefs?

Or is that part of the "traditional family" just a US thing?

Come on, we're European and enlightened, stronk wymyn also have the right to be a fascist leader.

[Kralljin]

Am I the only one who finds the concept of a female hard right wing leader as kind of a contradiction?

Eh, sort of.

Usually when conservatives go down that route, they usually argue that they're not specifically for women to be solely homemakers but that the role of homemaker is often treated by feminists / the left as a degrading role as opposed to an "actual career".

In their eyes, women who choose to be a homemaker are being looked down upon by progressives / feminists and they seek to restore a parity.
Frankly, women among right wingers / ultra conservatives aren't that uncommon anymore, while certainly not the majority, they have started to play a bigger role on the right wing.

[Milchshake]

HAte to see it. But it's a harsh reminder of the gap between a romanticized view of Europe versus the actual electorate.



Do multiparty elections make it easier for reactionary parties to get in power?
Same problems in the US. Opinions polls about individual policies, are totally divorced from the electorate's understanding of party relationship to those policies.

[Paranoid Android]

Hillary praising neofascist Meloni: “The election of the first woman prime minister in a country always represents a break with the past, and that is certainly a good thing,”

Umm? Mixing some Mmmerican politics in here, but I don't know if Hillary thinks this is a step to progressivism and feminism.