Sept 15- The Orbanisation of Italy
A thread by David Broder on Giorgia Meloni and the great replacement theory and my Op-Ed on Meloni's coalition and where it will go after the election.
The Orbanisation of Italy
I’ve sat on this for a while and decided it was time to weigh in on the Italian general election. What triggered it was David Broder’s thread on Giorgia Meloni’s promotion of the great replacement theory. In this first part, you’ll find David Broder’s thread with some translation and commentary, and in the second part, my Op-Ed on Italy’s bleak future should the radical-right wing coalition win a majority government in the election.
Putin, Xi, and Orban have shown the world what authoritarianism looks like, and how they have destroyed their states. The Italian radical-right is going down the same road. La bella Italia could be no more.
Who is David Broder…
Translator and @jacobin Europe editor. David Broder is a Rome-based writer and translator and the Jacobin Magazine Europe editor. He regularly writes on Italian politics for publications including Internazionale and The New Statesman.
My next book is titled ‘Mussolini’s Grandchildren: Fascism in Contemporary Italy’.
The many occasions Giorgia Meloni promoted the great replacement theory.
This is a classic expression of all elements of the theory, together: "the project of ethnic substitution of European citizens, desired by big capital and international speculators", as facilitated by Italian liberals in the EU.
Translation: the EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs, Mogherini, said that “it is impossible to stop migration” and that without migrants “there would be a collapse of society.” Meloni adds: “Absolute craziness! The EU is complicit in unmitigated migration, of the invasion in Europe, and the project of ethnic replacement of European citizens, as programmed by big money and international speculators.”
She attacks the "emissaries" of Soros, "the financier giving global support and finance to mass immigration and the plan for ethnic substitution". (Fd'I social media called him a "usurer").
Translation: “Oh look! Who wrote a piece of the M5S’s programme about immigrants? The Soros emissaries, the finanzier that sustains and finances the entire world of mass immigration and the design for ethnic replacement. Little Gigi Di Maio, have you nothing to say?”
Faced with falling birthrates, Meloni alleges that "left-wing" governments' response was to "finance the invasion to replace Italians with immigrants and gift citizenship through ius soli" (i.e. citizenship for immigrants' children born in Italy).
Translation: “ISTAT’s demographic data are disasterous: for the second consecutive year, there were less than 500k children born in Italy. Added to this disaster is the exodus of more than 76K of our citizens who chose not to live here but have gone abroad. Given this desolate picture, the only response that the left-wing governments can give is this: finance the invasion so as to replace Italians with immigrants and gift them citizenship and to their children.”
2020: we have a softer version. Faced with the pandemic, the Left exploits the crisis to substitute the Italian workforce with low-cost immigrant labour.
Translation: “The left is attempting to take advantage of the Covid-19 emergency to provide a carpet amnesty to irregular immigrants and substitute Italian labour with cheap foreign labour.
My comment: her party proposes the re-introduction of the voucher system. Please note that she was against vouchers when in opposition.
One that has been widely shared the last few days, from 20 June 2017. She speaks of "a plan for ethnic substitution" at a rally against granting citizenship to migrants' children:
2019: Why don't NGOs care about bringing Venezuelan immigrants to Italy? Because there is a "plan to bring in people different from our identity".
Translation: “There are 2 million Venezuelans who are dying of hunger, many of them of Italian background. Why hasn’t any NGO asked to bring them to Italy? There is a plan to bring in people that are different from our identity.”
My comment: This is perfectly in line with Orban’s immigration policy in Europe and the a faction within the GOP that embraces “identity” politics. Indeed, the term that unites these political parties is the idea of “identity”.
Another Soros reference, 2019, "I believe there is a design to use illegal immigration to push down workers' rights and wages. Soros isn't a philanthropist but an international speculator".
"I think that there is a plan to erase everything that identifies us: culture, Nation, family are under attack".
My comment: Meloni’s trigger terms mirror the Trump faction of the GOP- if we can still call it the Republican Party. In his latest campaign video, Trump reiterates what is important to his base: God, Nation, Family. These are the same values connecting Meloni and Trump’s GOP.
From her Facebook: "Dress rehearsals for ethnic substitution in Italy".
Translation: “General dress rehearsal for the ethnic replacement in Italy. In 2015, more than 100K Italians left our Nation to find fortune abroad. Of these, over 30% were young people between the ages of 18 and 34. In order to balance that, in 2015, 153K immigrants were shipped, the overwhelming majority were African men. This is the result of the failed policies of the Renzi-Alfano government: open ports to all the immigrants of the planet and increasing poverty forced to emigrate. What exactly inspires these incompetents to govern?”
"What we have seen in Italy — 500,000 immigrants in three years — is, here, too, a planned, willed invasion ... the reason they bring [them] in is to have a cheap workforce for big capital ... It's called ethnic substitution, and we won't allow it"
My comment: Melon’s numbers are purposefully ficticious. Last year, a little over 58K people came to Italy, of which 23K left by the end of the year and most of the arrivals came in through airports and not dingies crossing the Mediterranean.
The Orbanisation of Italy
Giorgia Meloni’s party and coalition (Matteo Salvini’s League and Silvio Berlusconi’s Forza Italia) could garner the most votes (and seats) in the up-coming general election, set for September 25. The coalition is polling at close to 50%, if polls are to be believed.
Meloni’s party, Brothers of Italy, alone, is currently polling in the high 20 percentile and it’s doing so well partly due to the weaknesses of the other parties in this electoral cycle, and the presence of one political coalition that makes Meloni’s coalition look like pearl-clutching moderates. Meloni’s coaltion partners have been burned by their ties to Putin’s Russia and embroiled in a series of legal scandals. This is why most of the friendly right-wing press has focused solely on her campaign and not the other coalition partners.
Then you have The Sovereign Italy coalition, which mirrors scary Russian talking points perfectly: Italy out of the EU, NATO, bring back the lire, and reinstate all relations with Russia. This coalition seems to have come of nowhere, with its glossy electoral campaign materials and YouTube channels. I wouldn’t be surprised if the radical-right wing coalition set them up so that Meloni’s coalition looks like a presentable, attractive alternative.
The centre-left coalitions, which include the Democratic Party, headed by Enrico Letta, and the centre Renzi-Calenda coalition, are running a disasterous campaign, failing to gain in the poll numbers and connecting with voters.
Add to this that Meloni has become the darling of national and international press circles that fail to grill her on the economic realities she and her coaliltion will be facing. They haven’t grilled her about her past in the fascist youth movement, her obsession with identity politics as outlined by Broder, and the fact that her party has refused to participate in any government, even in Draghi’s unity government since 2012. It seems that she is hell-bent on winning, but does she really have any competencies in governing? And which alliances and partners will Italy sustain after the election?
While Meloni has brought in some respectible candidates with ties to the European EPP, she has not foresaken the agreement her party signed with Viktor Orban, nor has she turned away from her ties with Steven Bannon and the Trump faction of the Republican Party. The propaganda narratives being pushed on social media mirrors the QAnon-Trump world view: “Italians First”, “Nation and Family.” She’s also on record for opposing the formation of a government commission to investigate Russian and Chinese capture in Italian politics and business.
To date, there are no signs when it comes to foreign policy that Meloni’s coalition will keep Italy firmly within the Atlanticist and European family- or rather, it will, but with the ECR-Russian aligned parties in the EU, and extremist wing of the GOP. Her coalition partner, Matteo Salvini, renewed an accord with United Russia this past June amidst Russia’s war of aggression and genocide against Ukraine.
Translation: “We need to negotiate with Putin,” “Zelensky must give something up,”it’s impossible to get Russia to retreat, why do you want to die for Ukrainians,”we must understand what Zelensky really wants,” “Negotiations now!”, “Peace now!”.
These statements, as listed by Jacopo Iacoboni, were constantly drummed into the Italian public by the radical-right wing, pro-Kremlin proxies of the mainstream and extremist fringes on Italian TV and social media channels.
Meloni formally supported arms to Ukraine, but her base and coalition partners sought to reverse sanctions on Russia at every turn, and Matteo Salvini was set to go to Moscow, funded by the Russian Ambassador in May until the press exposed his machinations, and Salvini was forced to back track. (Note the religious images in the background.)
Citing the need to keep her government coalition together, and to buffer the ‘impending economic crisis’ (‘Sanctions hurt us more than Russia.”), I can envision a moment when Meloni will support lifting the sanctions applied to Russian oligarchs and businesses, to the joy of Antonio Fallico’s Verona-Eurasia partners and Marcegallia’s Confindustria.
All this is disturbing enough, but what is really frightening is one promise Meloni and her coalition partners have made to voters: They would like to downgrade the powers of the President of the Italian Republic, or rather, disempower its role and office.
Currently, it is the President of the Italian Republic who serves as a check and balance to the Italian Parliament, and makes sure that all legislation conforms to the Italian Constitution. Meloni’s coalition would like the President to be a mere figurehead of the Italian state- a ribbon-cutter and host to visiting dignitaries.
There is a distinct possibility that Meloni’s coalition will find a way to do this if they have a majority government. They could pass legislation to bring in domestic and foreign policies in keeping with the policies of their authoritarian international partners. Meloni has recently said that the high prices in gas are attributable to the stock exchange in Amsterdam, and that Europe’s “vacation is over”, foreshadowing turbulent times to come in our relations with Europe.
Tanslation: In her debate with Letta (PD) today, Meloni cited a point in her programme: foreign workers should present a guarantor and guarantee that they have paid taxes. Besides it being unconstitutional, she has demonstrated that she has no idea how guarantees work.
If there is no way to stop the radical-right tide, and beef up more moderate right and left wing voices, Italy is set for the Orbanisation of the Italian Republic: “Italians first!”, but with Russian and Chinese money flowing into the economy, and at home, a reversal of civil rights that were painstakingly gained after Italy’s Fascist era. For the European Union it means that a stauch supporter of the Union and Ukraine could not be relied on, and perhaps much worse.
Am I exaggerating a tad? I look back at the analysis and commentary regarding Trump in 2016 by most respectable American political analysts and talking heads, and they all believed Trump would become ‘presidential’. Trump’s ridiculous statements were thought to be hyperbole and his thirst for power was underestimated.
Meloni may dress up in soft silks, pastel colours and creamy beige eye-shadow but she still remains Marine Le Pen inside, and outside for that matter. Her coalition victory would unleash the wolves at bay: It’s a risk we cannot take.