The election sweep of Italy’s populist right is the first fruit of the Left’s failing war on the middle and working class. Now the liberal counterattack has begun. The woke beehives on the Potomac and in Europe’s elite corporate centers are sending out the call. All worker bees in the media report for duty. All socialists, Marxists, gender ideologues, and Reds in their complete Green protective coloring report for duty immediately. The Globalist project is under attack.
This time it is not from Trump in America, or Brexit in England, or Orban in Hungary, or Le Pen in France, or Bolsonaro in Brazil. No, it is from Giorgia Meloni of the Fratelli d’Italia party. The party’s name comes from the opening words of the Italian national anthem. Along with Matteo Salvini’s Lega and Silvio Berlusconi’s Forze Italia parties, they will have a governing majority of 44%. That’s enough to elect Italy’s first female prime minister.
Yes, an Italian woman of conviction has put the fear of God into the entire leftwing power alliance. Her terrifying campaign slogan, “God, Country, and Family,” shows just how radical this 45-year-old single mother is. While she has toned down her rhetoric about leaving the EU to build her coalition, she remains a Euroskeptic and wants to end mass migration (Republicans take note) and embrace the old conservative standby: cutting spending in Brussels.
Italy has a long history of strong, no-nonsense women. And maybe so-called powerful men should be afraid. St. Catherine of Siena, the patron saint of Italy, cajoled, convinced, and at times berated and threatened the popes, kings, dukes, and warlords of her day to return the papacy from Avignon, France, to a small forgotten city of 25,000 called Rome — an historical fact to be reckoned with. Where would Italy have ended up without such strong women?
The middle-class and working-class voters of Italy have spoken. And, perhaps in the custom of communicating with their hands, they have also given the oligarchs and their leftwing stooges a small but ancient Italian hand gesture. In this snap election, the so-called lower ranks in the power structure have set the teeth of the oligarchs around the world on edge. And it is about time.
Who hates Meloni? The usual suspects. The Rachel Maddow Show blog has stated the obvious liberal deflection from reality. Meloni is a fascist, Mussolini in a dress. Then the standard tip of the spear in any culture war, the LGBTQ community spokescrazies, who at Reuters claim that while they may not all die under Meloni, they will be afraid, which is the same thing as far as the sexual identity left is concerned.
So expect the usual passive-aggressive nonsense. You will hear stories about how Italy, which has one of the lowest birth rates in the world, will be devastated if there are not more abortions, ensuring there will be even fewer Italians. So please, let Brussels finish the job even Atilla the Hun couldn’t accomplish with all his barbarian hordes.
And expect to suddenly see more sad stories demanding Italy make its porous borders even wider. (Have you noticed there are only tragedies on borders when populists are in charge?) And there has already been an article claiming that Meloni and Putin have the same mindset, the old Catholic Communist switcheroo presumably.
The ever predictable Old Gray Lady, the New York Times, blares in a headline, “Not all Women are Happy,” in the classic green with envy style they’ve copyrighted, patented, and perfected. “But as happy as women’s rights activists are about the fact that a woman could finally run Italy, many wish it was essentially any other woman in Italy. They fear that Ms. Meloni’s hard-right agenda, her talk about preventing abortions, opposing quotas, and other measures will set back the cause of women.”
They even argue that the gross domestic product would increase, yes increase, if only more Italian women farmed out raising their kids to state-funded programs and stopped being stay-at-home moms. “All national and international indicators suggest that if women in Italy worked more, the gross domestic product would largely benefit and increase.” Why clutch my pearls.
Yes, of course, Meloni is the new Mussolini. Although, as a liberal Democrat friend likes to say, there is only one politician who actually did fill in the swamp, and his name wasn’t Trump. It was Mussolini. He filled in the malaria swamps of Rome and, for the first and last time perhaps, is said to have had the trains run on time. (Color me skeptical on that one.) And according to the Babylon Bee, Nancy Pelosi is already drawing up articles of impeachment. The world isn’t big enough for two world leaders with vowels at the end of their names. (Well, maybe that last “news” item was a jest.)
Related: Italy May Lead Europe in a Massive Turn to the Right
The leftwing globalists don’t fear that Meloni will replicate the 21 years that Mussolini ruled Italy with his black shirts. Their fear is she will succeed in sending the globalists back to Davos empty-handed. They fear she might shift the balance of power in the EU away from Brussels and back to the people of Italy. They fear she may try and strengthen the traditional Italian family. Think of the blow to corporate profits!
“If we are called to govern this nation, we will do it for all Italians,” Meloni said after the vote. “We will do it with the aim of uniting people, of enhancing what unites them, rather than what divides them.” So far, very radical.
Italian governments come and go like visiting relatives on a balmy Sicilian Sunday afternoon. Getting a consensus is a huge challenge. But the people who love democracy in theory really do despise it in practice. It is messy, after all. If people with strange ideas and different viewpoints start saying what they think and arguing over what is best for the people who actually elected them, who knows what might happen? They might even decide that having children and raising a family is a higher priority than the Italian gross domestic product. It seems the globalists prefer homogenized Belgian milk poured out in quiet, sterile meeting rooms to Italian table wine and a little shouting over good food at a well-worn dinner table full of children.
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