(OPINION) Italy has elected Giorgia Meloni, its first female prime minister, whose focus on protecting the institution of the family and national identity has caused some media outlets to compare her ideology to “fascism.”
The 45-year-old Meloni, the leader of the Brothers of Italy party, is slated to become Italy’s next prime minister after her party won 26% of the vote in Sunday’s Italian general election.
As of Tuesday, Brothers of Italy has captured 119 out of 400 seats in the Chamber of Deputies, Italy’s equivalent of the U.S. House of Representatives, and 65 out of 200 seats in the Italian Senate. This marks a substantial change from the previous Italian government, where the Brothers of Italy had only 32 seats in the Chamber of Deputies.
Brothers of Italy, a party with roots dating back to the post-World War II post-fascist Italian Social Movement, is part of the center-right coalition that will form the next government. The center-right coalition will hold 115 out of 200 seats in the Italian Senate and 237 out of 400 seats in the Chamber of Deputies.
Responding to her victory in a statement, Meloni said “the Italians have entrusted us with an important responsibility.” “Now it will be our task not to disappoint them and do our utmost to restore pride and dignity to our nation,” she said.
The politician’s supporters see her as committed to upholding the values of God, family and country as European leaders increasingly embrace cosmopolitan and secular values of supranational organizations like the European Union as opposed to individual nation-states.
However, mainstream media outlets have tied Meloni and her party to fascism. As conservative political commentator Ann Coulter pointed out, a New York Times article used the word “fascist” or “fascism” 28 times when discussing the possibility of a Meloni victory.
The New York Times article published Saturday stated that Meloni’s “proposals, characterized by protectionism, tough-on-crime measures and protecting the traditional family, have a continuity with the post-Fascist parties, though updated to excoriate L.G.B.T.’ lobbies’ and migrants.”
Coulter also reported that in the years following World War II, the Italian left assigned the “fascist” label to “any range of political enemies until the term was drained of much of its meaning.”
A CBS News report recalled the rise of fascist dictator Benito Mussolini 100 years earlier, “marching the country into two decades of dictatorship and alongside Hitler, into World War II.” (CP)
