That Giorgia Meloni speech captivating the U.S. right doesn't make sense

[Nevilledog]

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Philip Bump
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I get that a speech is inherently about emotion and not necessarily rationality, but that Giorgia Meloni speech the American right is fawning over actually doesn't really make any sense.

washingtonpost.com
Analysis | That Giorgia Meloni speech captivating the U.S. right doesn’t make sense
It's effective at capturing emotion, certainly. But considering the content even fleetingly reveals a very weird assessment of the world.
1:03 PM · Sep 27, 2022

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/09/27/meloni-italy-united-states-far-right/

No paywall
https://archive.ph/Z3zfn

Thanks to a viral video, the American right has an unexpected new crush.

Clipped by a YouTube channel that specializes in sharing content from far-right politicians, the video features Giorgia Meloni, expected to become Italy’s next prime minister. Meloni is shown speaking at the World Congress of Families gathering in 2019, a right-wing conference brought to Italy that year by sympathetic politicians. After her party, Brothers of Italy, secured the most seats in last weekend’s parliamentary contest — paving the way for the right-wing coalition of which it is a part to assume control of the country’s leadership — interest in Meloni spiked and the 2019 speech began to circulate.

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) declared it to be “spectacular.” A writer for the Federalist fawned. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) marveled at how “beautifully said” Meloni’s argument was. A cadre of allies of Donald Trump were similarly energetic.

The speech is, in fact, well presented. It also doesn’t really make any sense.

I will admit that I do not speak Italian and am relying for this analysis on the subtitles added to the snippet. But then, I suspect that Cruz and Greene are similarly ignorant of the language and are similarly basing their evaluations on what the video itself presents as Meloni’s argument. The enthusiasm on the right, in other words, is based on the translation, so parsing the translation seems like a perfectly fair way of evaluating that enthusiasm.

Before doing so, it’s worth understanding the importance of the format. The medium is the message, as the saying has it, and that’s certainly true here: Meloni hits robust emotional notes, assuring the audience (in 2019 and now) that they are on the right side of history. By the time she arrives at the quote from British author G.K. Chesterton that serves as capstone, she’s carried the emotional rhythm perfectly, validating her claims in the gut even as she fails to do so in the brain.

*snip*

[Docreed2003]

1. Our RW idiots don't need a reason to praise Meloni

All they have to know is that she is a far right candidate that won a historic election. They know that Meloni will support distrust in NATO and bring more turmoil to the EU. They also live in a world where anything rw, no matter how extreme, is worthy of praise. I sincerely doubt MTG actually watched the entire speech. Cruz MAY have, but I doubt that as well

[Solly Mack]

2. K&R