Giorgia Meloni is Extreme, but She’s No Tyrant
This opinion piece by Mattia Ferraresi ran in the New York Times on September 26th. In it, Ferraresi makes the case that while Italy’s new Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni may be ideologically descended from Mussolini’s party, she is not a fascist dictator aiming to seize total control over the Italian state. His headline pretty accurately describes the contents of the article, Ferraresi is concerned over Meloni’s staunch reactionary stances against immigration and LGBT rights, as well as her openly stated desires to transition the nation from a parliamentary system to a much more centralized presidential one. Ferraresi’s thesis is that Meloni cannot seize power within the constraints of the EU and the checks and balances within the Italian government. Furthermore, he cites Meloni’s softening on issues such as her previous allyship with Russia and her conceding on her wish for an Italian exit from the EU as proof that she is willing to work within those boundaries. Ferraresi writes that “Tethered to the European Union and constrained by Italy’s political system, Ms. Meloni won’t have much room to maneuver. She couldn’t turn Rome into Budapest even if she wanted to.”
Ferraresi sits on the fence with his language. We should be worried, he says, but not that worried. Meloni is a dangerous radical right-winger, but really she’s not that bad, at least she’s supporting Ukraine (which has their own problems with fascism)! There is no way that she could turn Italy into the next Hungary due to EU constraints, glossing over the fact that Hungary is an EU member itself. It is a weak argument that falls especially flat in our current political climate where Ferraresi’s audience of educated liberal New York Times subscribers have learned to expect unlikely worst-case scenarios.
Meloni’s election and the reactions to it are all part of a larger discourse among educated wealthy liberals about the uncertain future of liberal democracy. Ferraresi’s goal is to ease some of this fear and assure his readers that the status quo is too far entrenched to be broken, and that the system that has worked very well for them will survive fascist challenges. I say this not to paint Meloni as a champion of the working class by any means, but rather to highlight how the status quo is both the problem and the solution for this discourse community. The problem is that the status quo is being challenged, and the solution is that the status quo cannot be changed. It is a strange form of faith.