What a difference a few months can make.

Ahead of Italy’s election last fall, Giorgia Meloni was widely depicted as a menace. By this summer, everything — her youthful admiration for Benito Mussolini, her party’s links to neofascists, her often extreme rhetoric — had been forgiven. Praised for her practicality and support for Ukraine, Ms. Meloni has established herself as a reliable Western partner, central to Group of 7 meetings and NATO summits alike. A visit to Washington, which takes place on Thursday, seals her status as a valued member of the international community.

But the comforting tale of a populist firebrand turned pragmatist overlooks something important: what’s been happening in Italy. Ms. Meloni’s administration has spent its first months accusing minorities of undermining the triad of God, nation and family, with dire practical consequences for migrants, nongovernmental organizations and same-sex parents. Efforts to weaken anti-torture legislation, stack the public broadcaster with loyalists and rewrite Italy’s postwar constitution to increase executive power are similarly troubling. Ms. Meloni’s government isn’t just nativist but has a harsh authoritarian streak, too.

For Italy, this is bad enough. But much of its significance lies beyond its borders, showing how the far right can break down historic barriers with the center right. Allies of Ms. Meloni are already in power in Poland, also newly legitimized by their support for Ukraine. In Sweden, a center-right coalition relies on the nativist Sweden Democrats’ support to govern. In Finland, the anti-immigrant Finns Party went one better and joined the government. Though these parties, like many of their European counterparts, once rejected membership in NATO and the European Union, today they seek a place in the main Euro-Atlantic institutions, transforming them from within. In this project, Ms. Meloni is leading the way.

Since becoming prime minister, Ms. Meloni has certainly moderated her language. In official settings, she’s at pains to appear considered and cautious — an act aided by her preference for televised addresses rather than questioning by journalists. Yet she can also rely on colleagues in her Brothers of Italy party to be less restrained. Taking aim at one of the government’s main targets, L.G.B.T.Q. parents, party leaders have called surrogate parenting a “crime worse than pedophilia,” claiming that gay people are “passing off” foreign kids as their own. Ms. Meloni can appear aloof from such rhetoric, even suggesting unhappiness with its extremism. But her decisions in office reflect zealotry, not caution. The government extended a ban on surrogacy to criminalize adoptions in other countries and ordered municipalities to stop registering same-sex parents, leaving children in legal limbo.

[…]

Journalists, too, are under pressure. Sitting ministers have threatened — and in some cases pursued — a raft of libel suits against the Italian press in an apparent bid to intimidate critics. The public broadcaster RAI is also under threat, and not just because its mission for the next five years includes “promoting birthrates.” After its chief executive and leading presenters resigned, citing political pressure from the new government, it now resembles tele-Meloni, with rampant handpicking of personnel. The new director general, Giampaolo Rossi, is a pro-Meloni hard-liner who previously distinguished himself as an organizer of an annual Brothers of Italy festival. In the aftermath of his appointment, news outlets published scores of his anti-immigration social media posts and an interview with a neofascist journal in which he condemned the antifascist “caricature” hanging over public life

This is not his concern alone. Burying the antifascist legacy of the wartime Resistance matters deeply to the Brothers of Italy, a party rooted in its fascist forefathers’ great defeat in 1945. As prime minister, Ms. Meloni has referred to Italy’s postwar antifascist culture as a repressive ideology, responsible even for the murder of right-wing militants in the political violence of the 1970s. It’s not just history to be rewritten. The postwar Constitution, drawn up by the Resistance-era parties, is also ripe for revision: The Brothers of Italy aims to create a directly elected head of government and a strong executive freer of constraint. No matter its novelty, Ms. Meloni’s administration has every chance of imposing enduring changes in the political order.

[…]

Success is hardly inevitable. Ahead of last week’s election in Spain, Ms. Meloni addressed her nationalist ally Vox, declaring that the “patriots’ time has come”; in fact, its vote share fell and right-wing parties failed to secure a majority. Even so, Vox has become an enduring part of the electoral arena and a regular ally for conservatives. Despite their growing success, such forces have for years been painted as insurgent outsiders representing long-ignored voters. The more disturbing truth is that they are no longer parties of protest, but increasingly welcome in the mainstream. For proof, just look to Washington on Thursday.

  • Syl@jlai.lu
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    1 year ago

    Doesn’t look good in France as well. Macron doesn’t control the cops, and they are assaulting people freely.

    • Tetra@kbin.social
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      1 year ago

      I worry about the seemingly inevitable Le Pen presidency even more. I don’t feel safe at all in this country anymore.

      Doing my best to move to Canada but I really don’t have the money.
      Even then, Canada might be in a better spot atm, but even there the fascist parties are gaining in influence; nowhere is safe.

      • Syl@jlai.lu
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        1 year ago

        I mean, Macron is already doing some authoritarian shit, forcing unpopular laws on people, cops assaulting people, we’re currently sliding fast… but I’ll stay. I have the money, but I won’t leave the people here and I’ll try to do the best I can to stop this shit.

      • oce 🐆@jlai.lu
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        1 year ago

        Le Pen will not pass because of her past reputation and failures that no PR will erase, I’m more worried about the next generation she taught to look impeccable from the beginning, also worried about not being able to tell the difference between traditional right and far right anymore.

      • NuPNuA@lemm.ee
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        1 year ago

        Facist parties are going to keep gaining ground unless our current politicans do something about the massive inequality in all western countries and going after the people at the top who fuel it to force them to redistribute their wealth. At the moment it feels like most mainstream parties are just in it for managed decline now. Of course people are going to flock to the party with strong seeming leaders with simple answers.

        • azertyfun@sh.itjust.works
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          1 year ago

          Except the mainstream parties that still manage to hold on to power can’t upset the status-quo. Redistributing wealth is out of the question when the voting base simply does not believe it can or should be done, and all the mainstream media grooms that narrative.

          I don’t see a way out. The elites protect themselves, and they own the media because news media simply isn’t profitable. With growing discontent, intensifying fascism is the only avenue left for elites looking to protect their assets at all costs by diverting attention. What can we do against such crushing systemic power to misdirect popular anger?

    • ISOmorph@feddit.de
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      1 year ago

      Germany’s neo-nazi party AfD is polling scarily well too. All of EU is turning into an authoritan hellscape. My wife and I are seriously considering leaving.

      • Syl@jlai.lu
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        1 year ago

        yeah, getting feedback from the European Parliament from the left doesn’t look good either. But at least some people in France are still fighting.

      • Mangoholic@lemmy.ml
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        1 year ago

        If everyone opposing authoritan hellscapes is leaving. Ofc it will turn out to become one. I wouldn’t worry that much about the afd yet, to gain power they need 51% in parliament since no other party will do a coalition with them. So for now the worst that can happen is them getting elected on a district level.

    • moitoi@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      France is already a police State. The gov is doing what the cops want without asking.