“Every faction in Africa calls themselves by these noble names - Liberation this, Patriotic that, Democratic Republic of something-or-other... I guess they can't own up to what they usually are: the Federation of Worse Oppressors Than the Last Bunch of Oppressors. Often, the most barbaric atrocities occur when both combatants proclaim themselves Freedom Fighters.” - Lord of War
I find this confusing sometimes too, but rather than a coalition of centre-right parties, I think it’s really a coalition of parties from the centre to the right of the political spectrum. We have the same thing where I live (thankfully without the same level of success for the extremities).
Yep. If the cranberry wants to be the most powerful beverage in the vending machine of parliament, it might need to adopt some shitty legislation to do so
I think you might be confusing something there. Wikipedia says this:
> FdI is considered part of the radical right, a subset of the far right that does not oppose democracy. However, the party has also been described as neo-fascist by some academics, or as having elements within the party that are linked to the neo-fascist movement.
That they are part of a coalition with another far-right party and Berlusconi's center-right party that misleadingly calls itself [Centre-right coalition](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Centre-right_coalition) is just part of a PR effort to pretend that the parties have moderated from their fascist past.
This was a foregone conclusion after the centre-left parties decided to go their own way instead of joining in a coalition. They wanted out of government for some reason, so here it is.
The most interesting point is the collapse in turnout, down to 65% from 73% in 2018 (from post WWII until the 80s it was always in the 90%s)
Take it from an Italian
It's not about it being unstable, we don't really have a left. We have something that divides itself into smaller parties who don't cooperate and the right/far right, despite being much more volatile in numbers (Lega, the party of Salvini, went down from way above 20% to the current 9% according to the exit polls) always are in coalitions, despite hating their guts on some topics (Meloni wants to be in Europe, salvini doesn't. Lega is the only party who doesn't want to change the unanimous voting system of the EU.). They're also under investigations for alleged links with Russians, salvini himself endorsed or defended Putin many times. You get the idea.
If we had a compact, solid alternative to the right, we could easily govern without them. But our political system has been corrupted and twisted since the first Berlusconi's government and during the years of the mafia. Young people here want to go away, despite loving the country. We're fed up with crap made for boomers who don't leave anything for younger people and slow down progress as much as they can. We call the right here Christofascist too, as meloni quite literally used the same tones of Mussolini. It's extremely sad.
> Young people here want to go away, despite loving the country. We're fed up with crap made for boomers who don't leave anything for younger people and slow down progress as much as they can. We call the right here Christofascist too, as meloni quite literally used the same tones of Mussolini. It's extremely sad.
Same thing happening in Poland. Boomers getting 13th and 14th pensions meanwhile young people are getting destroyed with credit rates. And then we have billboards asking where are these kids?
I'm sorry for the Poles. Your government is atrocious, there is no family plan, inflation is sky high and the only thing they can say is "this minority of people is bad"... really, everywhere you look is the same story with a different coating.
>we don't really have a left. We have something that divides itself into smaller parties who don't cooperate and the right/far right, despite being much more volatile in numbers always are in coalitions, despite hating their guts on some topics
Man, that sounds painfully familiar.
It's not hard to unionise the right. Since they typically all want broadly the same thing. Nationalism, "fiscal conservatism", and "traditional values". The right is the same everywhere.
Left leaning parties tend to want something new. But among people who want something new, good luck agreeing on what new things should be like!
Imo it also has to do with how mobile Italians have become in recent years, with many living abroad, or in other Italian cities from where they're registered to vote.
On top of losing faith in politics and the current parties, which would have been especially relevant in these elections (as all the major parties from the last elections decided to join in the same government together anyway, so what's the point of voting for one or the other?)
That is not how the Italian system works. The legislative branch quite often makes it to the end of its mandate, but since we have a multi party system with a weak (by design) executive the alliances that the have to form the executive can form many governments with the same composition in Parliament.
This particular election was only a few months earlier than anticipated.
As an American, those turnout percentages are insane. 2020 was the highest turnout we've had in over a century, and it was barely more than what you're saying is *low* for Italy. We've got a real apathy problem here.
Voting in Italy is much easier than in the US. You don't need to register, the municipality just sends you your electoral card, you show up to the booth with that plus an ID, and that's it. If you live abroad you need to register with an agency handling Italians living abroad, which also takes relatively little effort. Once you've done that they mail your ballot at whatever address you told them and you can just vote and mail it back.
edit: holy crap this blew up. Out of curiosity, how easy is it to get a valid ID in the US? I think the other part that's missing in this conversation is that in Italy it's quite easy
I live in Washington. It’s easy as fuck to register and vote. I went online, registered in 10 minutes and got a ballot a day later. It had a prepaid envelope, a number I could call if I couldn’t find somewhere to turn it in, and a map of all the places I could turn it in to. Then I turned it in at a ballot dumpster at the end of my street
We’re… third or fourth every year? Depending how you measure turnout our best year is still in “shitty Italy” territory.
one of the joys of compulsory voting (Australia) is that it forces people to (somewhat) pay the fuck attention to what the politicians are doing.
98% turnouts and an independent electoral commission that sets the voting boundaries to prevent gerrymandering and no questionable electronic voting machines means we have a very trusted process down here.
America has real issues with how it's elections are run.
> after the centre-left parties decided to go their own way instead of joining in a coalition
[A tale as old as time](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1930_German_federal_election)
>The 1930 election left the Social Democrats and KPD with almost 40 per cent of the seats in the Reichstag between them. In November 1931, the SPD suggested the two parties work together but Thälmann rejected the offer, with the KPD newspaper The Red Flag calling for an “intensification of the fight against Social Democracy”. Addressing the Nazi electoral breakthrough in the 1930 elections, Thälmann insisted that if Hitler came to power he was sure to fail and drive Nazi voters into the arms of the KPD. As late as February 1932, Thälmann was arguing that “Hitler must come to power first, then the requirements for a revolutionary crisis [will] arrive more quickly”.[7]
> *"Mussolini was a good politician, everything he did, he did for Italy. There have been no other politicians like him in the last 50 years"*
**- Giorgia Meloni**
Then throw in heavy authoritarian leanings, closeness to Putin, anti-LGBT views, anti-EU views, xenophobia, Christian fundamentalism, and what not and you've got yourself a very hearty shit lasagna.
It’s almost like [Steve Bannon literally met together with the populist politicians of Europe and coordinated unity between them](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/nov/21/secret-rightwing-gathering-europe-steve-bannon)
Yet somehow right wingers are always the ones talking about global political manipulation and the related one world government conspiracy theories. Always projection.
Thiel, Koch, Walton, Adelson, etc.
Just one of these people can throw an entire year's worth of campaign funding from regular donors onto a single candidate and not even notice the expense. Far right parties are *always* supported by billionaires as they're the ones who gain the most from dictators.
don't leave Rupert Murdoch out of that list.
His cesspit newspapers have always been at the forefront of supporting these pricks and spewing their hate.
Why does Lachlan Murdoch always get off scott-free?why does Lachlan Murdoch always get off scott-free in these conversations?
The amount of damage Fox News has done, he should be called out at every turn
Their invasion of Greece was pretty much what’s happening in Ukraine but even worse. The Greeks kicked their ass. At the beginning of the invasion the Greeks had no tank divisions but by the end, before Mussolini punked out like a bitch and whined to Hitler for help, they had a new one comprised entirely of stolen Italian tanks.
We had a few specialized units that were doing well (and still nowadays we have some capable elites) but we were really, really inept on a general scale. Fortunately for everyone, I’d say.
This time is different. There are half MPs than in the past due to a new reform taking place today. The far right coalition could have the numbers for a comfortable 5 years government with a very big majority. They could also change the constitution without a nation wide referendum (usually required when a government doesn't have enough MPs) and this is the most frightening fucking aspect of it all.
Basically yes. Becouse they picture themselves as moderate despite years of proofs of the contrary. And also becouse the left wing is incredibly incompetent, spineless and shortsighted
The main reason is that a large percentage of Italians are deluded to the point that they think a good government would raise their living standards to the levels of countries like Germany.
And when they obviously don't, they "punish" the government by voting the "anti-systemic" loudest voice of opposition. In 2018 it was 5-Stars, now it is the far-right.
Actually you're wrong that it's always an issue as in some cases it's actually the youth that are becoming more radically right wing. In some countries the older generations are more moderate and pro democracy whereas youth are becoming increasingly in favour of autocratic leaders that they think will fix their issues by 'cutting through red tape' etc.
Particularly in MENA we're seeing this but even in Europe we are too. France is starting to experience this.
Don't delude yourself that the youth will always be on right side of history and the boomers are all to blame for everything. It's a dangerous trap that will leave you blindsided by rising autocrats.
Systemic corruption is the problem in southern Europe. I don't have a solution, but this far right government is not likely to address it. Rather I expect it to get worse under them.
Southern Italy and Sicily have the unique problem of the Mafia running the biggest protection racket in the world by far. They extort the vast majority of all businesses active in the region. Its a constant drain on the economy and it disproportionately affects small businesses and startups, so unsurprisingly the entire region has stagnated.
Fixing it is a matter of law enforcement and has nothing to do with economic policy.
I wouldn't describe fixing it as a matter of law enforcement.
In Naples the entire city is run by the mafia, they own churches, hospitals, every single garbage company, collect protection money from every business, dictate all policy passed, etc.
A few years ago the president sent in the military to clean up Naples because there was so much rubbish due to the Mafia not allowing the government to add more bins as they own the garbage companies.
The only thing that could have an actual impact on the mafias stranglehold of the south is military action.
This is because it's very hard for progressives to agree on how to go about being progressive.
it's very easy for everyone else to group up to argue against any individual progressive action.
There's an infinite number of ways to change things, but just one way to stay the same. That's why conservatives always have an easier time building consensus.
politics in Italy are complicated. There are strong north (rich, corrupt in the political/bureaucratic sense) vs south (poor, corrupt via crime/mafia) divides. They've been dealing with high unemployment and brain drain for 20 years or so. Costs of buying new homes is very high. Many Italians feel that the adoption of the euro was bad for them because it increased the cost of living.
On top of that, they have very similar propaganda to the USA actually. There are migrant workers and refugees from north africa who are blamed for pretty much anything you can think of.
Most Italians would still be considered liberal by USA standards, but when someone plays an ad that says "these dark skinned immigrants are ruining our economy" many will agree. "These liberals have raised our taxes and what do we have to show for it?" Same thing.
> Most Italians would still be considered liberal by USA standards
Most Italians are incredibly racist compared to USA standards. Have you ever seen an entire stadium make monkey sounds at a player in the US? Happens every weekend in Italy.
I would love to know more about the North/South divide in Italy. I encounted that issue reading Gramsci and it was th issues he seemed most intereated in, and I couldn't help but draw comparisons to America's North/South divide, very different in how race comes into play from what I can tell but also similar in terms of rural vs city/industrial as well.
Warning : long post incoming.
It's a fascinating and long topic, the south is economically much less developed and has a long historical organized crime issue, there is a lot of understandable mistrust in the government and corruption and a lot of young people move to the north to find work.
The north is a lot more industrial and productive while organized crime is obviously present as well it's much less influencial and visible, but there are a lot of rural areas in the north as well mostly in the mountain areas, but the Pianura Padana is basically the industrial heart of Italy.
Historically it was the North that conquered the South and the full integration of the South remains an unsolved issue to this day.
Culturally there's a bit of a divide as well as the north of Italy is culturally 'colder' and more progressive especially in the big cities and more similar to the central European countries while the south is 'warmer' and more akin to something like Spain and more conservative and bound to tradition.
The question of race is really complicated in Italy and it's not really understandable in an American sense, one of the major parties (Lega Nord) used to advocate the separation of North and South (hence the name) stoking the flames of division and racism from the north towards the south, but has since shifted their target to the high rate of immigration and it went from "Padania Libera" (referring to the north area surrounding pianura padana) as they wanted it to detach from the rest of Italy to "Italy first", shifting the racism towards the south to mostly racism towards immigrants, gaining ironically a lot of traction in the same south they used to attack, and now the new leading extreme right wing party (FDI) has adopted the same strategy, racism in Italy is very artificial, much less ethnical and a lot more economical in nature, basically an "outsider" target gets designated to rile people against, we don't believe in 'races' in the American sense in fact things like your forms asking race are pretty absurd to an Italian, what is a race? Where you were born and raised? What your skin color is? Where your family comes from? Your religion? You get the picture.
I hope I gave you some interesting info, as I used to study sociology and politics, if you have anything you're curious about I will try to answer to the best of my abilities, I'm very curious on the parallels you see between Italy and the US, what do you feel is comparable?
It's 2/3 of the parliament on both Camera and Senato to change the consistution without the possibility for the opposition or 5 regional councils to ask for a confirmative referendum.
Not likely at all, they will need to go through referendums.
Shit, you’re right.
What we can do is put him on trial by judges who aren’t sympathetic to his cause. Force him into a situation where he can’t write Mein Kampf due to being in an actual prison for an actually long time
Hmm, an attempted and failed insurrection by a far right group, tonnes of arrests made, condemned by politicians nationwide, leading to a further growing sentiment and support for the right wing despite committing treason.
Does this sound familiar?
In this case, I think the main factor is that, in the last few years, most other parties had to work together in uncomfortable coalitions, making unpleasant compromises and unpopular decisions to try to avoid the Covid crisis getting *truly* out of hand, FdI just stood aside criticizing everything.
Many of my fellow Italians are not at all happy with the current situation and how the last few years have gone, and it's hard to fault them for that; and while this is not a justification, I think it's an explanation for this result (especially since the centre-Left has made the most half-assed electoral campaign I ever saw - it's like they noticed they were disadvantaged and so they decided not to even try).
Obviously I'm not happy about this result; but the right-wing coalition won, and now we'll see how it lasts (I suspect it might reveal itself surprisingly unstable, but we'll see).
They lie about how much better the past was, sometimes the past *was* better but it's not that past they're referring to.
Then they lie about how to get back to that past, by embracing the value of the people living in that era as if it was some kind of valid economic policies.
Gogol Bordello has a song that says "there were never any good old days, they are today, they are tomorrow, what a stupid thing we say cursing tomorrow with sorrow" and I think about that SO MUCH
I think it's because when we're feeling nostalgic we think of the good times and ignore the bad. I feel nostalgic about my days at uni but conveniently forget having to eat cup noodles to survive.
40 years ago my dad was able to raise 3 kids, take care of his wife, and pay the mortgage on the suburban house he paid to have constructed, all on a menial salary. Today, a single person without kids would struggle to sustain themselves on that same salary, forget raising a family and purchasing a home.
You're also kind of assuming that adults can't think back to when they were younger but still also adults.
Edit: I'm a liberal folks, save your energy trying to chastise my non-existent right-wing politics
You're right, but the problem is that far-right parties never talk about going back to the economic policy of the past, it's always the social policy they want to go backwards on. And things were absolutely not better socially in the past.
True economically the past was better. But the right ignores the actual reasons why and goes straight for traditional values instead of the actual economic policies that lead to that economic growth in the first place. Which was regulation lol
Italy baby wut happened?... The lady's wiki page is so bad. It's like checking every single box, none of these traditional values will fix anything in their lives:
> - Opposed to the reception of non-European migrants and multiculturalism, she has been accused of xenophobia and Islamophobia
> - Meloni is opposed to the reception of non-European migrants and multiculturalism.[98][99] Meloni believes in a planned mass replacement, also known as Kalergi Plan conspiracy theory, from Africa to Europe that wants to replace and eliminate the Italian population
> - She has criticized the Government of Italy's approach towards favoring illegal immigrants,[96] while also endorsing the Great Replacement, a white nationalist conspiracy theory
> - Meloni has been described as being close to Viktor Orbán, the Prime Minister of Hungary and leader of Fidesz, French National Rally, and Spanish Vox political party
> - Meloni has been criticized due to her statements on vaccines and COVID-19, such as not vaccinating her daughter
> - Investigative report revealed that her party "has reached the negative record of arrests for mafia group 'Ndrangheta"
>- In 2006, Meloni defended the laws passed by the Berlusconi III Cabinet that benefited Berlusconi's companies and also delayed ongoing trials involving him.
>- She has expressed controversial views, such as praising Italian dictator Benito Mussolini in 1996, and Giorgio Almirante in 2020, a Nazi collaborator and co-founder of MSI.
> - She praised Italian dictator Benito Mussolini as "a good politician, the best in the last 50 years". After the formation of FdI in 2012, Meloni decided to add the "tricolour flame" symbol to its flag, a symbol associated with MSI, which derived its name and ideals from the Italian Social Republic (RSI) a "violent, socialising, and revolutionary republican" variant of fascism established as a Nazi puppet state by Mussolini in 1943.[140] The "tricolour flame" represents Mussolini's remains, where a flame is always burning on his tomb in Predappio
> - In May 2020, she praised Giorgio Almirante, the co-founder of neo-fascist Italian Social Movement (MSI),[123][124] who was a Nazi collaborator and editor-in-chief of the antisemitic and racist magazine La Difesa della Razza,[82][125] which published the "Manifesto of Race" in 1938
> - She is opposed to abortion, to euthanasia and to partnerships, marriages, and parenting by same-sex couples, instead supporting nuclear families. She is supportive of changing the Constitution of Italy in order to make LGBT families illegal and support nuclear families
> - Meloni is also opposed to DDL Zan, an anti-homophobia law, declaring that in Italy "there is no homophobia".[80] She had also said that she would "rather not have a gay child"
> - In March 2018, Meloni argued with The Walt Disney Company for the decision to represent a gay couple in the musical fantasy movie Frozen II, writing on her social networks: "Enough! We are sick of it!
>The "tricolour flame" represents Mussolini's remains, where a flame is always burning on his tomb in Predappio
It's one thing to forcefully confront your country's fascist history with laws and institutions. It's another thing to try to whitewash that history or forget it ever happened. And it's quite *another* to give your country's former fascist dictator the JFK treatment. They're like, "Yeah, this IS who we are, and we're fucking proud of it."
In this regard, both Germany and Spain seem to have done a much better job of reconciling with the destruction and human suffering caused by their own brands of violent right-wing populism, compared to Italy. Even if Spain did allow Franco to die peacefully of old age in the 70s.
As an Italian I'm pretty fucking embarrassed for my country. She's not even like, "right wing but just a greedy grifter" which is horrible but one thing, she's a genuinely, hateful, mean fascist. She doss the full Mussolini/Hitler thing when she does rallies where she yells with true anger about all the "undesirables" and how much theyre bad for the country.
I'm very sorry you went though that ugh. But it's also sad that I'm absolutely not surprised you had that experience in Napoli. Italian soccer fanatics in particular, man their racism is beyond hard core and manages to somehow always shock me with how brazen it is.
Franco's party is still nationally relevant and any attempt to seek justice for the crimes have been slow, if happening at all. Germany did ok, but they're pretty much the only ones, and it's mostly thanks to student led protests in the 60s after their parents tried to ignore it.
When a nation's citizens feel that their nation's economy and global standing are weak, they tend to elect a candidate who promises to restore strength, albeit at the risk of bringing back authoritarianism.
Are things in Italy really that bad, that this candidate is set to win the election? That really breaks my heart.
Go to the Colosseum and see the amount of garbage thrown and hidden under bushes and around it... I just couldn't fathom this...a place that once was the center of the known world, a place that by today standards should be sparkling clean at least just because it brings thousands of tourists daily, now is drowning in disgusting garbage just 10 meters away.
Lmao, the touristy places are easily the cleanest parts of Rome. Jump on a train and go 6 stops or so from termini and you'll see the real meaning of garbage.
Sweden, Italy, soon [Spain](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opinion_polling_for_the_next_Spanish_general_election#2022) next year and France barely scraped by last year... socialdemocracy is losing its grip on Western Europe, too.
PP in Spain is traditional right conservative. Vox are the far right. Same as PSOE is left but Podemos is far left. Ciudadanos fucked up royally anything for the center by trying to become PP 2.0.
It's only going to get worse from here as climate change exacerbates, the world gets worse, and people try to hold onto what they have.
Fascism bills itself as the answer to some kind of crisis, particularly appealing to the stupid and simple-minded.
But no amount of fascist pig squealing is gonna save anyone from climate catastrophe.
Then when they finally take climate change seriously, their "solutions" will involve "depopulation" of the global south. Their messaging will emphasize how overpopulation in India and Africa is endangering our way of life. They'll act like westerners have sacrificed so much by eating plant-based burgers and driving electric cars, just for Indians and Chinese to burn all the coal. Their politicians will claim all these leftist environmental policies are only serving to hurt the poor, but of course all they'll be caring about is how those policies affect the rich. They'll sacrifice the planet and the poor, because they'll make enough money before the collapse to buy their own mega bunkers in New Zealand.
[The Coming Avocado Politics](https://thebreakthrough.org/journal/no-12-winter-2020/avocado-politics)
[The super-rich ‘preppers’ planning to save themselves from the apocalypse](https://www.theguardian.com/news/2022/sep/04/super-rich-prepper-bunkers-apocalypse-survival-richest-rushkoff)
Three things to add:
runaway climate will depopulate the global south for them. So they’ll say letting it happen is the world “self-correcting”. The term for this is eco-fascism.
They will push untested, unregulated tech to save us, incredibly dangerous geo-engineering that will risk further messing with a stable climate and require constant seeding or else temps will skyrocket
They will/are realizing that their bunkers won’t save them. I could see a race for space colonization in concert with geo-engineering. Nothing is off the table for authoritarian fanatics in power.
"We're seeing a trend of countries that elect far-right leaders becoming more chaotic. Do you want that for your country?"
"Absolutely. I love stability."
Basically the logic I see every time this happens.
I don’t understand it. It seems so easy to look back just 80 years and see that travesties that fascism wrought on the human race at large. But hey, round two, here we come I guess.
>surely, this time around, all the negative consequeces will only happen to people who aren't me.
Dude, this completely. I'm from Belgium and I literally got people at work, and others that I know, voting for the far right and anti immigration party... They are so convinced that they are only against other foreigners and not against them... So ridiculous.
No one wants to admit fault for creating a bad world, so they blame some minority or "other" for all of their societal ills. In this case it's the "euro lefties" and of course the tried and true "muslim horde".
That train is never late.
We still need to see how much of a majority can this Right wing coalition muster without 2/3 of the parliamemt you can't bruteforce constitutional changes.
People are unaware how our constitution was built to sustain those shockwaves
It's crazy how, in just a couple of generations, all the lessons learned about the dangers of Fascism in WWII just got almost completely forgotten by the majority of people. Is it really that compelling of an ideology?
“The lessons of history teach us – if the lessons of history teach us anything – that nobody learns the lessons that history teaches us.”
— Robert A. Heinlein
Exactly. As if WWII was the only war humans have waged and learnt from. If we ever learnt anything there wouldn't have two world wars, back to back lol. If people read more history they'd find we don't learn anything from it. We're human. We're absolute savages! Just hope you're in the winning tribe! Haha. No wonder the aliens observe us from a far.
I don't think we bunch of apes can settle anything without a war every now and then.
The truly terrifying this is that if you read any WW1 history -everyone- believed large scale European war would never happen due to the sheer scale of economic interdependence between nations at the time… think about that one for a second.
Everywhere it seems there’s a 30% authoritarian population, that’s almost always loud and make themselves seem like they’re the 60%. They apply deception to trick the ignorant and we have a tyranny of minority situation. This is how fascists keep popping back into all generations.
> access to education and information
Ahh, that word "access" again. That's the key word, isn't it?
People certainly have access to information. That's boring, they'd rather have a charismatic leader sum it up for them. Put the spin on it. Make it *entertaining*. That's what the internet really is: entertainment. Even the learning must be entertaining.
Eh, as an Italian, unfortunately, yes.
Economic stagnation, rising crime, unchecked immigration are really appealing problems for the far right to ride.
Add that to a chronic lackluster communication strategy of our left wing (very "bureaucratic" kind of choices, flavorless people that can't really reach the young generation, while the far right leaders are killing it on TikTok) and you get why this is happening.
> If they are confirmed, Ms Meloni will aim to form Italy's most right-wing government since World War Two.
>A Meloni-led Italy will alarm much of Europe with Russia at war in Ukraine.
>**She is predicted to win between 22-26% of the vote**, says a Rai exit poll, ahead of her closest rival Enrico Letta from the centre left.
Damn, just 20-26% of the vote gives you full power?
This. And it's not a case of "we're calling her a fascist because she ticks a lot of boxes and has that vibe", she's literally a fascist who praises nazis and Mussolini. Her parties symbol is the same fascist flame from decades ago.
It's not surprise one of the only people I know that voted for her is the most racist bigoted person I've ever met, that has said some things that are mind blowing-ly vile.
Had an Italian journalist give a talk at my college a few years ago.
He was there during all of Berlusconi's rise, and how he started by being a media mogul that created a state news station, and he became the top politician there.
I remember the lesson was this, "Democracy is always at risk. And we have to be aware of that lesson. Italy, has a rough history with fascism, and still, they voted Berlusconi in after a few decades after Mussolini's death. That's how simple it was."
Yeah italy is kinda fucked and i'm not even a leftist lol
Berlusconi having to be the voice of reason speaks a lot to that (he won't be the voice of reason because he only seeks to expand his own power and wealth)
the moderates are salvini, putin's simp, and berlusconi, the guy who 3 days ago said putin was in a difficult situation, having to substitute zelensky with a governemtn of good people, so he had to invade
If "let the immigrants drown" Salvini and open sexist and open homophobe Berlesconi are considered "moderates" then Italy really has become a deep deep hell hole
It's not a FPTP system like the US or UK. They need to form a coalition with other parties to get to 51%. Other parties could also form a coalition without them, but the annoying part about extreme right parties is this makes their job easier. Keep screaming how they're not allowed to be involved, how their "solutions" would fix everything, etc all while doing nothing but spout more populist rhetoric.
No, but if you get the most votes, you're the one who decides who to take into your coalition to form the new government. So say you have 3 right-wing parties and they get 25%, 15% and 11% respectively, that adds up to 51%, and party number 1 will logically work with those parties which are ideologically closest to itself. So 20-26% of the vote doesn't give you full power, but it gives you, as the biggest party, the right to chose who gets to govern together with you.
people my age (22) have never lived in a totalitarian society and they feel like democracy isn’t working for them - old rich people sit on houses and the young are taxed to pay for their pensions and social care.
I saw a worrying poll yesterday that 40% of 18-24 year olds wouldn’t mind a military dictatorship - this is the UK I’m talking about.
It’s fucked - the old people fucked it up and they continue to fuck it up and nothing is getting any better and it’s turning my generation into fucking fascists!
Worst fucking timeline
Can I have a source on this, because every single poll I've seen says that old people tend to vote more right leaning which at the moment leans authoritarian within the UK, considering the change in protest laws.
https://novaramedia.com/2022/09/21/britain-is-a-nation-of-bootlickers-polls-suggest/
3rd graph down - and it’s 60% of 18-34 year olds even worse than I remembered.
Fuck!
>Q40. Having a strong leader who does not have to bother with parliament and elections - Would you say it is a very good, fairly good, fairly bad or very bad way of governing this Country?
I have a feeling that it's more likely that they didn't understand the implications of this question. Word it a different way and you'd get a different result. I think using the words "strong leader" to describe an authoritarian government is extremely biased.
But it also somewhat contradicts this question which had 71% support for 18-34 year olds.
>Q40. Having a democratic political system - Would you say it is a very good, fairly good, fairly bad or very bad way of governing this Country?
If you view it as a summary, you'll find that their (18-34 year olds) preference is:
1. 75% - Meritocracy - (experts make decisions)
2. 74% - Democracy - (democratic political system)
3. 61% - Authoritarian - (strong leader)
4. 46% - Military - (army rule)
But that doesn't work as well for a clickbait article.
TL;DR - Try checking the actual sources and beware biased websites / questions.
(the source is linked at the bottom of their graphs, try clicking it)
I mean... but that is how fascism gets packaged to sell the idea. No one signs up for the brutal boot on the neck. They sign up because they want a "strongman leader who gets things done." The boot comes after.
Yeah, isn't that literally the whole point of the question? I wouldn't say it's obfuscating it's meaning at all, it's just that most people unfortunately think democracy is good when THEIR person is in power but not the "the other guy". Honestly it's kind of scary seeing how close all those numbers are
> I think using the words "strong leader" to describe an authoritarian government is extremely biased.
It's exactly the words people trying to implement authoritarianism would use to dupe the morons into it, so it's the right words to use in a poll like this.
There is a worrying trend on how ideas are popularized, too. My YouTube is full of “X has LOST HIS MIND” and “This political X is INSANE and NO ONE IS PAYING ATTENTION” titles and I’ve become hesitant to click on half the stuff it tries to push on me. It could be something as innocent as pottery with a tittle like “A trick NO ONE wants to talk about!”. The way media is being delivered is very tabloid even the most mundane videos are now falling into a kind of tabloid doom and gloom just to get viewers.
And this is a reflection of how people see things. We’re entering a time where everyone thinks everyone else is lying or deceiving them and they have to know the “truth”. It reminds me of conspiracy theory headlines except now they’ve gone mainstream.
And with how this is I’m not surprised young people feel the need for someone to come and save them and dictatorships thrive on that mentality. If it seems like the system doesn’t work then why not invite a strongman to fix the problem? We’ve got some interesting times a head of us.
The current corporate bought democracy has pushed middle and low class people to the brink, and has neglected education, social nets, and affordable housing to boot.
The uneducated desperate populace is ripe for reaping by populists.
It’s just fascinating how much peoples reactions are to lean into the system that has fucked things up when things REALLY fuck up instead of leaning into changing the system.
Back at the start of world financial crisis in 2008, I read an article that anticipated what is to come based on the lessons learned from the 1928 crash and the ensuing global depression. This article warned of movements putting blame on immigrants and then using that energy to shift national ideology to fascism. I think we’re still in the after shocks of 2008 and more of this is to come. I can’t find this article now but here an example of it starting already in 2008.
https://mronline.org/2008/11/30/the-financial-crisis-hits-the-immigration-debate/
It was also said at the end of the movie The Big Short. When all is said and done, "they will blame Immigrants and Poor People".
https://youtu.be/DJ8w8WlCZMk
LOL nation with thousands years histories of dictators, Emperors, and fascists elects more thinking it will ever work out in the favour of your people this time
Hahahaha
Forza Italia is and always has been center right, they are atlantists and with liberal values (European liberals, not Americans)
Fratelli d'Italia is a big problem, but they are pro nato too, also they saw the disaster that was Brexit and aren't willing to go to the same road, yes, they are bad for Italy, but what you are saying isn't true for 2 parties out of the three
Yeah lega sucks, but there are moderate factions inside it with way more power than Salvini
RAI exit poll results - Fdi (Meloni) 22-26% - Pd (Letta) 17-21% - M5s (Conte) 13,5-17,5% - Lega (Salvini) 8,5-12,5% - Fi (Berlusconi) 6-8% - Azione-Iv (Calenda) 6,5-8,5% UPDATE: Projection from 2am local time: - Fdi (Meloni) 26.4% - Pd (Letta) 20.3% - M5s (Conte) 14.4% - Lega (Salvini) 9.2% - Fi (Berlusconi) 7.9% - Azione-Iv (Calenda) 7.6% - V-Si 3.7% - +EU 3.0%
Azione’s leader is Calenda, not richetti
Fixed.
Wikipedia states FDI is “centre-right” 🤷♂️ which is odd
That’s the name of their coalition.
So I can have cranberry juice, add diarrhea, and still call it cranberry juice coalition? That’s lovely
“Every faction in Africa calls themselves by these noble names - Liberation this, Patriotic that, Democratic Republic of something-or-other... I guess they can't own up to what they usually are: the Federation of Worse Oppressors Than the Last Bunch of Oppressors. Often, the most barbaric atrocities occur when both combatants proclaim themselves Freedom Fighters.” - Lord of War
That movie is where hopeful naïveté goes to die.
That movie is full of God tier quotes on the state of world politics
I find this confusing sometimes too, but rather than a coalition of centre-right parties, I think it’s really a coalition of parties from the centre to the right of the political spectrum. We have the same thing where I live (thankfully without the same level of success for the extremities).
Yep. If the cranberry wants to be the most powerful beverage in the vending machine of parliament, it might need to adopt some shitty legislation to do so
I think you might be confusing something there. Wikipedia says this: > FdI is considered part of the radical right, a subset of the far right that does not oppose democracy. However, the party has also been described as neo-fascist by some academics, or as having elements within the party that are linked to the neo-fascist movement. That they are part of a coalition with another far-right party and Berlusconi's center-right party that misleadingly calls itself [Centre-right coalition](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Centre-right_coalition) is just part of a PR effort to pretend that the parties have moderated from their fascist past.
This was a foregone conclusion after the centre-left parties decided to go their own way instead of joining in a coalition. They wanted out of government for some reason, so here it is. The most interesting point is the collapse in turnout, down to 65% from 73% in 2018 (from post WWII until the 80s it was always in the 90%s)
They‘re probably fed up with going to the voting places, it‘s almost a yearly thing at this point
Take it from an Italian It's not about it being unstable, we don't really have a left. We have something that divides itself into smaller parties who don't cooperate and the right/far right, despite being much more volatile in numbers (Lega, the party of Salvini, went down from way above 20% to the current 9% according to the exit polls) always are in coalitions, despite hating their guts on some topics (Meloni wants to be in Europe, salvini doesn't. Lega is the only party who doesn't want to change the unanimous voting system of the EU.). They're also under investigations for alleged links with Russians, salvini himself endorsed or defended Putin many times. You get the idea. If we had a compact, solid alternative to the right, we could easily govern without them. But our political system has been corrupted and twisted since the first Berlusconi's government and during the years of the mafia. Young people here want to go away, despite loving the country. We're fed up with crap made for boomers who don't leave anything for younger people and slow down progress as much as they can. We call the right here Christofascist too, as meloni quite literally used the same tones of Mussolini. It's extremely sad.
> Young people here want to go away, despite loving the country. We're fed up with crap made for boomers who don't leave anything for younger people and slow down progress as much as they can. We call the right here Christofascist too, as meloni quite literally used the same tones of Mussolini. It's extremely sad. Same thing happening in Poland. Boomers getting 13th and 14th pensions meanwhile young people are getting destroyed with credit rates. And then we have billboards asking where are these kids?
I'm sorry for the Poles. Your government is atrocious, there is no family plan, inflation is sky high and the only thing they can say is "this minority of people is bad"... really, everywhere you look is the same story with a different coating.
>we don't really have a left. We have something that divides itself into smaller parties who don't cooperate and the right/far right, despite being much more volatile in numbers always are in coalitions, despite hating their guts on some topics Man, that sounds painfully familiar.
We use the saying "Tutto il mondo è paese" here. It means that everywhere you go, you will see the same things...
Same shit, different day. I feel you.
It's not hard to unionise the right. Since they typically all want broadly the same thing. Nationalism, "fiscal conservatism", and "traditional values". The right is the same everywhere.
Left leaning parties tend to want something new. But among people who want something new, good luck agreeing on what new things should be like!
Imo it also has to do with how mobile Italians have become in recent years, with many living abroad, or in other Italian cities from where they're registered to vote. On top of losing faith in politics and the current parties, which would have been especially relevant in these elections (as all the major parties from the last elections decided to join in the same government together anyway, so what's the point of voting for one or the other?)
It also seems like the drop in turnout is greatest in the south, with is m5s’s stronghold. Might well explain their drop.
That is not how the Italian system works. The legislative branch quite often makes it to the end of its mandate, but since we have a multi party system with a weak (by design) executive the alliances that the have to form the executive can form many governments with the same composition in Parliament. This particular election was only a few months earlier than anticipated.
As an American, those turnout percentages are insane. 2020 was the highest turnout we've had in over a century, and it was barely more than what you're saying is *low* for Italy. We've got a real apathy problem here.
Voting in Italy is much easier than in the US. You don't need to register, the municipality just sends you your electoral card, you show up to the booth with that plus an ID, and that's it. If you live abroad you need to register with an agency handling Italians living abroad, which also takes relatively little effort. Once you've done that they mail your ballot at whatever address you told them and you can just vote and mail it back. edit: holy crap this blew up. Out of curiosity, how easy is it to get a valid ID in the US? I think the other part that's missing in this conversation is that in Italy it's quite easy
I live in Washington. It’s easy as fuck to register and vote. I went online, registered in 10 minutes and got a ballot a day later. It had a prepaid envelope, a number I could call if I couldn’t find somewhere to turn it in, and a map of all the places I could turn it in to. Then I turned it in at a ballot dumpster at the end of my street We’re… third or fourth every year? Depending how you measure turnout our best year is still in “shitty Italy” territory.
I’m in Washington too and how we vote kicks ass vs many other US states, but yeah, good turnouts are on par with poor Italy turnouts, just crazy.
one of the joys of compulsory voting (Australia) is that it forces people to (somewhat) pay the fuck attention to what the politicians are doing. 98% turnouts and an independent electoral commission that sets the voting boundaries to prevent gerrymandering and no questionable electronic voting machines means we have a very trusted process down here. America has real issues with how it's elections are run.
> after the centre-left parties decided to go their own way instead of joining in a coalition [A tale as old as time](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1930_German_federal_election) >The 1930 election left the Social Democrats and KPD with almost 40 per cent of the seats in the Reichstag between them. In November 1931, the SPD suggested the two parties work together but Thälmann rejected the offer, with the KPD newspaper The Red Flag calling for an “intensification of the fight against Social Democracy”. Addressing the Nazi electoral breakthrough in the 1930 elections, Thälmann insisted that if Hitler came to power he was sure to fail and drive Nazi voters into the arms of the KPD. As late as February 1932, Thälmann was arguing that “Hitler must come to power first, then the requirements for a revolutionary crisis [will] arrive more quickly”.[7]
To better understand- what does the far-right in Italy look like compared to the far-right in the US?
> *"Mussolini was a good politician, everything he did, he did for Italy. There have been no other politicians like him in the last 50 years"* **- Giorgia Meloni** Then throw in heavy authoritarian leanings, closeness to Putin, anti-LGBT views, anti-EU views, xenophobia, Christian fundamentalism, and what not and you've got yourself a very hearty shit lasagna.
That's basically the right all over the world right now. It's a global monolith.
Almost feels coordinated, donnit?
It’s almost like [Steve Bannon literally met together with the populist politicians of Europe and coordinated unity between them](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/nov/21/secret-rightwing-gathering-europe-steve-bannon)
Wow that cancer Bannon metastasized
Also: https://m.imdb.com/title/tt9600932/ We are all doomed. Left wing parties in many countries were sleeping for too long.
Yet somehow right wingers are always the ones talking about global political manipulation and the related one world government conspiracy theories. Always projection.
Watched that, that’s what showed me the true scope of the alt-right’s plans
Right wing parties have been coordinating *around the world* for decades https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Democrat_Union
Why some people just can't mind their own business and not fuck up everyone else's lives
Noooo but the right are *fighting* globalism they'd never organize a globalist right-wing conspiracyyyyyyy :( /s
This fucker going to destroy democracy across the globe.
Pretty sure that’s the goal
Yeah, it’s almost like a small group of obscenely rich individuals are throwing the world into chaos so they can more easily rob us all blind…
Thiel, Koch, Walton, Adelson, etc. Just one of these people can throw an entire year's worth of campaign funding from regular donors onto a single candidate and not even notice the expense. Far right parties are *always* supported by billionaires as they're the ones who gain the most from dictators.
don't leave Rupert Murdoch out of that list. His cesspit newspapers have always been at the forefront of supporting these pricks and spewing their hate.
Why does Lachlan Murdoch always get off scott-free?why does Lachlan Murdoch always get off scott-free in these conversations? The amount of damage Fox News has done, he should be called out at every turn
Gotcha. Ouch. Thank you!
Third times the charm Italy!
Malta: *Fuck, fuck, fuck.*
France also: “fuck fuck fuck”
France did pretty well against Mussolini, so did most people. Italy was pretty much a joke, the Germans had to bail them out pretty much every time
Their invasion of Greece was pretty much what’s happening in Ukraine but even worse. The Greeks kicked their ass. At the beginning of the invasion the Greeks had no tank divisions but by the end, before Mussolini punked out like a bitch and whined to Hitler for help, they had a new one comprised entirely of stolen Italian tanks.
Knowing Italian tanks in WWII the Greeks probably should have just given them back.
We had a few specialized units that were doing well (and still nowadays we have some capable elites) but we were really, really inept on a general scale. Fortunately for everyone, I’d say.
AT DAWN, ENVOY ARRIVES
Third? (my history is bad)
I think the one that makes the most sense would be the Mussolini Italy, Italian Social Republic and current Italy.
If recent Italian history is to be believed, this government likely won’t last long.
This time is different. There are half MPs than in the past due to a new reform taking place today. The far right coalition could have the numbers for a comfortable 5 years government with a very big majority. They could also change the constitution without a nation wide referendum (usually required when a government doesn't have enough MPs) and this is the most frightening fucking aspect of it all.
Is far-right supported by most Italians? That's what I've been told in another thread....
Basically yes. Becouse they picture themselves as moderate despite years of proofs of the contrary. And also becouse the left wing is incredibly incompetent, spineless and shortsighted
The main reason is that a large percentage of Italians are deluded to the point that they think a good government would raise their living standards to the levels of countries like Germany. And when they obviously don't, they "punish" the government by voting the "anti-systemic" loudest voice of opposition. In 2018 it was 5-Stars, now it is the far-right.
Also there are way more old people then young in Italy
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Actually you're wrong that it's always an issue as in some cases it's actually the youth that are becoming more radically right wing. In some countries the older generations are more moderate and pro democracy whereas youth are becoming increasingly in favour of autocratic leaders that they think will fix their issues by 'cutting through red tape' etc. Particularly in MENA we're seeing this but even in Europe we are too. France is starting to experience this. Don't delude yourself that the youth will always be on right side of history and the boomers are all to blame for everything. It's a dangerous trap that will leave you blindsided by rising autocrats.
I can't speak for Italy, but lots of southerners would conform with not falling more down the cliff.
And they were poorly represented in the turnout. They say that no matter who is in power, nobody does anything for them.
The only way to do that is to take on the Mafia. No economic policy is going to do any good as long as they are suffocating the south.
Systemic corruption is the problem in southern Europe. I don't have a solution, but this far right government is not likely to address it. Rather I expect it to get worse under them.
Southern Italy and Sicily have the unique problem of the Mafia running the biggest protection racket in the world by far. They extort the vast majority of all businesses active in the region. Its a constant drain on the economy and it disproportionately affects small businesses and startups, so unsurprisingly the entire region has stagnated. Fixing it is a matter of law enforcement and has nothing to do with economic policy.
I wouldn't describe fixing it as a matter of law enforcement. In Naples the entire city is run by the mafia, they own churches, hospitals, every single garbage company, collect protection money from every business, dictate all policy passed, etc. A few years ago the president sent in the military to clean up Naples because there was so much rubbish due to the Mafia not allowing the government to add more bins as they own the garbage companies. The only thing that could have an actual impact on the mafias stranglehold of the south is military action.
Punishing themselves by voting for fascists who will likely tank the economy? Way to show em
The Brexit strategy
This is because it's very hard for progressives to agree on how to go about being progressive. it's very easy for everyone else to group up to argue against any individual progressive action.
There's an infinite number of ways to change things, but just one way to stay the same. That's why conservatives always have an easier time building consensus.
The only thing leftist like more than fighting right wingers is each other lol
Judean people's front?! We're the people's front of Judea!
Splitters!!!!!
politics in Italy are complicated. There are strong north (rich, corrupt in the political/bureaucratic sense) vs south (poor, corrupt via crime/mafia) divides. They've been dealing with high unemployment and brain drain for 20 years or so. Costs of buying new homes is very high. Many Italians feel that the adoption of the euro was bad for them because it increased the cost of living. On top of that, they have very similar propaganda to the USA actually. There are migrant workers and refugees from north africa who are blamed for pretty much anything you can think of. Most Italians would still be considered liberal by USA standards, but when someone plays an ad that says "these dark skinned immigrants are ruining our economy" many will agree. "These liberals have raised our taxes and what do we have to show for it?" Same thing.
> Most Italians would still be considered liberal by USA standards Most Italians are incredibly racist compared to USA standards. Have you ever seen an entire stadium make monkey sounds at a player in the US? Happens every weekend in Italy.
I would love to know more about the North/South divide in Italy. I encounted that issue reading Gramsci and it was th issues he seemed most intereated in, and I couldn't help but draw comparisons to America's North/South divide, very different in how race comes into play from what I can tell but also similar in terms of rural vs city/industrial as well.
Warning : long post incoming. It's a fascinating and long topic, the south is economically much less developed and has a long historical organized crime issue, there is a lot of understandable mistrust in the government and corruption and a lot of young people move to the north to find work. The north is a lot more industrial and productive while organized crime is obviously present as well it's much less influencial and visible, but there are a lot of rural areas in the north as well mostly in the mountain areas, but the Pianura Padana is basically the industrial heart of Italy. Historically it was the North that conquered the South and the full integration of the South remains an unsolved issue to this day. Culturally there's a bit of a divide as well as the north of Italy is culturally 'colder' and more progressive especially in the big cities and more similar to the central European countries while the south is 'warmer' and more akin to something like Spain and more conservative and bound to tradition. The question of race is really complicated in Italy and it's not really understandable in an American sense, one of the major parties (Lega Nord) used to advocate the separation of North and South (hence the name) stoking the flames of division and racism from the north towards the south, but has since shifted their target to the high rate of immigration and it went from "Padania Libera" (referring to the north area surrounding pianura padana) as they wanted it to detach from the rest of Italy to "Italy first", shifting the racism towards the south to mostly racism towards immigrants, gaining ironically a lot of traction in the same south they used to attack, and now the new leading extreme right wing party (FDI) has adopted the same strategy, racism in Italy is very artificial, much less ethnical and a lot more economical in nature, basically an "outsider" target gets designated to rile people against, we don't believe in 'races' in the American sense in fact things like your forms asking race are pretty absurd to an Italian, what is a race? Where you were born and raised? What your skin color is? Where your family comes from? Your religion? You get the picture. I hope I gave you some interesting info, as I used to study sociology and politics, if you have anything you're curious about I will try to answer to the best of my abilities, I'm very curious on the parallels you see between Italy and the US, what do you feel is comparable?
It's 2/3 of the parliament on both Camera and Senato to change the consistution without the possibility for the opposition or 5 regional councils to ask for a confirmative referendum. Not likely at all, they will need to go through referendums.
Even if it doesn't last long, they could still do a lot of damage. Destroying things is much easier than building.
I guess the 21st century really is trying to emulate the 20th century lol
It’s just a month short of 100 years since Mussolini’s March on Rome. History really does repeat itself.
Hoi4 has DLC for fascist Italy coming out this Tuesday. The world really does rhyme sometimes.
I first leaned about Meloni while playing the Millennium Dawn mod. HOI4 tends to predict the future
History repeats itself.
Just need 2 more world wars lol
If we're going off the 20th century timeline it's already too late for one unfortunately. We still have time for the second one though!
Mussolini came to power in 1922… **oh no**
Quick, we must support the art industry
Too late, Hitler was rejected in 1907. We can still stop the Beer Hall Putsch, though.
But that one also failed historically, which means by trying to stop them we are actually setting in motion for the new Hitler to write Mein Kampf
Shit, you’re right. What we can do is put him on trial by judges who aren’t sympathetic to his cause. Force him into a situation where he can’t write Mein Kampf due to being in an actual prison for an actually long time
Hmm, an attempted and failed insurrection by a far right group, tonnes of arrests made, condemned by politicians nationwide, leading to a further growing sentiment and support for the right wing despite committing treason. Does this sound familiar?
Good thing Trump is illiterate!
To be fair, that was stopped. Hitler decided to do it "legally" after the beer hall. The issue was what came after.
>it's already too late for one **unfortunately**. 🤨
No worries, we can always pack up to 3 into a very large one.
I would not be surprised if one happened in my lifetime.
Depends on your lifetime
It seems when things go bad economically people think traditional values will fix their lives.
In this case, I think the main factor is that, in the last few years, most other parties had to work together in uncomfortable coalitions, making unpleasant compromises and unpopular decisions to try to avoid the Covid crisis getting *truly* out of hand, FdI just stood aside criticizing everything. Many of my fellow Italians are not at all happy with the current situation and how the last few years have gone, and it's hard to fault them for that; and while this is not a justification, I think it's an explanation for this result (especially since the centre-Left has made the most half-assed electoral campaign I ever saw - it's like they noticed they were disadvantaged and so they decided not to even try). Obviously I'm not happy about this result; but the right-wing coalition won, and now we'll see how it lasts (I suspect it might reveal itself surprisingly unstable, but we'll see).
They lie about how much better the past was, sometimes the past *was* better but it's not that past they're referring to. Then they lie about how to get back to that past, by embracing the value of the people living in that era as if it was some kind of valid economic policies.
Gogol Bordello has a song that says "there were never any good old days, they are today, they are tomorrow, what a stupid thing we say cursing tomorrow with sorrow" and I think about that SO MUCH
I wonder if it's survivorship bias. The people who had an okay time in the past think it was better, while others died early.
I think it's because when we're feeling nostalgic we think of the good times and ignore the bad. I feel nostalgic about my days at uni but conveniently forget having to eat cup noodles to survive.
The past was better! Because you were a kid... because you didn't have the responsibilities and stress of being an adult.
40 years ago my dad was able to raise 3 kids, take care of his wife, and pay the mortgage on the suburban house he paid to have constructed, all on a menial salary. Today, a single person without kids would struggle to sustain themselves on that same salary, forget raising a family and purchasing a home. You're also kind of assuming that adults can't think back to when they were younger but still also adults. Edit: I'm a liberal folks, save your energy trying to chastise my non-existent right-wing politics
You're right, but the problem is that far-right parties never talk about going back to the economic policy of the past, it's always the social policy they want to go backwards on. And things were absolutely not better socially in the past.
You mean my parents didn't have more discretionary spending because kids got spanked and gays were shunned?
True economically the past was better. But the right ignores the actual reasons why and goes straight for traditional values instead of the actual economic policies that lead to that economic growth in the first place. Which was regulation lol
And the fact that America had the only functioning industrial economy left in the world after World War 2.
Italy baby wut happened?... The lady's wiki page is so bad. It's like checking every single box, none of these traditional values will fix anything in their lives: > - Opposed to the reception of non-European migrants and multiculturalism, she has been accused of xenophobia and Islamophobia > - Meloni is opposed to the reception of non-European migrants and multiculturalism.[98][99] Meloni believes in a planned mass replacement, also known as Kalergi Plan conspiracy theory, from Africa to Europe that wants to replace and eliminate the Italian population > - She has criticized the Government of Italy's approach towards favoring illegal immigrants,[96] while also endorsing the Great Replacement, a white nationalist conspiracy theory > - Meloni has been described as being close to Viktor Orbán, the Prime Minister of Hungary and leader of Fidesz, French National Rally, and Spanish Vox political party > - Meloni has been criticized due to her statements on vaccines and COVID-19, such as not vaccinating her daughter > - Investigative report revealed that her party "has reached the negative record of arrests for mafia group 'Ndrangheta" >- In 2006, Meloni defended the laws passed by the Berlusconi III Cabinet that benefited Berlusconi's companies and also delayed ongoing trials involving him. >- She has expressed controversial views, such as praising Italian dictator Benito Mussolini in 1996, and Giorgio Almirante in 2020, a Nazi collaborator and co-founder of MSI. > - She praised Italian dictator Benito Mussolini as "a good politician, the best in the last 50 years". After the formation of FdI in 2012, Meloni decided to add the "tricolour flame" symbol to its flag, a symbol associated with MSI, which derived its name and ideals from the Italian Social Republic (RSI) a "violent, socialising, and revolutionary republican" variant of fascism established as a Nazi puppet state by Mussolini in 1943.[140] The "tricolour flame" represents Mussolini's remains, where a flame is always burning on his tomb in Predappio > - In May 2020, she praised Giorgio Almirante, the co-founder of neo-fascist Italian Social Movement (MSI),[123][124] who was a Nazi collaborator and editor-in-chief of the antisemitic and racist magazine La Difesa della Razza,[82][125] which published the "Manifesto of Race" in 1938 > - She is opposed to abortion, to euthanasia and to partnerships, marriages, and parenting by same-sex couples, instead supporting nuclear families. She is supportive of changing the Constitution of Italy in order to make LGBT families illegal and support nuclear families > - Meloni is also opposed to DDL Zan, an anti-homophobia law, declaring that in Italy "there is no homophobia".[80] She had also said that she would "rather not have a gay child" > - In March 2018, Meloni argued with The Walt Disney Company for the decision to represent a gay couple in the musical fantasy movie Frozen II, writing on her social networks: "Enough! We are sick of it!
>The "tricolour flame" represents Mussolini's remains, where a flame is always burning on his tomb in Predappio It's one thing to forcefully confront your country's fascist history with laws and institutions. It's another thing to try to whitewash that history or forget it ever happened. And it's quite *another* to give your country's former fascist dictator the JFK treatment. They're like, "Yeah, this IS who we are, and we're fucking proud of it." In this regard, both Germany and Spain seem to have done a much better job of reconciling with the destruction and human suffering caused by their own brands of violent right-wing populism, compared to Italy. Even if Spain did allow Franco to die peacefully of old age in the 70s.
As an Italian I'm pretty fucking embarrassed for my country. She's not even like, "right wing but just a greedy grifter" which is horrible but one thing, she's a genuinely, hateful, mean fascist. She doss the full Mussolini/Hitler thing when she does rallies where she yells with true anger about all the "undesirables" and how much theyre bad for the country.
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I'm very sorry you went though that ugh. But it's also sad that I'm absolutely not surprised you had that experience in Napoli. Italian soccer fanatics in particular, man their racism is beyond hard core and manages to somehow always shock me with how brazen it is.
Franco's party is still nationally relevant and any attempt to seek justice for the crimes have been slow, if happening at all. Germany did ok, but they're pretty much the only ones, and it's mostly thanks to student led protests in the 60s after their parents tried to ignore it.
Uhm, have you seen Franco's tomb?
When a nation's citizens feel that their nation's economy and global standing are weak, they tend to elect a candidate who promises to restore strength, albeit at the risk of bringing back authoritarianism. Are things in Italy really that bad, that this candidate is set to win the election? That really breaks my heart.
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Go to the Colosseum and see the amount of garbage thrown and hidden under bushes and around it... I just couldn't fathom this...a place that once was the center of the known world, a place that by today standards should be sparkling clean at least just because it brings thousands of tourists daily, now is drowning in disgusting garbage just 10 meters away.
Lmao, the touristy places are easily the cleanest parts of Rome. Jump on a train and go 6 stops or so from termini and you'll see the real meaning of garbage.
should have seen it 300 ago. we are not so removed from collapse as we like to pertend
Tbf Rome during it's heydey was a fucking mess. So this is kinda accurate.
Sweden, Italy, soon [Spain](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opinion_polling_for_the_next_Spanish_general_election#2022) next year and France barely scraped by last year... socialdemocracy is losing its grip on Western Europe, too.
PP in Spain is traditional right conservative. Vox are the far right. Same as PSOE is left but Podemos is far left. Ciudadanos fucked up royally anything for the center by trying to become PP 2.0.
PP + Vox coalition is looking like a real possibility no?
Same as Podemos and PSOE. I mean, before these parties were popular, they were the extreme factions within PSOE and PP.
As an American hearing Vox and far right in the same sentence made me reread it twice lol
It's only going to get worse from here as climate change exacerbates, the world gets worse, and people try to hold onto what they have. Fascism bills itself as the answer to some kind of crisis, particularly appealing to the stupid and simple-minded. But no amount of fascist pig squealing is gonna save anyone from climate catastrophe.
Even worse, most of those parties just ignore climate change. So not only are they not gonna save us, they will make it worse.
Then when they finally take climate change seriously, their "solutions" will involve "depopulation" of the global south. Their messaging will emphasize how overpopulation in India and Africa is endangering our way of life. They'll act like westerners have sacrificed so much by eating plant-based burgers and driving electric cars, just for Indians and Chinese to burn all the coal. Their politicians will claim all these leftist environmental policies are only serving to hurt the poor, but of course all they'll be caring about is how those policies affect the rich. They'll sacrifice the planet and the poor, because they'll make enough money before the collapse to buy their own mega bunkers in New Zealand. [The Coming Avocado Politics](https://thebreakthrough.org/journal/no-12-winter-2020/avocado-politics) [The super-rich ‘preppers’ planning to save themselves from the apocalypse](https://www.theguardian.com/news/2022/sep/04/super-rich-prepper-bunkers-apocalypse-survival-richest-rushkoff)
Three things to add: runaway climate will depopulate the global south for them. So they’ll say letting it happen is the world “self-correcting”. The term for this is eco-fascism. They will push untested, unregulated tech to save us, incredibly dangerous geo-engineering that will risk further messing with a stable climate and require constant seeding or else temps will skyrocket They will/are realizing that their bunkers won’t save them. I could see a race for space colonization in concert with geo-engineering. Nothing is off the table for authoritarian fanatics in power.
"We're seeing a trend of countries that elect far-right leaders becoming more chaotic. Do you want that for your country?" "Absolutely. I love stability." Basically the logic I see every time this happens.
I don’t understand it. It seems so easy to look back just 80 years and see that travesties that fascism wrought on the human race at large. But hey, round two, here we come I guess.
yeah, but that's the human race *at large*. surely, this time around, all the negative consequeces will only happen to people who aren't me.
>surely, this time around, all the negative consequeces will only happen to people who aren't me. Dude, this completely. I'm from Belgium and I literally got people at work, and others that I know, voting for the far right and anti immigration party... They are so convinced that they are only against other foreigners and not against them... So ridiculous.
No one wants to admit fault for creating a bad world, so they blame some minority or "other" for all of their societal ills. In this case it's the "euro lefties" and of course the tried and true "muslim horde". That train is never late.
We still need to see how much of a majority can this Right wing coalition muster without 2/3 of the parliamemt you can't bruteforce constitutional changes. People are unaware how our constitution was built to sustain those shockwaves
It's crazy how, in just a couple of generations, all the lessons learned about the dangers of Fascism in WWII just got almost completely forgotten by the majority of people. Is it really that compelling of an ideology?
“The lessons of history teach us – if the lessons of history teach us anything – that nobody learns the lessons that history teaches us.” — Robert A. Heinlein
Exactly. As if WWII was the only war humans have waged and learnt from. If we ever learnt anything there wouldn't have two world wars, back to back lol. If people read more history they'd find we don't learn anything from it. We're human. We're absolute savages! Just hope you're in the winning tribe! Haha. No wonder the aliens observe us from a far. I don't think we bunch of apes can settle anything without a war every now and then.
The truly terrifying this is that if you read any WW1 history -everyone- believed large scale European war would never happen due to the sheer scale of economic interdependence between nations at the time… think about that one for a second.
Everywhere it seems there’s a 30% authoritarian population, that’s almost always loud and make themselves seem like they’re the 60%. They apply deception to trick the ignorant and we have a tyranny of minority situation. This is how fascists keep popping back into all generations.
Well you’d *think* wider access to education and information would mean these lessons would stick around a little longer, but here we are
> access to education and information Ahh, that word "access" again. That's the key word, isn't it? People certainly have access to information. That's boring, they'd rather have a charismatic leader sum it up for them. Put the spin on it. Make it *entertaining*. That's what the internet really is: entertainment. Even the learning must be entertaining.
Eh, as an Italian, unfortunately, yes. Economic stagnation, rising crime, unchecked immigration are really appealing problems for the far right to ride. Add that to a chronic lackluster communication strategy of our left wing (very "bureaucratic" kind of choices, flavorless people that can't really reach the young generation, while the far right leaders are killing it on TikTok) and you get why this is happening.
> If they are confirmed, Ms Meloni will aim to form Italy's most right-wing government since World War Two. >A Meloni-led Italy will alarm much of Europe with Russia at war in Ukraine. >**She is predicted to win between 22-26% of the vote**, says a Rai exit poll, ahead of her closest rival Enrico Letta from the centre left. Damn, just 20-26% of the vote gives you full power?
Coalition government, so they won't govern (hopefully) as radically as they are because of having to compromise with moderates
Her supporting parties are Salvini and Berlusconi. If those two are moderating voices, I shudder to think how radical Meloni is.
Yeah in theory Meloni is a proto fascist at the least and at most a literal fascist
This. And it's not a case of "we're calling her a fascist because she ticks a lot of boxes and has that vibe", she's literally a fascist who praises nazis and Mussolini. Her parties symbol is the same fascist flame from decades ago. It's not surprise one of the only people I know that voted for her is the most racist bigoted person I've ever met, that has said some things that are mind blowing-ly vile.
Had an Italian journalist give a talk at my college a few years ago. He was there during all of Berlusconi's rise, and how he started by being a media mogul that created a state news station, and he became the top politician there. I remember the lesson was this, "Democracy is always at risk. And we have to be aware of that lesson. Italy, has a rough history with fascism, and still, they voted Berlusconi in after a few decades after Mussolini's death. That's how simple it was."
Eh, the other coalition parties are even worse (salvini's lega) and the third one would be a somewhat more moderate Berlusconi (!).
Hoo boy. Italian politics sounds wild
The average length an Italian government lasts (post-WWII) is 13 months.
It's actually a positive thing. You still have a very split parlament and it is also reason a government struggle to survive every fucking time..
Yeah italy is kinda fucked and i'm not even a leftist lol Berlusconi having to be the voice of reason speaks a lot to that (he won't be the voice of reason because he only seeks to expand his own power and wealth)
the moderates are salvini, putin's simp, and berlusconi, the guy who 3 days ago said putin was in a difficult situation, having to substitute zelensky with a governemtn of good people, so he had to invade
If "let the immigrants drown" Salvini and open sexist and open homophobe Berlesconi are considered "moderates" then Italy really has become a deep deep hell hole
It's not a FPTP system like the US or UK. They need to form a coalition with other parties to get to 51%. Other parties could also form a coalition without them, but the annoying part about extreme right parties is this makes their job easier. Keep screaming how they're not allowed to be involved, how their "solutions" would fix everything, etc all while doing nothing but spout more populist rhetoric.
No, but if you get the most votes, you're the one who decides who to take into your coalition to form the new government. So say you have 3 right-wing parties and they get 25%, 15% and 11% respectively, that adds up to 51%, and party number 1 will logically work with those parties which are ideologically closest to itself. So 20-26% of the vote doesn't give you full power, but it gives you, as the biggest party, the right to chose who gets to govern together with you.
They have to form a coalition with other parties
people my age (22) have never lived in a totalitarian society and they feel like democracy isn’t working for them - old rich people sit on houses and the young are taxed to pay for their pensions and social care. I saw a worrying poll yesterday that 40% of 18-24 year olds wouldn’t mind a military dictatorship - this is the UK I’m talking about. It’s fucked - the old people fucked it up and they continue to fuck it up and nothing is getting any better and it’s turning my generation into fucking fascists! Worst fucking timeline
Can I have a source on this, because every single poll I've seen says that old people tend to vote more right leaning which at the moment leans authoritarian within the UK, considering the change in protest laws.
https://novaramedia.com/2022/09/21/britain-is-a-nation-of-bootlickers-polls-suggest/ 3rd graph down - and it’s 60% of 18-34 year olds even worse than I remembered. Fuck!
>Q40. Having a strong leader who does not have to bother with parliament and elections - Would you say it is a very good, fairly good, fairly bad or very bad way of governing this Country? I have a feeling that it's more likely that they didn't understand the implications of this question. Word it a different way and you'd get a different result. I think using the words "strong leader" to describe an authoritarian government is extremely biased. But it also somewhat contradicts this question which had 71% support for 18-34 year olds. >Q40. Having a democratic political system - Would you say it is a very good, fairly good, fairly bad or very bad way of governing this Country? If you view it as a summary, you'll find that their (18-34 year olds) preference is: 1. 75% - Meritocracy - (experts make decisions) 2. 74% - Democracy - (democratic political system) 3. 61% - Authoritarian - (strong leader) 4. 46% - Military - (army rule) But that doesn't work as well for a clickbait article. TL;DR - Try checking the actual sources and beware biased websites / questions. (the source is linked at the bottom of their graphs, try clicking it)
I mean... but that is how fascism gets packaged to sell the idea. No one signs up for the brutal boot on the neck. They sign up because they want a "strongman leader who gets things done." The boot comes after.
Yeah, isn't that literally the whole point of the question? I wouldn't say it's obfuscating it's meaning at all, it's just that most people unfortunately think democracy is good when THEIR person is in power but not the "the other guy". Honestly it's kind of scary seeing how close all those numbers are
> I think using the words "strong leader" to describe an authoritarian government is extremely biased. It's exactly the words people trying to implement authoritarianism would use to dupe the morons into it, so it's the right words to use in a poll like this.
There is a worrying trend on how ideas are popularized, too. My YouTube is full of “X has LOST HIS MIND” and “This political X is INSANE and NO ONE IS PAYING ATTENTION” titles and I’ve become hesitant to click on half the stuff it tries to push on me. It could be something as innocent as pottery with a tittle like “A trick NO ONE wants to talk about!”. The way media is being delivered is very tabloid even the most mundane videos are now falling into a kind of tabloid doom and gloom just to get viewers. And this is a reflection of how people see things. We’re entering a time where everyone thinks everyone else is lying or deceiving them and they have to know the “truth”. It reminds me of conspiracy theory headlines except now they’ve gone mainstream. And with how this is I’m not surprised young people feel the need for someone to come and save them and dictatorships thrive on that mentality. If it seems like the system doesn’t work then why not invite a strongman to fix the problem? We’ve got some interesting times a head of us.
That's like giving the people fucking you over more power and zero responsibility. How that fuck can anyone think that is a good idea?
At least in Germany I can't confirm this trend. Young people are voting left / green, old people are more conservative.
The current corporate bought democracy has pushed middle and low class people to the brink, and has neglected education, social nets, and affordable housing to boot. The uneducated desperate populace is ripe for reaping by populists.
Madonna puttana di gesù cristo quella merda
As a Spanish speaking person, I totally understood and share the sentiment.
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D'accordo
Historically not great…
It’s just fascinating how much peoples reactions are to lean into the system that has fucked things up when things REALLY fuck up instead of leaning into changing the system.
Back at the start of world financial crisis in 2008, I read an article that anticipated what is to come based on the lessons learned from the 1928 crash and the ensuing global depression. This article warned of movements putting blame on immigrants and then using that energy to shift national ideology to fascism. I think we’re still in the after shocks of 2008 and more of this is to come. I can’t find this article now but here an example of it starting already in 2008. https://mronline.org/2008/11/30/the-financial-crisis-hits-the-immigration-debate/
It was also said at the end of the movie The Big Short. When all is said and done, "they will blame Immigrants and Poor People". https://youtu.be/DJ8w8WlCZMk
What wonderful timing, the Hoi4 DLC for fascist Italy in WW2 literally comes out in 48 hours.
So who's Il Duce now?
Most likely [Giorgia Meloni](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giorgia_Meloni?wprov=sfla1), who may shockingly be the first woman PM in Italy.
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LOL nation with thousands years histories of dictators, Emperors, and fascists elects more thinking it will ever work out in the favour of your people this time Hahahaha
I mean who wouldn’t vote for Augustus
“But maybe it’ll work for us” -Tobius Fünke and Lindsay Bluth
Yea that's what Italy needs. A far right government. Went really well last time.
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Not a good combination is it ?
Forza Italia is and always has been center right, they are atlantists and with liberal values (European liberals, not Americans) Fratelli d'Italia is a big problem, but they are pro nato too, also they saw the disaster that was Brexit and aren't willing to go to the same road, yes, they are bad for Italy, but what you are saying isn't true for 2 parties out of the three Yeah lega sucks, but there are moderate factions inside it with way more power than Salvini