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September 26, 2022 11:07 AM UTC

Lauren Boebert Overjoyed By Wannabe Fascist Victory In Italy

  • 17 Comments
  • by: Colorado Pols

UPDATE: Not just Rep. Lauren Boebert–here’s the chair of the Colorado Republican Party welcoming a kinder, gentler fascism’s return to power in Italy:

All we can say is “Dio, patria, e famiglia!” We can’t wait to find out if Joe O’Dea agrees.

—–

Giorgia Meloni of the Brothers of Italy.

CBS News reports on the results of elections in Italy this weekend, bringing to power the closest that nation has had to a fascist government since Benito Mussolini made fascism a thing exactly one century ago:

Italians have voted in the country’s most right-wing government since World War II. Giorgia Meloni is the leader of the Brothers of Italy party, and after the weekend vote she’s set form a coalition government and become Italy’s first female prime minister…

Meloni, a 45-year-old firebrand politician, insists she’s no fascist, just a proud conservative and nationalist. She is comfortable, nevertheless, with some of the hallmarks of Italian fascism, including a motto she often utters from podiums: “Dio, patria, e famiglia!” Or in English, “God, fatherland, and family.”

Exactly 100 years ago this fall, dictator Benito Mussolini, as the leader of Italy’s National Fascist Party, staged his historic March on Rome. He eventually marched the country straight into two decades of dictatorship and, alongside Adolf Hitler, into World War II.

Although the Brothers of Italy’s rapid rise from the fringe of Italian politics to leadership has alarmed the international community, as ABC News reports, the people of Italy appear to be, at least for the moment, substantially less troubled–and for students of history, that could be the most chilling aspect of Giorgia Meloni’s rise to power:

In general, the party’s neo-fascist roots appear to be of more concern abroad than at home. Some historians explain that by noting a certain historical amnesia here and Italians’ general comfort living with the relics of fascism as evidence that Italy never really repudiated the Fascist Party and Mussolini in the same way Germany repudiated National Socialism and Hitler. [Pols emphasis]

While Germany went through a long and painful process reckoning with its past, Italians have in many ways simply turned a willful blindness to their own…

The restoration of a government that lives up to the tenets of fascism even if they don’t like the word, in the cradle of historical fascism, may be ominous to many outside observers. But for Colorado’s freshman GOP controversy magnet Rep. Lauren Boebert, it’s nothing less than a triumph of the will:

We grew up with the expression “let freedom ring,” but under the circumstances “reign” might be more appropriate? Especially in the event that Italy’s second flirtation with fascism fails to resemble anything you’d call free. It’s not a surprise, but it is another warning–for the voters of CD-3 to ignore at their peril.

More likely, they’ll welcome Meloni at next year’s Western Conservative Summit.

Comments

17 thoughts on “Lauren Boebert Overjoyed By Wannabe Fascist Victory In Italy

    1. The best way to savor a pear. From La Cucina Italiana

      Pear vol au vents

      For this dessert you can use ready-made vol au vents, or you can prepare them with puff pastry. Wash and peel 4 pears then cut them into slices. Stew them in a pot with a little butter, grated peel of a lemon and a drop of wine and when they are cooked, crush them with a fork until reduced to a puree. Cut another pear into slices and brown it in a pot with a knob of butter, add sugar and caramelize. Fill the vol au vent with the pear puree, complete with the slices of the caramelized pear and chopped walnuts. Serve immediately.

  1. What a difference 26 years can make ….

    In 1996, the leader of Bimbobert's political party – one Robert J. Dole – was a member of the ANTIFA movement who lost the use of his arm when he was injured in combat in Italy in 1944 fighting the forebearers of Ms. Meloni.

    Sometimes the more things change, the more they really do change!

    1. I recently watched the Mussolini movie from the mid 1980's starring George C. Scott as Il Duce. The movie depicted Mussolini as being ambivalent on the subject of the Jewish people. I got the impression he went along in order to get along with his genocidal friend in Berlin.

  2. Biggest takeaway for me:  a decline in voting. 

    Here are the previous two Parliamentary elections and this year's (according to Reuters).:

    Year….. Voter Turnout….. Total vote ….. registration

    2013….. 75.19 %….. ….. 35,271,541 ….. 46,905,154

    2018….. 72.93%……… . 33,916,460 ….. 46,505,499

    2022 ….. 64% ….. …..    [~29.4 million] 46,021,956 [vote totals appear to not be final]

    WAPO says [my emphasis]

    Based on data Sunday evening, voter turnout sank from the level of previous national elections in 2018, a reflection of skepticism in a country that has had 11 governments in 20 years, and where household wealth has scarcely improved in a generation. The rapid turnover of governments — generally before leaders have time to follow through on promises — has amplified a sense of alienation. Twice in the last three years Italy staved off snap elections with backroom deals to form new coalitions, as parties shape-shifted, joined hands and then bickered with each other.

    1. Spot on, John! The lunatic fringe was just that when more people voted, but now they can cobble together majorities. Conventional wisdom says that Dems had to "triangulate" to the middle in order to stay relevant, and that may be true.  But going too far to the right to stay relevant has alienated our base. It's time to start moving the Overton window back to the left.

      1. "but now they can cobble together majorities"

        Not really. They tend to get elected but only with pluralities. Look at G.W. Bush and F.D.F.Q. And don't even get me started on what the popular vote for the U.S. House and U.S. Senate looks like viz-a-viz the party breakdown in each chamber.

        The other side knows what it must do with the fucked-up rules of the game.

  3. The GOP has had a decades long embrace of fascism/authoritarianism that started with McCarthyism in 1950 labeling anyone who disagreed with their agenda communists/Marxists. Then it was the John Birch society in the 60's then on with the christian coalition in the late 70's through the early 2000's. Then it was the tea party in 2008 to trumpism from 2015 to now.

    The GOP has only gotten more authoritarian, unhinged and detached from reality as time goes on.

    So, to sum it up if you vote for ANY elected official for local, state or federal office then you support fascism.

    1. The Birchers got mostly purged in the early '60s by Buckley and Goldwater. They didn't take kindly to the Birchers calling World War II military hero, and President, Dwight Eisenhower a "communist."

  4. Militarism was foundational to Mussolini’s reign. Hitler propped him up. Then wore Italian fascists out. 
    Japanese militarism was also foundational. 
    Maybe militarism has been replace by Orwellian misinformation for the racist misinformed. 
    Perfect storm that Trump failed to enforce here since General Milley shut him down. 

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