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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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[–] [email protected] 275 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Ahhh fascism. Is this 1923 or 2023? Fucking people

[–] [email protected] 175 points 1 year ago (8 children)

People freely choose to vote fascists to power, and then wonder why their country has turned into hell.

:(

[–] [email protected] 122 points 1 year ago (1 children)

They don't wonder, they blame immigrants. See Brexit.

[–] [email protected] 55 points 1 year ago (3 children)

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.

:(

[–] [email protected] 17 points 1 year ago (2 children)

"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.

[–] [email protected] 21 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

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.

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[–] [email protected] 15 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Why would US companies care about caste? Or does that question only come up because of Indian hiring managers/HR people?

[–] [email protected] 16 points 1 year ago

It's other Indians at work deciding if you should be kept or stabbed in the back.

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[–] [email protected] 48 points 1 year ago (2 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 59 points 1 year ago (3 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 18 points 1 year ago (8 children)

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

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[–] [email protected] 28 points 1 year ago (4 children)

History repeats itself… in 100 year cycles apparently.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 1 year ago (4 children)

In that case it's quite positive. We still have a decade until the world war

[–] [email protected] 17 points 1 year ago

Perfect! My kid would be just old enough to get drafted!

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[–] [email protected] 116 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 27 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 22 points 1 year ago

I can’t believe I mistyped that 🤦🏻‍♀️ you are right of course.

[–] [email protected] 99 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (7 children)

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 @[email protected] said, build networks, maybe we gonna need them soon!

[–] [email protected] 18 points 1 year ago

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

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[–] [email protected] 91 points 1 year ago

Religio-Fascists led by a megalomaniac took over India in 2014. People ignored their fascism and voted for religion :(

[–] [email protected] 41 points 1 year ago (4 children)

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?

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[–] [email protected] 37 points 1 year ago (3 children)

I'm sorry but does that say to weaken anti-torture? Did I read that right?

[–] [email protected] 36 points 1 year ago (3 children)

Yes, Meloni and Salvini see anti-torture laws as an unnecessary obstacle to the work of police officers. Here is an article (in Italian).

[–] [email protected] 17 points 1 year ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 21 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (13 children)

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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[–] [email protected] 21 points 1 year ago

I can’t even remember the last time Italy hit the news for a positive thing, we’re doing pretty well with this streak tbh

[–] [email protected] 20 points 1 year ago (8 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 22 points 1 year ago

Honestly I think the article is pretty fair, overall.

The biggest difference between having a massive right wing pseudo-fascist party in a government majority and that same party leading the majority is how little they feel the need to feign. Like now the right hand man of Meloni can totally bring up the craziest world conspiracy with no proof at all, say he didn't know it was a bad thing only to repeat the same things a week after.
The politicians just don't have to pretend anymore, and they're slowly stretching the boundaries of what's normal in favour of their own plans.

As for the life of everyday people, I'd be hard pressed to find someone, anyone, actually praising this government in public, everyone I hear talking about whatever they come up with is either disgusted or concerned.
I believe what's happening now is the same thing that was happening back in Berlusconi's days: the ones voting for these people are aware that what they're doing is wrong and they hide in shame until they're sure they're surrounded only by the right people.

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[–] [email protected] 16 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Italy sure does love fascism

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