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Home » The election of Italy’s “far-right” Giorgia Meloni: the EU “has tools”

The election of Italy’s “far-right” Giorgia Meloni: the EU “has tools”

The New Neo Posted on by

The EU was none too pleased at the prospect of the election of Giorgia Meloni of Italy:

As Italians prepare[d] to vote in [Sunday’s] general election, the European Union has issued a warning – making clear that it stands ready to act.

Giorgia Meloni, leader of the Brothers of Italy party, is widely expected to become prime minister at the head of a right-wing coalition. At an event in Princeton University, Ursula Von der Leyen, the EU president, said she is watching. ‘If things go in a difficult direction, I’ve spoken about Hungary and Poland, we have tools,’ she said.

So the unelected Ms Von der Leyen is talking about what she might do if confronted by Meloni being elected and getting ‘difficult’. The ‘tools’ she refers to are those used to withhold funds from Hungary and Poland for alleged violations of what the European Court of Justice has termed the EU’s ‘common values such as the rule of law and solidarity’, mainly in respect of the judiciary and media. That an unelected EU Commission should punish democratically elected governments in Hungary and Poland for failing to uphold common values is extraordinary – that it should threaten to do so in Italy if Meloni is elected and does not behave is outrageous.

Such [behavior] by the EU is hardly surprising. It reflects the default view of the Euro Establishment on Meloni – the ‘heir to Mussolini’ – which lazily brands her ‘far-right’ or ‘post-fascist’. She is neither, for reasons I explain at length…Her victory would be a triumph not for dictatorship but democracy. That is to say, if she wins, she will be Italy’s first elected prime minister for 14 years after six unelected prime ministers in a row. And she will be the first-ever woman to hold the post. That, surely, is something to be welcomed in a country often called the ‘beating heart of Europe’?

It’s that third paragraph where I believe the author goes wrong. There is absolutely nothing “lazy” about the EU branding Meloni as “far-right” or “post-fascist.” It is a familiar line of attack for anyone to the right of Macron, anyone who opposes the EU, anyone who isn’t for unlimited immigration (illegal or legal), anyone who appeals to what one might think of as nationalism, which is a dirty dirty word to the EU. After all, the EU exists to transcend nationalism and its supposedly pernicious effects.

The American left is similarly unlazy or perhaps even the opposite of lazy – relentless and Ahab-like – in its pursuit of someone like Trump, who is Hitler or worse than Hitler and not just proto- or post-fascist.

And of course the election to high office of a woman who is not on the left – just like a black person or woman in this country who is not on the left – is not to be applauded by the left. A black person or woman on the right is by definition a traitor to that person’s race or sex, according to the left, and deserves the loss of the favored status and praise that such a person would otherwise enjoy at the hands of the left.

This is elementary and basic stuff.

More:

Meloni identifies as a conservative and takes inspiration, not from Benito Mussolini, but from old-fashioned English conservatives such as Sir Roger Scruton and JRR Tolkien, as I discussed at length in my interview with her.

As, but remember what happened to Scuton not too long before he died?

The Spectator essay goes on to add that Von der Leyen has pulled back from her earlier comment about tools and said that the EU would “work with any government.” But I would bet that she is still looking for a way to undermine Meloni as best she and the EU can, if anything Meloni does threatens the EU and Italy’s membership in it.

As for coverage of the Italian election, Googling Meloni’s name yielded a series of articles, the titles of which I reproduce here, along with short excerpts:

From CNN, “Giorgia Meloni claims victory to become Italy’s most far-right prime minister since Mussolini.”

Brothers of Italy leader Giorgia Meloni has claimed victory in a general election that seems set to install her as Italy’s first female prime minister, leading the most far-right government since the fascist era of Benito Mussolini…

Preliminary results put an alliance of far-right parties, led by Meloni’s ultraconservative Brothers of Italy party, on track to win at least 44% of the vote, according to the Italian Interior Ministry.

From Politico, “Italy on track to elect most right-wing government since Mussolini”:

Italians voted on Sunday in an election that analysts predicted would usher in the far-right firebrand Meloni — leader of the Brothers of Italy party — as the country’s first female prime minister.

From the Financial Times, “Giorgia Meloni’s rightwing bloc storms to Italian election victory”:

A coalition led by Giorgia Meloni’s arch-conservative Brothers of Italy has won a decisive victory in Italy’s snap election, putting it in position to form the country’s first government led by the far-right since the second world war.

From The New York Times, “Giorgia Meloni Wins Voting in Italy, in Breakthrough for Europe’s Hard Right.”

From the BBC, “Giorgia Meloni: Italy’s far right on course to win election.”

And CBS News says that Meloni’s party is “far-right” and “neo-fascist” as well as “reminiscent” of Mussolini’s party.

I don’t see a lot of “center-right” descriptions there. And although it may indeed be factually true that Meloni’s government will be the most right-wing since Mussolini (I’m not sure, since I’m not especially conversant with Italian politics of the last 100 years), it’s a misleading statement with the purpose of linking Meloni with a man widely perceived as a villain. As with Hitler, there are valid arguments that Mussolini was only on the right as regards nationalism and was on the left otherwise (in fact, he began as a socialist, and aimed for big government rather than small). It is her nationalism that Meloni shares with Mussolini, which is hardly enough to make her any sort of fascist at all.

Comments

The election of Italy’s “far-right” Giorgia Meloni: the EU “has tools” — 35 Comments

  1. It is certainly welcome news that the charming Meloni (fluent in English, having been interviewed by Maria Bartiromo on FoxBusiness last month, and more likely to read LOTR than Marx for Cats) will be Italy’s next leader, although her task will hardly be easy. Meanwhile, the response from the MSM has been even more unhinged than one might have anticipated; in response to Colorado’s Lauren Boebert expressing best wishes for a strong fighter against the “woke left”, MSNBC’s beloved so-called expert on “extremism” (NYU’s egregious Ruth Ben-Ghiat, author of “The Return of Fascism in Italy” at the worthless Atlantic) wrote on Twitter that “any fascist is a good fascist for Lauren”. Our media and our professoriate are, with all too few exceptions, disgracefully dishonest and delusional.

  2. As in the US, the label “fascist” means “anyone the leftists disagree with.” It has become a meaningless term.

    I wish Italy the best, and hope occasional commenter Paolo Pagliaro will pay a visit here.

  3. The fear is that she will be a conservative centrist who will follow the American model to compromise with domestic and foreign interests, thereby building a progressive potential and…well, we know how that is ultimately resolved. Good luck, Italianos and Italianas.

  4. Mussolini was a socialist before he developed his idea of fascism. The very name “fascist” (from Italian “fascio”, a bundle of sticks) shows its not the individual but the group binding it that has power. It’s sad that we have no responsible media that will contest the war of ideas being waged in the West. I despair for the lives of coming generations.

  5. I wish her well. So much to be done in Italy. Over the last 28 years, starboard government in Italy has had a disappointing history. I’m hoping that this time, they’ll deliver.

  7. Mussolini started his career as a Marxist-socialist at the same time as Lenin but approached it differently. Unlike Russia that had real classes, Italy had none so he tossed that.

    He also cleverly realized that businessmen would be better at running their businesses than government hacks so he left them in place and the made sure that the businessmen cooperated with the government so that there was “not the thickness of a piece of paper” between them. He called his economic system corporatism rather than socialism. It’s Elizabeth Warren’s preferred version of government.

    Stalin instituted the practice of calling anyone he disliked a fascist. I guess we can call all the lefties whom engage in the practice a Stalinist.

  9. Fascism and Socialism are two sides of an ideological triangle.

    “Mussolini was a socialist before he developed his idea of fascism.” Alan Corbo

    “what is fascism?” Fascism is private ownership, private enterprise, but total government control and regulation. Well, isn’t this the liberal philosophy?” Ronald Reagan in a 1975 interview with Mike Wallace

    Socialism accepts private ownership and private enterprise. It insists that governments control and regulate it. Only differing from fascism with the degree of control and regulation it requires at any given moment.

    Vladimir Lenin rightly observed that, “the goal of socialism is communism.”

    This is because socialism is unsustainable without ever increasing degrees of coercion because socialism consists of propositions that are in direct opposition to fundamental aspects of human nature and to key operative principles that govern the external reality within which we all exist.

    Thus, the third side of the ideological triangle that composes socialism and fascism is communism. Since they are all ideologically interlinked, it’s not surprising that those who support that ideological triangle, unable to defend it with fact, logic and reason… dishonestly accuse those who reject their ideology of what they are guilty.

    Socialism neccessarily evolves into Fascism, which in turn evolves into Communism.

  10. The Left has shoved the Overton Window so far, well, left, that JFK would be described as a ‘far right nationalist’ today.

    He was anti-Communist, pro-gun rights, and lowered taxes massively. Everyone blames LBJ, but it was JFK who really got us sucked into Vietnam when he okayed Diem’s ouster. Oh, and he was Catholic, too.

  13. The dark night of Trumpism is always descending in the United States, and yet lands occasionally in Europe.

  14. That sounds very scary coming from a German. But it’s hard to think somebody from any country could talk that way without there being resentment, rebellion, and blowback.

    It’s strange that the things that everybody thought and said not so long ago are now considered to be fascist or semi-fascist or far right. The way to keep “fascists” out of power is to take borders, and immigration, and trade, and deindustrialization seriously, just like the way to keep communists out is to make sure that people aren’t dying of hunger in the streets, but people lose sight of things like that.

    It’s also strange that the laissez-faire talk that people in the states used to consider right-wing here isn’t part of the picture any more. Similarly, things like censorship, thought control, political persecution, militarism, and corporate power are now allowed and encouraged as part of the battle against the new “extreme right.”

  15. Hobbits were popular with the Italian “Far Right” in the early days of the Internet, and even earlier, going back to the 1970s. I don’t quite understand why, but for Italian politicians at this point, hobbits aren’t just furry little creatures you want to be talking about.

  16. Being “right wing” just means you’re pro-common sense. Pro-families, pro-national sovereignty, pro-civilization. Don’t want to see your civilization washed away? Welcome to the right.

  19. I want to point out another couple of points in the Spectator post Neo cited:

    The Italian media, which is mostly left-leaning, usually call both Meloni, her party and her coalition centrodestra rather than ‘destra’, a word which the Italians apply to actual extremists. That ought to make the outside world think twice before describing Meloni as the heir to Mussolini. That’s not to say the Italian media is well-disposed to her – most of them are not. They are just forced to be more accurate, given that their readers can see and hear every day what Meloni and Brothers of Italy are doing and saying. Italians know through experience who is and is not a fascist.

    The author also notes that the flag the Left is condemning is actually a symbol of her party’s evolution away from fascism.

    ‘When you meddle with the democracy of a member state, you damage the credibility of the Commission,’ said Meloni. ‘I advise prudence.’

    Von der Leyen would do well to heed Meloni’s advice and moderate her language: Italians have had enough of being run by unelected EU-friendly technocrats like Mario Draghi and are about to elect their first-ever woman leader. Such wanton acts of democracy may go down badly in Brussels, but Von der Leyen had best get used to it. There will be more to come.

  20. Not the Bee is getting to be just as reliable as the … ah, mainstream … right-wing media, and much pithier.

    https://notthebee.com/article/italy-has-elected-a-new-right-wing-prime-minister-and-the-left-wants-you-to-think-shes-the-second-coming-of-mussolini-check-out-the-far-right-extremism-in-this-speech-and-see-how-shes-a-norma

    Let’s see… she’s pro-family, anti-LGBT indoctrination, pro-life, country over globalism, and she quotes Chesterton.

    That’s not Mussolini 2.0. That’s what every Western leader believed until 5 minutes ago.

    Now, I am not endorsing everything Meloni has ever done and said. Frankly, I don’t know much about her apart from what I’ve seen the last couple days. But if THIS is the kind of stuff the Left is worried about, I wish it would come here.
    …
    Methinks the Left is actually the extreme one but calls all us normies “radicals.”

    They are freaking out because Meloni will be a strong leader with actual convictions she’s willing to stand behind… and those convictions oppose their own cult.

    There’s nothing more frightening to the Left.

  22. “You cannot get rid of me because I am and always will be a socialist.” — Mussolini

    He never saw his political views as contradictory to his views on the important essence of socialism.

    People get confused (want to be confused) because different groups advocating socialism/authoritarianism/totalitarianism were competing with each other for power and dominance in Europe.

    The real divide is big, powerful government on the left and liberty on the right. Fascists are no more on the right than Mensheviks were. Mensheviks competed with Bolsheviks for control of Russian communism. Their competition with Lenin and Stalin and Trotsky didn’t magically transform their ideology into one promoting liberty.

  23. You have to marvel at the power of propaganda. Someone like Obama can be an ardent lover of communism and communists throughout his life, have in his past identified himself as a Marxist radical working for revolution, and tied his career and fortune to communist radicals, yet none of it is considered relevant to his fitness for office.

    But anyone who ever agreed on any topic with someone who once ever spoke approvingly of anything that could be linked by six degrees of Kevin Bacon to fascism is forever stained by the association and unsuited for office. Or even polite company.

  24. You have to marvel at the power of propaganda. Someone like Obama can be an ardent lover of communism and communists throughout his life, have in his past identified himself as a Marxist radical working for revolution, and tied his career and fortune to communist radicals, yet none of it is considered relevant to his fitness for office.

    He wasn’t any of these things.

  25. One of the better jokes about Europolitics is:
    Put three Frenchmen in a room. They will promptly found four political parties.

    I gather that applies double to Italians.

  26. }}} You have to marvel at the power of propaganda. Someone like Obama can be an ardent lover of communism and communists throughout his life, have in his past identified himself as a Marxist radical working for revolution, and tied his career and fortune to communist radicals, yet none of it is considered relevant to his fitness for office.

    He wasn’t any of these things.

    Substitute “marxism” for “communism” and it is accurate.

    His mother was a committed socialist and marxist, as were her parents, who were also a large part of his upbringing.

    One of Obama’s prime mentors was Bill Ayers, who is unquestionably a marxist radical.

    Another, Jeremiah Wright, has praised socialism and Marxism.

    So, no, it is an accurate statement except for the conflation of communism with the “larger” inclusive appellation, “Marxism”.

  27. Hello Kate and all the fine American friends here, I couldn’t disappoint you. 🙂

    We are quite happy for the result and amused by the hysterical reaction of the usual media. I never saw a pummeling of the left like that in my whole life: ALL regions voted for the center-right (aka ultra-post-fascist) coalition, even the most reliably red like Emilia-Romagna or Toscana; the only exception is Campania (the very poor and unstable region of Naples and Pompei) where the winner was the Movimento 5-Stelle with its absurd promises of a citizenship salary for all(!)

    Nobody believes in a fascist danger, in fact we are cracking jokes about this farce all day long in office and at home. Meloni is a good, common sense, very determinate woman; she was a fascist sympathizer in her youth, but you have to know her Italian background to understand what that means – now she’s a conservative with traditional values, faithful to the Nato and hoping for a different Europe.
    Some leftist colleagues of mine told me that this trite accusation of Fascism has backfired badly, and they are right because everybody knows she’s not an extremist; in my opinion, she’s an old style statist conservative (like most Italians of any color), which is her true limit, but she’s really a good person.

    Now let’s see what the new government is capable of; for sure they have the support of the majority of the nation, and with 12.3 millions of votes against 7, a strong majority in both the Senato and the Camera. The lockdown, new-order era is over, for the moment – for sure the European left is going to react, but the sentiment of rebellion against the smug Politically Correctness is rising everywhere.
    Btw, I’ve planned to visit Hungary and Budapest for the first time with my wife, at the end of October: let’s bravely travel into another country “plunged in the darkness of fascism”. Ah ah ah

    God bless all of you!

  29. Wow! Fabulous!!
    Thanks Paolo…and good luck to your country and its powerful step toward freedom.
    (To be sure, and this is no surprise, Italy can be expected to be targeted REMORSELESSLY by the usual suspects. The LEFT doesn’t like to lose… One hopes the country can pull together to resist the EU/Leftist tyranny…)
    And Budapest can be a lot of fun…especially if you like spas…(and good wine, and marvelous pastries…of course, there’s more to it than that—archeology, food—it’s actually three cities in one). There are also two opera houses….

  32. A few more things to ponder….
    ‘ Italy’s Right-Wing Victory: Shock and Rage Across European Political Class, Mainstream Media;
    ‘Germany’s state-run DW News: “Italy’s shift to the right is dangerous for EU.” ‘—
    https://legalinsurrection.com/2022/09/italys-right-wing-victory-shock-and-rage-across-european-political-class-mainstream-media/
    It’s pretty disgusting (in a juvenile way)—or rather humorous—depending on your perspective, of course…as mentioned in previous comments…

    (Also of interest are the threats and implied threats(!) from outraged parties and individuals…however one assessment seems to be entirely wrongheaded: that with this election, ‘The Italian people have given the EU a “lesson in humility”…’…since I’m most doubtful that “humility” is in the EU’s vocabulary, as it were….)

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