David Corn: How Giorgia Meloni's win in Italy helps us understand a US Senate race.

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There are many reasons why Americans ought to pay attention to the rise of fascism and right-wing extremism in Europe. One is to help us see what is happening within our own country.

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How Giorgia Meloni’s win in Italy helps us understand a US Senate race.
The formula: Meld right-wing economic populism with culture wars.
10:00 PM · Oct 5, 2022

https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2022/10/how-giorgia-melonis-win-in-italy-helps-us-understand-a-us-senate-race/

When a coalition led by Mussolini fangirl Giorgia Meloni won the Italian election a few days ago and placed her on the path to becoming that nation’s first fascist-esque prime minister since Il Duce, I, like many other journalists, quickly engaged in tutorials on her rise to power. One especially frightening data point was a speech she had given outlining her conspiratorial view of the world. It’s worth quoting at length:

Why is the family an enemy? Why is the family so frightening? There is a single answer to all these questions. Because it defines us. Because it defines our identity. Because everything that defines us is now an enemy. For those who would like us to no longer have an identity and to simply be perfect consumer slaves. And so they attack national identity. They attack religious identity. They attack gender identity. They attack family identity. I can’t define myself as Italian, Christian, woman, mother. No, I must be citizen X, gender X, parent 1, parent 2. I must be a number. Because when I am only a number, when I no longer have an identity or roots, then I will be the perfect slave at the mercy of financial speculators. The perfect consumer. That’s the reason why, that’s why we inspire so much fear… We will defend God, country, and family. This thing that disgusts people so much. We will do it to defend our freedom. Because we will never be slaves and simple consumers at the mercy of financial speculators. That is our mission.

Meloni was saying that “financial speculators” were in league with woke activists to turn god-fearing Christian Italians into “consumer slaves.” Historian Michael Beschloss noted that “Mussolini enjoyed publicly referring to Jewish people as ‘financial speculators’ who needed to be controlled.” What makes this odious reference even more alarming is Meloni’s comment in another setting: “After our victory, you can raise your heads and finally verbalize what you always thought/believe in.” In her antisemitism-tainted speech, she was blending culture wars over identity with paranoia-driven, elites-bashing populism. This is nasty and dangerous stuff, especially given her party’s fascist roots and her explicit past enthusiasm for Mussolini.

As I read and pondered her mission statement, it rang a bell, and I recalled another politician who has been trying to conflate an economic populism of the right with culture battles over race and national identity: J.D. Vance, the author and venture capitalists who is the Republican Senate nominee in Ohio. He and Blake Masters, the GOP Senate candidate in Arizona, are both acolytes of tech billionaire Peter Thiel, an advocate of a bizarre blend of libertarian and nationalist notions. Thiel has committed tens of millions of dollars to supporting their campaigns. And this whole lot has been attempting to steer the Republican Party in an alt-rightish direction that in some instances seems friendly to authoritarianism. Seeking to understand this slice of the conservative movement, I’ve been scrutinizing Vance interviews, including a chat he had with conservative talk show host Bill Cunningham in the summer of 2021. Asked to explain Trump voters, Vance said:

What they were seeing happening was that on the one hand their communities were being decimated. They were closing manufacturing jobs. They were watching the rise of China, even as their own community declined. But on the flip side, this incredible political correctness was making it impossible to complain about it, right? If you complain about the southern border, you’re a racist. If you complain about our trade policies, you’re an idiot. If you complain about the fact that they’re teaching anti-American hate in our schools, then you’re a racist. And I think that people just got a little fed up that the country that their grandparents and parents had built was going to hell, and they weren’t allowed to say anything about it. And I think that’s really the underlying theme of [my] campaign. If we are to stop the economic plunder of this country on the one hand and if we’re going to stop the elites in this country telling you you’re not allowed to complain about it on the other.

This is rather deft demagoguery. Vance was contending that the elite plunderers were scheming with the woke crowd to shut up Middle America. With a veiled reference to critical race theory or perhaps the 1619 Project, he accused these connivers of using accusations of racism to stop folks—white folks—from complaining about the economic hardships they face. There was, in his view, no legitimate debate about race and America. Instead, unnamed fat cats assailed good ol’ patriotic Americans as racists in order to preserve their riches and to suppress these white Americans.

*snip*

[regnaD kciN]

1. And, of course, we all know...

…that “financial speculators” is spelled j - e - w - s.