By Itxu Díaz
Thursday, October 06, 2022
Giorgia Meloni has thrown the Left into
confusion. How could she have won? How could Italians have ignored the
editorialists of every progressive media outlet in the world? How could they
not have obeyed Ursula von der Leyen? How could they not see that Meloni is the
reincarnation of Mussolini?
Her triumph in Italy offers two immediate lessons: first,
the confirmation that people are no longer afraid of the labels that the Left
hands out, and second, that progressives have effectively run out of
adjectives. Fascist sounds tough, but the Left has applied it
to anyone and everyone they don’t like. From their lips, the term has
lost all meaning. Reactionary? Voters have to look that one
up. Homophobic? That’s a thing that a parrot living in
the Mother Jones newsroom would say nonstop. And ultra could
be an insult, but also a detergent ad. In the end, the things we like we always
want to be ultra, so it might not be such a demerit.
Throughout Europe, the term fascist has
been leveled at political opponents for decades — long after Europe’s original
fascists died. For the Left, fascist was Berlusconi, it was
Aznar, it was the Bushes, it was Rajoy, it was Sarkozy, it was even Merkel and
Blair. Of course so was anyone with the surname Le Pen or Trump. Anyone who has
been a conservative columnist in the Old Continent knows what it’s like to be
called a fascist a hundred times per article, even when you dedicate your
column to saying you prefer coffee to tea.
Over time, the repetition of an alleged threat of fascism
has dulled the sense of danger in public opinion. The Left has lost efficacy
through its own overreaction. Without insults, progressives’ only option is to
engage with the details of policy debates, and asking identity progressivism to
do that is like asking a hippopotamus to fit inside a pack of cigarettes. When
they do try, we listen to them carefully, but out of politeness, all that comes
to mind is the apt William F. Buckley response: “I won’t insult your
intelligence by suggesting that you really believe what you just said.”
But if Meloni is not, in fact, a fascist, it follows that
her policies are not fascistic. If they accepted this, the Left would have to
discuss Meloni’s policies on the merits: whether she is right or wrong that
illegal immigration represents a danger for Europe and favors smuggling mafias;
that the model of a traditional family is a worthy one; that Europe should
maintain energy sovereignty rather than depend on Putin, Brussels, and Mideast
authoritarians. Likewise, the Left would have to consider whether von der Leyen
can continue to implicitly threaten the citizens of sovereign nations with
sanctions or withheld funding in connection with their elections. It will have
to decide whether to defend indigenous Christianity or to promote a secularism
that only makes an exception for Islam. The list of decisions is as long as the
list of terms that the Left is inventing these days to avoid the word recession.
Unable to argue, the progressive press instead has been
kicking up a fuss over Meloni’s triumph and announcing fascist plagues ever
since. They paint her as a dangerous, enraged nationalist who hates Europe,
worships Mussolini, and wants to hang homosexuals. Curiously, the same
journalists who imagine homosexuals under siege in Europe are unable to see
their real persecution in Iran.
The truth is that Meloni is nothing of the sort. Her
discourse is traditionally conservative: God, family, and country. There is not
a hint of hatred. And, contrary to what the Left would have us believe, not
only is she not Putin’s ally, but she has been one of Europe’s strongest
defenders of Ukraine.
What has happened in Italy is a triumph of common sense
over intrusive globalism, and it will soon happen in other latitudes. In France
and Spain, for example, Meloni’s like-minded parties are growing more than
ever. So, the Left should reflect, look in the mirror, and see what it has
become. If it did that, it might begin to understand that manipulating public
discourse and stirring up the fascist ghost is not enough when the people are
fed up, have no money, fear for their safety in the streets, see their options
for prosperity slipping away in strange gifts to the invisible climate cause,
and are less free than ever to say their piece.
My advice to the Left is that they should admit their
mistakes. My certainty is that they won’t. Their entire program of opposition
to Meloni is to add one more ultra prefix to their string of
insults. And so the Left, like Quixote, will continue to swipe at windmills
thinking that they are giant fascists. Meanwhile, Meloni will open an essential
debate about the raison d’être of the European Union, which has not been a
union for a long time.
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