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.
Ahhh fascism. Is this 1923 or 2023? Fucking people
People freely choose to vote fascists to power, and then wonder why their country has turned into hell.
:(
If fascist are put into power trough Democratic means then the people get the fascist government they deserve. Turkey had to chance to get rid of Erdog yet they overwhelmingly re-elected him.
But when voting happens in a society that is misinformed, usually maliciously so, like in Turkey, it is not democratic, democracy works and is true to itself only when a vote is informed.
Turkey is a big examples of that, but this extends to many countries as well, it’s usually the uneducated and historically illiterate that fall for fascism
In Nazi Germany it was the wealthy that voted him in. The establishment feared the left and colluded with Hitler.
Usually fascism stems from the bourgeoisie, not the lower class. But through disinformation from the class that controls information it manages to get promoted from the lower class too.
The caste at the topmost of India’s super-shitty caste pyramid (who are very good at playing victim while actually victimizing everyone else) created the Hindu supremacy ideology and the wealthiest merchant communities and corporates have funded it and dispersed it via their in-home mainstream media.
India too, Hindu supremacist and fascist Modi’s 2nd term is almost up and the country is down the shitter.
They don’t wonder, they blame immigrants. See Brexit.
In India, they blame religious minorities (Muslims & Christians) and the oppressed castes (Dalits, Adivasis (Adi = first, vasi = resident, Adivasis are India’s indigenous tribals), & Bahujan)
The educated middle-class & upper-middle class who are mostly upper-caste take the lead in this villification.
:(
“So are you vegetarian by birth or by choice?”
Is a question I’ve heard that Indian engineers hear a lot in big US tech companies that hire a lot of H1B engineers. I’m not from India myself, but even I can see where that’s going.
That’s such a “What caste are you?” sneak question. Usually they are more direct and ask “So, what’s your full name” and persist in trying to know the newcomer’s lastname/ surname. Because the surname/ lastname is a caste marker.
Another trick men from the upper/ oppressor caste do is to casually & in a friendly manner put their arm across the new colleague’s/ classmate’s shoulders to sneakily check whether they’re wearing the Brahmin-caste thread. Or they invite the new guy over for a swim, to visually confirm presence of the Brahmin caste marker.
Babasaheb Ambedkar (Dr. Bhimrao Ambedkar who is called Babasaheb with love & respect) had visualized this situation. He had written that if Brahmanism (Hinduism) goes abroad, casteism would become global problem.
The UK Primi Minister Rishi Sunak’s mother-in-law, Sudha Murthy, is openly & proudly casteist proclaimig that when she travels abroad she carries her own spoon, because she doesn’t want to use cutlery that could previously have been used by a non-vegetarian/ meat-eater.
My ex-gf was Indian and she got rid of her surname legally because she hated the caste system so much. And she was from the upper castes.
Why would US companies care about caste? Or does that question only come up because of Indian hiring managers/HR people?
It’s other Indians at work deciding if you should be kept or stabbed in the back.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Populism
Populism refers to a range of political stances that emphasize the idea of “the people” and often juxtapose this group against “the elite”.
This has been a prime weapon in politics lately.
The approach is a bit more mixed in India.
Populism is used in India to turn Hindu supremacists against educated Hindus who oppose Hindu supremacism. The rest of the hatred is fuelled by religious extremism under the guise of nationalism/ patriotism and ever famous “Hindus are in danger” (in a land where 85% of 1.4 Billion people are Hindus and where Hindus hold all the power) to turn them against religious minorities.
To turn people against those from oppressed castes who oppose Hindu supremacism is easier since caste-oppression is ingrained in India. No action gets taken against those who inflict any kind of violence or dehumanization or violence against oppressed castes. Only when any videos of such an atrocity become viral, is there any lip-service about ‘punishing the guilty’.
They’re not even fascists, they don’t believe one word they say. I’d have more respect if they did. They are adverting space plastered with what sells at the moment. Right now the root of all evil is the stranger, come (and you let him enter) to take your jobs (you didn’t want those anyway) and your women (hopefully, you’re too busy with soccer). Silly tricks for a population (I’m Italian, so I include myself) of idiots.
Well… Not that i voted for her nor will I ever… But trust me, the alternatives were garbage…
I stopped voting last 2 election because it was getting embarrassing…
All promises in campaign, then they internally fight over position and roles then make the government collapse and so on…
Nothing is stable, nothing gets done, every situation is just “something the previous government left and that we have to face” over and over again.We did not choose her…she was just the only one who didn’t yet have a go at it.
It’s stupid, not ideal, but the standard around her is just trash
What’s missing is what a huge difference the media makes. Once you control the media, you basically control the country, as can be seen in Hungary, Poland and Russia. All of these states have put in massive efforts to install their own cronies as media leadership, and you can see this happening in other countries too. Now it’s Italy.
Then on the other hand, you have billionaires that flood the people with cheap tabloid bullshit, of course to paralyze honest debates around things that actually matter (climate change, wealth inequality, etc) and instead refocus the populace on scape goats (LGBTQ rights, abortion, etc).
Far too often, „serious“ media fails to defend against the bullshit, and at some point will also report on these „issues“ as „this is what the country is talking about“. What they are ignoring is that this conversation is deliberately led by bad actors, and by picking it up they are legitimizing their positions.
Then they invite complete lunatics to discussion to provide a „balanced viewpoint“, when there is no balanced viewpoint to be had for certain issues: the earth is round, climate change is happening, and it is our fault. Period. There can be no further discussions on the facts.
The misinformation campaigns are massive, the astroturfing is massive, and is probably happening even here. It is too cheap and works too well to not do it.
The misinformation campaigns are massive, the astroturfing is massive, and is probably happening even here. It is too cheap and works too well to not do it.
Yes, the power of stories is incredible - and human’s likeliness to believe stories over facts, setting aside critical thinking over immediate feelings. Ref. Yuval Noah Harari.
Also:
“the earth is not round”
Flat. The earth is not flat.
I sincerely believe that the right wing populism in Europe is the inevitable backlash to Angela Merkel’s open door policy on immigration and “refuges” in the EU.
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!
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.
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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
Doesn’t look good in France as well. Macron doesn’t control the cops, and they are assaulting people freely.
France is already a police State. The gov is doing what the cops want without asking.
That up/downvote count though
Germany’s neo-nazi party AfD is polling scarily well too. All of EU is turning into an authoritan hellscape. My wife and I are seriously considering leaving.
I worry about the seemingly inevitable Le Pen presidency even more. I don’t feel safe at all in this country anymore.
Doing my best to move to Canada but I really don’t have the money.
Even then, Canada might be in a better spot atm, but even there the fascist parties are gaining in influence; nowhere is safe.Le Pen will not pass because of her past reputation and failures that no PR will erase, I’m more worried about the next generation she taught to look impeccable from the beginning, also worried about not being able to tell the difference between traditional right and far right anymore.
I mean, Macron is already doing some authoritarian shit, forcing unpopular laws on people, cops assaulting people, we’re currently sliding fast… but I’ll stay. I have the money, but I won’t leave the people here and I’ll try to do the best I can to stop this shit.
Italy sure does love fascism
If only it was Italy alone…
Tl;Dr ?
Religio-Fascists led by a megalomaniac took over India in 2014. People ignored their fascism and voted for religion :(
Italian here: she is not far right as our left it is not left. Meloni is the most pro immigration government in italy in decades. She open the border and we have a massive regular/irregular immigration. She simply lied to her voter base posing as anti immigration party. The far left and m5s were much more strict about new people entering the country. The left and the right in italy are pro capital and pro usa parties so we have mass immigration to lower wages. Both sides.
Italian here too: I agree. The number of work permits for foreigners has been almost x3 last next year and x5 next year. And I agree too concerning the fact that left parties here are pro-capital exactly like the right wing. The working class felt betrayed and switched to populist parties mostly no matter their political horizons. The democratic party has completely lost its “identity” and the popular party too after Berluscon’s death, extremists (far and right) are gaining more and more power.
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.
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”.
That’s a typical fascist strategy, blaming other parties.
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.)
Yes, it is. Well done for describing what’s happening. What do you think we should do about it, now we know it’s happening?
Don’t vote fascists into power?
That seems a little too late, they’re already in power.
Sure, I just tell the people voting for them not to do it. They‘ll certainly be understanding
I would like to see what Italians see and think, it is easy to have limited view from outside.
If someone has link where Italians discuss this issues, my deepl translate is ready.
Italian here. All politicians are fascists powertripping not just the ones who made it public. See Macron. Governments live behind a veil of lies and don’t get to show their true face unless needed, if there were serious protests in any “democratic” country in the world i can guarantee you that the reaction would be the same: they would unleash police on people and threat everyone.
I’m sorry but does that say to weaken anti-torture? Did I read that right?
Yes, Meloni and Salvini see anti-torture laws as an unnecessary obstacle to the work of police officers. Here is an article (in Italian).
very very big yikes
The world is changing, the golden decades of our parents’ post-war reality are over, the sun is setting once again on European soil.
I don’t know exactly what kinds of nightmares await us in the darkness, but I do know that the bloodlust of the European populace will not be sated easily.
Expect extraordinary efforts to subdue, abuse and eventually exterminate people once again. The European populace will not be a bastion of humanitarian ideology in the face of climate migration. It will instead declare war on them, and brutalize them.
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I’d disagree with your first statement, because there will always be ways for private comunication, especially here, because of how (at least technicly) educated people are here.
And also unlike in China, if something like that’d come now, people already have the resources to set up their own comunication systems.
Tldr: even with Gestapo officers everywhere protest and change would still be possible, hard but possible
I don’t speak italian, could you tell me what stuff the article covers?
Basically a reform of the Italian penal code that would delete the dedicated articles in penal code and leave only an aggravating circumstance
I’d say this swing to the hard right in Europe is partly the fault of the left. In many countries left wing parties were in power during the 80’s and 90’s. During their reign they failed to properly address the immigration and integration issues that came from the previous governments inviting lots of uneducated people over from North Africa and Turkey for cheap labor. People were already raising concerns that immigrants not integrating well could lead to problems. Yet the left would always put these people down as racists and then did nothing. Lo and behold thirty years later, 3rd gen immigrants from those countries lead the stats of unemployment, high school drop out and crime rates. Even if you correct those numbers for social economic backgrounds. Yes crime rates are overall falling but the crimes committed by these groups are very visible, like for example armed robberies, break-ins, blowing up ATMs, assault and even stabbings. Plus these immigrant youths who loiter all day and night make people feel unsafe in their own neighborhood since they often harass people and participate in vandalism. And the ranks of crime organizations are filled with these immigrants. It’s not really surprising that Europe is creeping to the right even the centrist liberal parties haven’t done enough to address those concerns, they probably made it even worse since all they cared about is the economy and the stock exchange and their tough on crime approach hardly did anything.
One of the biggest problems when it comes to integration is that those immigrants were massed into certain places, usually poor neighborhoods where they formed their own somewhat closed communities and didn’t intermingle with the local population. So the local population didn’t “have to” interact with them and vice versa. So, they didn’t learn the language as fast, didn’t form connections to get somewhere… those areas plummeted deeper into poverty… which radicalizes both sides.
It would’ve been better to sprinkle them among various areas so they could have taken part in the existing communities, they would’ve learned the language faster and prejudices would’ve dissolved faster.
Why didn’t that happen? People with more money and power didn’t want them among themselves. Classism, racism and also capitalism at work. Government can try to change those but it can take decades.
Yes that’s true. Especially in countries like France and Sweden where poor neighborhoods are entirely segregated from the rest of the city. But I live in the Netherlands where social housing works different. Affordable social housing is often mixed between middle class housing. Even in those mixed neighborhoods these problems are occurring. I think the biggest root of the problem is that the governments back in the days specifically looked for very very cheap labor in Morocco and Turkey and thus the immigrants that came over were uneducated and illiterate subsistence farmers from tiny backwaters and were religious conservatives. If they only invited educated urbanites with a college degree I think the problems Europe is having now with these immigrants wouldn’t have occurred to the same degree
The left fuck themselves by chatting a lot of shit people don’t care about.
The right are the only ones talking about reducing immigration so they are going to win.
If there was a party that was left economically and for the people in the country. Far right parties wouldn’t be winning.
a party that was left economically and for the people in the country.
like some sort of, Idonno, national socialists?
Far right parties wouldn’t be winning.
in case you still don’t get it - that would be far right parties winning
Immigrants aren’t your problem, it’s your racism that makes you easy to manipulate in to thinking they are.
That’s what’s tripping you up there. 🧐Racism doesn’t make crime go up, immigrants do (rape, murder and theft).
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Look at the share of immigrants in certain crimes. Same as Sweden, Germany, etc.
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