It Could Happen Here - Girlboss Fascism

Episode Date: October 6, 2022

We discuss Italy's new primer, Giorgia Meloni, who just broke the glass ceiling of fascism, how media has covered her rise to power, and the normalization of the far-right across Europe.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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You trying to conceive of a go boss noise? No, I'm trying to think of something that's about Italian racism and how we should all be racist against Italians, because now it's important. Oh, hi, welcome to It Could Happen Here, the show where we're talking about anti-Italian racism. Yay! And also girl bosses, finally. Two great tastes that go great together. Mm-hmm.

It's like mixing peanut butter and piss. That's right. And the piss being Italians and peanut butter being Girlboss. We usually don't say things that are that obvious, but yes. With me today is Chris, James, and Robert. I'm Garrison. And we're talking about Girlboss fascism today. And are we going say georgia is that how we're gonna

do it is that how we're gonna say her name georgia but i don't know georgia georgia milani georgia milani georgia milani italy's new prime minister georgia milani that's what i was waiting for thank you put some italian on it yeah spice up that meter ball so since since 2014 she's been the head of the brothers of italy party which is funny because when i think of the brothers of italy i just think of mario and luigi obviously Mario and Luigi obviously that's what most people think but Mario and Luigi also fascists so well they're monarchists they're monarchists

they specifically serve a princess so Bowser who's a go boss Bowser is your standard issue left wing politburo chief type leader whereas what mario and luigi are doing like mussolini is installing a royal in power is taking it's like essentially every mario game is recreating the march on rome i have like 10 pages to get through okay where

does the toadstool come into it? So, since 2014, she's been the head of the Brothers of Italy party. A party with direct lineage from the fascist Italian social movement. And Milani herself has been on camera praising figures like Mussolini.

And until very recently, the Brothers of Italy party, besides being very pro-plumbing, were pretty on the fridges of Italian politics. Here we go! Just four years ago, the party won only 4% of the votes in the last election. And now it's become Italy's largest political party, claiming the greatest percentage of the vote in last month's election. of the vote in last month's election. So today we're going to talk about who Melani is, what she believes, what her rhetoric is, and then also the types of ways that media has been framing her relation to fascism. Because there's definitely been this perception that liberal feminists and

mainstream media have been kind of soft on Melani because she's the first woman prime minister of italy um and they've kind of framed her ascension to power in like a girl boss go get it sort of way and have been downplaying her more fascist views so we're going to talk about kind of where this perception comes from the few ways where it's kind of correct, and some of the ways where it's, I think, a little off base. To start off with this, one of the biggest things that pushed this perception into the forefront was a tweet from Politico Europe accompanying an article.

Now, this tweet, again... Politico Europe. Sorry. Thank you. And because I hate basing our research off of things that are just on Twitter, this tweet has been referenced a lot on like television, on like

news TV has been using this tweet a lot as well. This is kind of shaped the way that discussion is happening on a national stage, even off Twitter. But the tweet reads, in 1992, a 15-year-old schoolgirl went to join her local branch of the far-right youth front in Rome. The all-male group of radicals met her with bemusement. 30 years later later georgia milani is now on course to become italy's first female prime minister so the way that framework works is like yeah this this little girl wanted to join her nazi club and it was a boy's girl boss and now she's finally prime minister

the first one and so yes obviously this is very cringy. Not great framing. A lot of good girl Hitler jokes. Democracy? You even picked out president. Listen, I'm flattered. Girl Hitler? No, really.

I'm happy for you, honey. Wow, a girl president? How progressive. Ah, Venture Brothers. Venture Brothers. No, uncritical support. It And so takes like Venture Brothers, Venture Brothers, no uncritical support. It's just just support to Venture Brothers. So takes like like that, like what like what we just heard Dean Venture say, kind of kind of spawned a big slew of of comments. You know, I'm just going to read read read some of the stuff that

the people have been saying in response to stuff like that politico europe uh piece uh quote begging liberals to stop praising girl boss alini for being brave enough to shatter the glass ceiling in the neo-fascist parties she's joined and like why is media treating this as a freaking girl boss story the girl bossification of georgina Milady has been interesting to watch. Liberals will literally stan anybody. viral tweets getting hundreds of thousands of likes, thousands and thousands of retweets and shares, stuff getting referenced on national TV, all kind of about this.

You know, people complaining the takes from political Europe and other kind of very soft headlines emphasizing the girl boss nature, being like the sweet little girl defies the odds and grows up to be the first female Mussolini. So like some of these jokes are pretty funny. I think I think they're they're funny. They're fine. There is probably the worst one of these takes that I found that still got hundreds of retweets and thousands of likes was, quote, the American right and the American left.

The aesthetics are different, but the effect is the same. Support for the rising tide of fascism. Communists are the only people, now as in the past, who truly oppose fascists. No. This off. Wow. I don't, for fuck's sake.

This isn't true. For those of you following along um no yeah there was a terrible megan mccain tweet which is very funny because people definitely were standing we'll talk about the megan mccain yes can't wait i have yes we'll talk about our good friend megan mccain but yeah so you know italy's italy elected their first female mussolini um in a remarkable victory for both girl power and diversity in politics and people people uh people had some good japes so the other the other kind of big thing that caused this perception that that like uh that like the liberals will literally stand anybody.

The other big thing that kind of caused that was, uh, some viral quotes from Hillary Clinton, uh, talking, talking about, uh, the, the role of, of women in politics and referencing Milani. So some remarks from Hillary Clinton published in Italy last September. I think it was at, I think it was at like the Venice film festival, actually. So some, some quotes from an interview that she gave at the Venice film festival went viral mostly because tweets included two,

two small clips of these quotes when she was talking about both women in politics and Georgia. You're doing great, buddy. So multiple viral tweets circulated, mostly with two short quotes from Clinton getting the majority of attention, saying, quote, the election of the first woman prime minister in a country always represents a break with the past and is certainly a good thing, unquote. And a second quote being every

time a woman is elected to head of state or government, that is a step forward, unquote. Obviously, those takes in and of themselves, not very good. I don't think those are good opinions. Shocking, shocking that we are going to criticize a statement from Hillary Clinton. Hillary Rodham Clinton. This is rare for us. I'm surprised as well. But these kind of are slightly cherry-picked

from a larger section of this interview discussing women in government and how the far right is starting to use tokenized women to uphold patriarchy and conservatism. So the first quotes taken from this, from a translation of an interview that, that,

that Clinton did at the Venice film festival in September, 2022, prior to Milani's apparent victory in the the italian elections on september 25th so she'd do it in italian does she speak italian no but it was only published in italian i see we're translating from italian back into english um double translation yes yeah but the so in in a section of this interview talking about the increase of women in government in governmental leadership roles a translation from her remarks in the larger section of this interview reads quote the election of the first woman prime minister in a country always represents a break with the past and is certainly a good thing but then as with any leader women or man

she must be judged by what she does i never never agreed with Margaret Thatcher, but I admired her determination. Clearly, then the ideas are voted for. I admired her determination. To do what? Stamp on the neck of the working class? Fuck off. Also, does she really oppose Margaret Thatcher's policies? Yeah, I don't know.

I don't know if I believe that one. No, that lady's dead and the world is better for it. Do you think Margaret Thatcher had girl power? Yes, of course. Do you think she effectively utilized girl power by funneling money to illegal paramilitary death squads in Northern Ireland? I don't know about that.

There's this thing that you get with like people talking about all of these ghouls where, and it's specifically like a centrist thing where it's like well certain things are just admirable traits no matter about who has them and you can admire that trait and it's like no it's it's not like there were a lot of men in the ss who you know were were willing to do things that you would call brave but it doesn't mean you have to consider them admirable right you know i think like you don't have to have respect for them you don't have to hand it to the nazis exactly like just fuck certain people yeah their contribution to the world is bad you can just stop stop that yeah that you're being a

good example i have kind of the same thoughts on the inclusion of toadette inside the new mario kart games it's just really it's it's just you're signifying it but it's not actually a step forward for the toad race it's um so in the next section of the interview clinton also acknowledges garrison's come out against woke mario kart in the next section clinton also acknowledges a conservative women politicians role in upholding patriarchal government saying quote women on the right are protected by patriarchy because they are often the first to support the fundamental pillars of male power and privilege today in america the right-wing leaders are very much

against abortion um so she she did like it was part of this section talking about how women who are on the right and are running as conservative politicians actually support all of the all of the things that keep patriarchy alive and blah blah blah blah blah blah well it's true centrism right it's half of a good take and half of a terrible exactly exactly exactly so a lot of the piss and peanut butter again so yeah so are snippets of her comments uh embarrassing re women being a break from the past always being a good thing? Yes, most certainly. Are they taken out of context enough to change the scope of what's being said? I suppose that's subjective.

But I just thought that's interesting that there was very select few quotes that were getting a whole bunch of traction. And her larger statements are actually slightly more interesting. Go read the article. Don't do the Alex Jones shit of getting mad at a headline. And her larger statements are actually slightly more interesting. Go read the article. Don't do the Alex Jones shit of getting mad at a headline. Yeah. Or like six seconds of clip. Like, come on, people. You have to be better than this.

And I think still, you know, I see the same thing whenever I'm playing Mario Sunshine. And there's the graffiti. And you can get mad at just saying there's graffiti all over Deflino Paza. You can get mad at just saying, there's graffiti all over Deflino Pazza. You can get mad about that, but once you actually start learning how Bowser Jr. was treated as a kid, there's actually more,

there's more that you actually can understand about what's going on and what leads to that behavior from Bowser Jr. Very identifiable. Everybody understands those references, Garrison. Good work. Yeah yeah i just want to say that there is only one square in italy that matters and that is piazzale loretto and you can you can google it i just i love the the juxtaposition of garrison struggling over

every single word that's in the in the neighborhood of italy and then james just perfectly saying some fucking Italian shit. It's great. My Italian is bad. My Italian comes exclusively. Your Italian's much better than anyone else. Here's maybe I know. I just swear.

Swear. Other men in spandex. I know a couple of curse words from watching my uncles play pool when I was a kid, but that's about all I've got. I rely on that hand gesture, which works very well in hand. Hand gestures are 80% of Italian. Yeah, yes, it's true. Okay, so having now exhausted

every conceivable Italian joke, we could proceed with the script. Oh, hell no! No, no, no. We can actually proceed with an ad break. Do you know what else is in support of anti-Italian racism? Who won't kill Mussolini and hang him upside down in a square? I mean, probably the current

Prime Minister of Italy. Yeah, that's true. Also, probably these advertisers. Welcome. I'm Danny Thrill. Won't you join me at the fire and dare enter? Nocturno, Tales from the Shadows, presented by iHeart and Sonora.

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Okay, and we are back so there was there's been this kind of perception that the media kind of by and large dropped the ball on this one and uh this sentiment was pretty widespread among leftists that the kind of there was a lot of emphasis on the breaking the fascist glass ceiling and less on the fascist part. There was even people like the MSNBC host Mehdi Hassan, who ran a whole segment on his show about kind of mainstream liberal media outlets downplaying the fascistic elements of Melani in headlines in favor of the girl power angle. of Maloney in headlines in favor of the girl power angle. What's been so depressing is to see so much of the quote unquote liberal media,

the mainstream media, the MSM giving a pass to Maloney or playing down her and her party's fascist roots, focusing more on the fact that she's female and less on the fact that she's, you know, fascistic. That has been deeply, deeply depressing to see. There was the Washington Post headline. Georgia Maloney could become Italy's first female prime minister. Here's what to know. Now, here's what you wouldn't know from that headline. You wouldn't know that she has ties to fascism. But hey, she's female. There was the headline in the Financial Times. We can pull that up as well. Likely victory for

Italian right portends risks, but no lurch into extremism. Don't worry, no lurch to extremism, even though they just elected card-carrying extremists. But still, hers is a heartwarming tale, isn't it? I kid you not, this was the tweet from Politico Europe. Let's pull up the tweet from Politico Europe. In July 1992, a 15-year-old schoolgirl rang the doorbell at a local branch of the youth front, a far-right movement in Rome, and asked to be let in. This weekend, that same schoolgirl could become Italy's next prime minister. Wow. Forget the fascism. Forget the fascism. Focus on the inspiration there. Then there was this op-ed in The New York Times. Georgia Maloney is extreme, but she's no tyrant.

Well, that's all right then. At least she's not a tyrant. There was this op-ed in The Atlantic, which argued that the most immediate concern about Italy's new government is not any threat to the country's democratic institutions, still less a return to fascism. Did you notice a trend yet? It's not as bad as you think. This isn't really fascism. about media coverage of Milani's election in a bit and how I think some people are kind of desperate to see the stupid Democrat Libs shill for fascism trope, especially with the whole girl boss thing. They actually kind of miss how the framing of Milani's fascist ties has been perceived on a broad scale.

But first I want to get into who she actually is, what her views are, and what her election means. So Italy is home to 60 million uh people uh well which part of that sentence you have a problem with robert never mind we should just we should just move on yeah and it's continental europe's third largest economy uh when it comes to the actual election the right-wing coalition that Melani led won around 44% of the vote, with Melani's Brothers of Italy party getting around 26% for the Senate race. So in all, around three out of four voters did not vote for Melani, and one in three didn't even vote at all. No surprise there. But overall, that means like only one in six Italian adults voted for the Brothers of Italy party. And that does make them the biggest party in the new

parliament. But its long term legitimacy is still kind of in question because she was leading a larger right wing bloc. But the actual party that she's in and leads got like 26 of the vote so it's it's right it's i think that's an important perspective on like how long she'll actually stay in power italian politics are kind of known for their kind of residing government not lasting very long there's there's usually a pretty high like turnover rate so we'll see yeah they it's an interesting composition right of like uh like moderate moderate-ish right-wing people and then like some more hardcore like no it's the people who used to be the league of the north i think are the second largest party so it's not like a

homogenous block that she's in charge of so it'd be kind of interesting to see how they hold together yeah and i think milani can be an example of what political scientists call like gender washing uh when when female politicians adopt a non-threatening image to blunt the force of their extremism i think you can see this as well with daisy inside mario kart uh for the for the we extremely brutal character play style very brawly but you know she acts very nice and really that yeah she just like just powers through other other carts on the track okay um and it's it's it leads to this slightly warped perception of what daisy actually does um so and milani's signature look involves flowing outfits

in pastel shades kind of like princess peach um and to uninformed foreigners her aesthetic could look like female empowerment she poses as like a defender of women, even though her party has rolled back women's rights. Just like in the 2006 Princess Peach game, she did brutal suppression of protests around the Mushroom Kingdom. So David Broder, author of Mussolini's Grandchildren, Fascism in Contemporary Italy, wrote in Political Europe, funny, this is a very different take from Political Europe in this one, in Political Europe, funny, this is a very different take from Political Europe in this one, quote, Melani owes much more to the moderate forces in what Italians call the center-right alliance. They've allowed her the opportunity to present herself as part of the mainstream, not just because she's been softening her policies, at least in presentation, but also because the center-right politicians

jumping on her bandwagon has given her a veneer of respectability and credibility. You can see this in Super Fashion Most Brawl when Wario shows up in a biker outfit, not wearing the regular Italian uniform, and they just let him play. Like Mario and Luigi are wearing their proper outfit outfit and warrior just like showed up in like like a leather jacket and like ripped shorts that's not okay but it gave him the veneer of respectability because others allowed it to take place kind of kind of the same thing here with milani at the same time attempts by the main like center-left rivals to make the election about this kind of ghost of fascism spreading again

through Milani have proved unsuccessful. Voters, by and large, did not buy the narrative that the left was trying to push, that Milani was this reincarnation of fascism. They were not convinced enough to affect the election results in any meaningful way. The same way Nintendo is not convinced that putting Waluigi in the new Smash Bros will actually lead to more people buying the game. Italian essayist Roberto Slavino wrote, quote, the far right can succeed in Italy because the left has failed exactly as in much of the world to offer credible visions or strategies. The left asks people to vote against the right, but it lacks

a political vision or an economic alternative. And I think these are all the kind of factors that actually led Milani to win this election. Should we talk a little bit about the sort of Democratic Party, like five-star alliance thing that was happening? Sure. If you want to do like a TLDR on that, that would be great so all right long ago in a galaxy far far away italy had a very very large and powerful left um and then when the soviet union fell so they had the communist party the communist party was like one of the most powerful communist parties in the world that wasn't like a sort of like dictatorial ruling party but when the soviet like when the ussr fell it like voted to dissolve itself basically and

became the democratic party and all of their sort of militants like much of the militants basically turned into libs and you know i mean and the italian left like held together for kind of a long time after that because they had you know there's there there's a very long tradition of sort of an extra parliamentary left uh and like specifically an anarchist left in italy but like the modern i don't know it's kind of a shit show like in terms of actual party politics like there's there was this thing called the five stars movement which was like kind of like basically astroturf by a billionaire it was this like very weird very like early 2010s party that was like doing the whole sort of, like, we're going to do direct democracy by, like, online polls thing. So it has this, like, really weird mishmash.

They're, like, the main social democratic force. Yeah. Well, sort of. But, like, they're very weird. Like, I don't know. You'll get things from them, like, okay, we want, like, they're not a normal social democratic party, right? They're closer to, like, the pirate party the pirate party but like way weirder like so you'll you'll get people in this party who are like you know who were you are like you know sort of like old school like like leftist

militants because this is where sort of like the energy was going right but also like there's like anti-vaxxers in it it was it was this really weird ideological like sort of mishmash and then when they sort of got into power like none of these people had ever been in politics before and so like you know you'd get someone who was like the head of garbage collection right who's from this party and they have no fucking idea how to collect garbage right and it was it's this real shit show because like you know and then you have the democratic party which are basically sort of just like lib hacks at this point and this meant that like you know and they they eventually sort of aligned with each other to try to keep like other like fascist basically like right-wing groups out of power but they like they they also they also like had an alliance for a little bit with uh one of the

right-wing parties it's it's an incredibly like bizarre story and like honestly like deserves like its own episode one day but yeah yeah they're very weird they're not an effective left thing at all they're just very very sort of a like mishmash confused populist thing and it didn't like they yeah like they they definitely did not sort of like succeed in preventing an alternative etc etc it was i don't know kind of a disaster yeah italy's like it's worth noting as well i think that like anti-fascism is is sort of baked into the myth of the italian republic right like that's what the republic rests on that's where it comes from that's its creation myth but like much in the same way as people living in the United States will be familiar with how these creation myths

kind of lose all relevancy apart from some kind of totemic meaning. Their repetition has some kind of link to that, but they don't really have any value in the contemporary discourse in terms of animating the way people act. I think you could say that that's happened in Italy, right? Like people talk about, right? People talk about,

people in institutions talk about anti-fascism as where they come from and as foundational to Italy's democracy, but it's been so subsumed into structures of power that that institutional discussion of anti-fascism has lost its relevance from the street fighting anti-fascism that created the Republic in the first place. So that concept is kind of defanged along with like italian liberals have always walked hand in hand with uh like business interests and the right wing right like from even previous to fascism like there was a quote-unquote liberal monarchy right so italian liberalism isn't necessarily this anti-authoritarian force it was briefly like it got made to be briefly by the organized working class movement but it So Italian liberalism isn't necessarily this anti-authoritarian force. It was briefly, like it got made to be briefly by the organized working class movement, but it hasn't been, and it's going back to not being.

Yeah. I mean, I think I now think we should may as well get into Melani's actual views and what she actually believes in the spazzes. What she actually believes in the spazzes may be slightly different things, but we'll at least start. So Milani's party, the Brothers of Italy party, was formed to, quote, carry forth the spirit and legacy, unquote,

of the Italian social movement or the MSI. And the MSI is the descendant of uh mussolini's national fascist party it's it's it's like a it has a direct lineage um they even have the flame right they are still using the same logo yeah which is the flame on his tomb i think that's where it comes from right yeah yeah great stuff so uh milani has said that uh quote lgbt lobbies are out there to harm women and and they're and they're attacking the family by destroying gender identity um she's made statements about george soros calling him an international speculator more on that in a sec who says that Soros finances global mass

immigration that threatens a great replacement of white native born Italians Malani shows affinity for other kind of authoritarian strongmen like the Marine Le Pen,

who's the leader of the National Rally Party in France. That's a strong woman. Yes. That's not a man. It's part of the section on strongmen, like political strongmen. Okay, yeah. She's previously supported

as Joe Rogan taught me Garrison strong times make hard men and also what I've learned from Matt Welsh is what is a woman so yeah strong man but Melania's previously supported Putin although she's

kind of lowered that enthusiasm since the invasion of Ukraine. She does have a pro-Ukraine position on that publicly. But she's expressed kind of affinity for the types of other fascist leaders across Europe that we see in Sweden, we see in Poland, we see in Hungary. She kind of aligned herself with some of that kind of trend inside Europe. She kind of aligned herself with some of that kind of trend inside Europe. Milani wants to ban same-sex couples from adopting children and possibly dissolve same-sex couples' legal parentage over the children that they've already adopted. Her party has sought to ban a cartoon featuring a bear with two mothers, arguing that kids should not be seeing same-sex adoption as natural or normal because it's not.

So basic kind of right-wing censorship of materials that they don't like. I don't think children should be allowed to watch cartoons with bears in them. Okay, good for you. It's going to reduce their readiness when it becomes time to fight the bears. You're going to think that they're friends, but they're not. Melania also wants to ban gay Italians from traveling elsewhere for surrogacy. They can't leave the country to have them become parents in return.

It's this whole thing. I'm going to read a quote from Ruth Ben-Gayit, a professor of history in italian studies at new york university quote since 2017 she has tweeted repeatedly that italian identity is being deliberately erased by globalists such as soros and european union officials who have conspired to unleash quote uncontrollable mass migration um so normal normal stuff there and more on so so in in a in a speech in in a few speeches and repeatedly she refers to financial speculators and has called people like george soros an international speculator. And, you know, when she says financial speculators,

I don't think she actually means just people who speculate about finances. I think she means something slightly different. Michael Benchloss, who is a kind of history political person who works for NBC, MSNBC, PBS, had a really good thread on this. And I think it's important. Like this is a mainstream media guy. Like this is not coming from Antifa161 on Twitter. This is like coming from,

like in terms of like mainstream media actually talking about this, quote, the new Italian prime minister says that, quote, we will never be slaves at the mercy of financial speculators. Sounds just like 1930s in Italy and Germany. No thanks for the memories. Mussolini enjoyed publicly referring to Jewish people as financial speculators who needed to be controlled.

When a fascist leader speaks, whether it be in Europe or America, never brush aside what you are hearing as meaningless rhetoric. Do not fail to learn from the history of the 1930s. History of the 1930s shows us that fascist leaders in the United States have been very eager to link us and pool resources, often in secret, with fascist leaders in Europe. Monitor carefully and beware, and please never take it at face value when and if fascist leaders in America and Europe tell you that they have no personal or political animus towards Jews or other minority groups in society. Too many examples in history tells us the opposite." So that is like, you know, regular MSNBC, NBC people being like, hey, when she says this thing, she means Jews. Should

we also talk about, like, the way parts of, like, the left on Twitter reacted to this, and also the sort of history of, like, how some people were like, oh, wow, she's calling out the capitalists. Like, you guys are, like, no, that's not how that, I saw a lot of this, it's like, you guys are maybe the dumbest people who've ever lived,

like, she immediately, like, axed the, ever lived. Like she immediately like axed the – No, she – like this is the same thing we see with people like Dugan even, right? What she's saying – she's not saying that international capital is bad because it hurts the poor people or workers. She's mad about it because it's a threat to traditional identities. It's a threat to the way that you want the idea of the family. It's threatening all of these things that are about your God, family, country, brotherhood shit. It's not about actual poor people, working class people at all. That's not what it is. poor people, working class people at all.

That's not what it is. It's not a good criticism of capitalist modernity just to propose another form of more authoritarian capitalist modernity. It's not good. The original fascists in Italy did the same thing when they denounced British plurocrats. It's not a good critique of capitalism well and we should point out too that like like so matteo savini who was

like the the former like he basically until this lesson he was like the guy he was in charge of the right wing like he he's a guy who got like arrested basically for trying to sink a migrant boat like so that's actually this guy's he sucks um and but he he would do this like more explicitly he would you know like specifically use marxist terminology to push right-wing stuff so he he had a speech where he talked about like the reserve army of labor which is this concept of marxism that's about like basically marx is arguing that like like capitalism inherently produces this like quote unquote like reserve army of labor like industrial army of labor, which is an enormous mass of people who are unemployed who've been spit out of the labor process.

which is a very important thing. He's like, these people are part of the proletariat, but they've been spit out of, like, the capital wage relation has spit them out. And they, yeah, they're there to sort of, like, regulate, like, wages when stuff happens, but also they're people who've just been sort of, like, disenfranchised, et cetera, et cetera.

Salvini, when he talks about the reserve army of labor, specifically is, like, there is a reserve army of labor. These people are immigrants from North Africa, and, like, the elites are, like, shipping these people into Italy to destroy your jobs. And it is, again, very, very important that you understand this is what he – when he's using the Marx term, he is using it – he is using it Marx racism and not Marx anti-capitalism. And you need to be able to tell the difference between these two things because, yeah, like, especially in Italian politics, like, this is a thing that happens. Like, people will use, like, even literally explicitly stuff

that is from Marx, but they will use it to be like, we need to, like, machine gun every, like, boat of small children trying to flee Libya. It's like cherry-picking these bits of Marxism and then arranging them into a racist as fuck collage that you use to justify your bigotry. It did that the first time, it's doing it again. Then another thing that's notable,

in case people have not seen it, there's been lots of video going around of Melani openly praising Mussolini saying, quote, I believe Mussolini was a good politician. Everything he did, he did for Italy. And there have been no other politicians like him in the past 50 years.

That now these interviews all come from the mid nineties. She has since said that her opinions on Mussolini have changed. She has not, she has not said what her opinions have changed to. Yeah, she's done good. Just saying that they've changed. Yeah, yeah. But this was, these interviews all come from when she was a young, plucky girl

getting into the boys' Nazi club and leading the youth wing of a fascist party founded by veterans of muslimi's dictatorship um since since her her own modern party the brothers of italy which was again started in 2014 emerged from the fascist national alliance which grew out of the italian social movement uh which was founded by muslimi regime officials. Um, and she still uses the same logo for her current Mario and Luigi, sorry, uh, brothers of Italy party.

Um, so yeah, let's have, let's have one more ad break and then we'll talk about how mainstream media has been talking about, uh, the new girl boss Mussolini. Welcome. I'm Danny Thrill.

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at iHeart.com slash podcast awards. But hurry, submissions close on December 8th. Hey, you've been doing all that talking. It's time to get rewarded for it. Submit your podcast today at iHeart.com slash podcast awards. That's iHeart.com slash podcast awards. That's iHeart.com slash podcast awards. I'm first going to read some stuff from The Intercept, which is not, I would not say is actually mainstream media. It's a little bit outside of that, but it sets a good stage for the rest of the stuff that we will be talking about, which actually is dealing with how mainstream media has been framing Milani's election.

So, quote, the media got this right much of the time, giving predominant billing to Milani's far-right nationalism, but numerous English-language headlines focused solely on her being Italy's first woman prime minister. It's tempting to say that her position as a woman leader should be considered irrelevant, given her and her party's vile anti-immigrant nationalist, racist, anti-LGBTQ plus policies, but ignoring her womanhood misses some crucial points about her political ideology. Being a woman, a white woman, that is, is not in conflict with Milani's fascism. White supremacy has always relied on active enforcement by white women, especially when it comes to upholding racist, pro-nationalist narratives. So yeah, I think that sets a good stage for kind of how every other headline and article we're going to talk about here uh let's start with uh the guardian the guardian ran a piece

saying quote the election of italy's fascist adjacent uh georgia milani is a public reminder that women can be just as awful as men. That's a good headline. Was this the Guardian US or the Guardian UK? This was the Guardian UK. Interesting. Yeah, fascinating. And this article was actually...

That's the turf, Guardian. And this article was actually directly in opposition to Australia's Sky News headline, Georgia Milani is not a fascist um this is this article was just directly in opposition to this sky news article which is kind of funny um uh npr's morning edition went with quote a far-right group with neo-fascist roots wins big in italy's election um a c CBS Mornings host said Milani rejects the label of fascism while embracing its symbols.

Just its symbols. Just its symbols. No, they were specifically talking about the actual iconography that they directly lift, like the slogans, like brotherhood, God, country type things, and like the logo. And it was actually part of a larger thing around around fascism we'll actually get a bit more into that on our tucker carlson's section oh good the washington post headlined quote the mainstreaming of the west's far right is complete and then opened that article with saying in the land that invented fascism, the far right is back in power.

Milani has a lengthy record of extremist rhetoric, has embraced the white supremacist narrative of the great replacement theory, and has engaged in frequent dog whistling to a radical base. The Atlantic had a good piece titled The Return of Fascism in Italy, saying the Brothers of Italy, which Melania has led since 2014, has an underlying and sinister familiarity.

The party formed a decade ago to carry on the spirit and legacy of the extreme right in Italy, which dates back to the Italian social movement. The party that formed in place of the National Fascist Party, which was banned after World War II. Now, just weeks before the 100th anniversary of the March on Rome, the October 1922nd event that put Mussolini in power, Italy may have a former Italian social movement activist for its prime minister and a government rooted in fascism. So that's like, overall, there was a lot of really good, like most of the extremely referenced or viral kind of articles on this had decent headlines and decent content actually emphasizing the fascist nature. piece titled milani's election win is not a vote for fascism which later changed its title to italians didn't exactly vote for fascism um which to its credit still discusses uh milani's links to fascism but it questioned how much power she actually will have to enact said fascism um so there was there was some like both sides and going on on some a lot

of these news outlets they'll put one up they'll put one piece out that's actually very good about centering the fascist rhetoric another one being like eh she may be a fascist but it's not like she could do much and she's a woman i i think this is kind of like i think i think this is kind of a post j6 thing like i i i think if this had happened in like 2017 or 2018 i don't think the media would have been like as willing to just do this i absolutely that is that is undoubtedly true um i think i think they kind of like like liberals in general kind of were shaken out of their complacency when they're sort of like beautiful symbols were under like finally actually came under attack and not just like us routers ran a confusing headline titled nationalist milani set to smash italy's glass ceiling and become premier

which is a really it just just it sounds super weirdist Milani smashes glass ceiling. It's just like, yeah, I guess. The copy has never been their strongest suit. That was one of the weirder headlines because it still has nationalist in it, but it has the whole glass ceiling bit, which is just like, why? There was another Guardian UK piece

that had the headline, Italy's Giorgia Malani is no Mussolini, but she may be a Trump, which is an interesting article. It has some, a lot of it's actually pretty reasonable, and it emphasizes her more recent comments trying to align herself more with the modern U.S. Republican Party rather than any kind of form of 1930s-style fascism. Quote, hawkish on foreign policies, orthodox on economic policies, nostalgic, nationalist, and inimical to civil liberties, this right-wing politics is illiberal at heart, but it would aim for respectability in what used to be called the establishment, including by not undermining the rule of law in the way that Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban has done, unquote. So there, it kind of, I do like the, there is some things that are worth, worth thinking about in terms of how she has a lot in the past year

tried to align herself more with the modern Republican Party in the States, which still, as we discuss in the show a lot, is kind of getting more fashy. I would say so. I don't know if you're going to talk about this, but

it has been very funny. She managed to lose the really hardline American right-wingers because she did some sort of like pro-NATO-y things. And so now there's like, like, so like, like Cernovich and a whole bunch of other people like that were posting about how like she's like an op and she was part of some, I can't remember what it was. I don't even think Cernovich even believes that because I've seen much more people be very enthusiastic about her than people being critical of her who are on like the fascist right in the States. Yeah, I mean, I don't know. Like there's there was definitely was especially like there was a whole thing about her being like a member of the Aspen Institute that I think was happening for like, I don't know, maybe that maybe that's just a thing like right after she got like elected. I don't I don't know. Maybe it was just a thing right after she got elected.

I don't know. I mean, kind of on this note of her trying to align more with modern United States conservatism. In one of their newsletters, Politico included that Melani has appeared at CPAC this past year and the National Prayer Breakfast and did join the aspen institute in 2020 uh but she and steve bannon were filmed strategizing together as far back as 2018 and bannon said of her back then quote you put a reasonable face on right-wing populism you will get elected um so her and bannon have been strategizing for years. She's at CPAC. This past year, she gave a speech there that Tucker was very enthusiastic about in his segment about her. That Politico newsletter that included the bits about Bannon and CPAC also had, I think, this line, which sums up some of my thoughts on this.

Quote, you've already read in dozens of headlines that Milani will be Italy's most far-right leader since Mussolini. But don't fall for the trap of reducing this far-right firebrand to simple labels like the Italian Donald Trump or Viktor Orban or Marine Le Pen. Global takeaway, right-wing populism is getting smarter. It could have died off with Trump's election loss or Boris Johnson's humiliating ejection from Downing Street, but that isn't happening. Boris Johnson's humiliating ejection from Downing Street, but that isn't happening. So I have a few more things here, which will lead into kind of how the right has been talking about this. There was a CNN article on the victory that headlined, the conditions are perfect for a populist resurgence in Europe, which also referenced the anti-immigration Sweden Democrats who are expected to play a major role in the new government after winning the second largest

share of seats in the general election last month. The party has been now mainstreamed. It initially had its roots in very strict neo-Nazism. Overall, I was less happy with some of the New York Times headlines relating to Melani's election. There was the cheeky headline, Georgia Melani is extreme, but she's no tyrant, which is, again, a weird way to frame a headline. But even that piece still opens with this line saying, quote, It happened here again nearly 100 years since the March on Rome. Italy, on Sunday, voted in a right-wing coalition headed by a party directly descended from Mussolini's fascist regime.

Mrs. Milani is the first post-fascist leader to win a national election in Italy after World War II, and her party is the heir to the Italian social movement, the reincarnation of the long-diss dissolved and constitutionally banned fascist party so weird headline still it includes stuff in the article but in the age of social media and honestly on news media headlines are way more important unfortunately yeah um and there was a an actual new york times article not just not just opinion piece had the headline, Melani wins voting in Italy and breakthrough for Europe's hard right.

Another Times piece read, Europe looks at Italy's Melani with caution and trepidation. Melani posed to be the country's first far-right leader since Mussolini. So still, not the worst, not the best from the New York Times, which I mean, no, no shockers there. Now on to kind of the right. So the right had a really big mix of reactions based on how the left was talking and liberals were talking about this. There was a lot of enthusiasm coming from the right. A lot of people on the right There was a lot of enthusiasm coming from the right, a lot of people on the right questioning the fascist framing, being like, I can't believe Megan. I mean, we can talk about the Megan McCain tweet. Everyone wants a woman in power until it's a conservative woman in power.

This one Breitbart reporter said, quote, calling her Mussolini just because she's Italian is racist. Oh, yeah. This is one of the best. One of the best tweets about this. Labyrinth Spicer said, so everyone calls Melania fascist. Can anyone offer proof of that? Most of the people just replied with videos of her praising Mussolini. Yeah, Twitter will ban you for the Mussolini picture.

Lauren Bobbert had the extremely bad tweet. This month, Sweden voted for a right-wing government. Now, Italy voted for a strong right-wing government.

The entire world is beginning to understand that the woke left does nothing but destroy. November 8th November 8th is coming and the USA will fix our house and senate let freedom reign um great great prowls there just shouting at clouds but i i it is fresh it is actually super

messed up to be praising sweden's new right-wing government because they're pretty pretty bad the wall street journal had the great headline milani is no fascist but can she revive italy's economy um which is that that is perfect that's what that really is yeah that's the classic yeah well i'm i'm very i'm very excited in about eight months when the italian economy is like like it makes the british economy look fucking great when the wall street general posts their turnaround like can some other random person save italy that's not saying much yeah yeah like somebody further to the right and they'll just continue to be like well maybe it's good for the economy the economy i have running in my super

mario rpg game is better than the current UK economy. So again, it's not saying much. More on that later. A Fox News headline in the lead up to the election read, Italy on track to elect first right-wing prime minister since World War II. First female to hold office. Although I really do. This is one thing I really need to get people on. Like, is fucking Sylvia Berlusconi a joke to you like the answer should

be yes but also like come on man like that guy was a power forever a few days later another fox headline read milani's italian election win renews spotlight on europe's continued migrant woes great great great headline there that's definitely what we should be focusing on. And so now on to a friend of the pod, Tucker Carlson. So on September 26th, Tucker Carlson ran a 15-minute segment titled,

We Live in a Fake Democracy and There Will Be a Revolution Like Italy. So the segment was on the election of Melani and how she's daring to address the issues that voters really care about, but aren't allowed to talk about,

like the attacks on the family, immigration, the unpopular climate change policies that are ruining the economy. Aren't allowed to talk about. Berlusconi has literally been saying whatever the fuck comes into his brain for like 30 years at this point. That was a

big thing of the Tucker segment was that voters have all these issues they care about but they're not allowed to talk about it. It's actually illegal in some places to talk about this that's an actual quote from what he said and obviously Tucker obfuscated her links to Mussolini style fascism while still

praising the fascist rhetoric that Melania espouses. Here is a clip from the segment. She's not the first person to say this. People have said it before, but she's just been rewarded for saying it. That's the point. The population likes it. This is what they actually want. They're not that worried about global warming.

They don't want open borders. They think the woke stuff is absurd. They want to say what they actually want. They're not that worried about global warming. They don't want open borders. They think the woke stuff is absurd. They want to say what they think. And now it's obvious because she just won. And so even in this country, the people running and benefiting from a deeply corrupt and doomed system are hysterical. Watch the reaction to that. I want to start today by talking about a politician on the right who we should all be worried about, who's on the rise today, a politician who has brushed off accusations of fascism. What separates us from, let's say, Italy, who elected a fascist. She is from fascist roots.

A far right political party whose roots go back to post-World War II neo-fascist. A party that has its roots in Italian fascism. Its roots in Italian fascism. Define that for us, if you would, Joe Scarborough. Oh, sorry. You're an idiot. You can't. But the point is, fascist means unacceptable. Whatever this chick is saying, you're not allowed to agree with. They're very worried that that many Italians do agree with it.

So she has to be completely unacceptable. Don't read further. She's a fascist. So, yeah, that sucks. That's not great. I don't need to waste any more time talking about Tucker's segment because it's typical Tucker Carlson stuff. Pretty fascistic, pretty awful. I'm going to start chanting nuremberg at the end of every time

anyway um so yeah kind of the reaction was as one might expect american right-wing operatives have celebrated her rise to power for example keith roberts head of the heritage foundation drew on some of the uh familiar kind of language in terms of... I'll just say this. This is what he said about her victory on Twitter. This can be a trend. Conservatives everywhere need to define the choice as to what it is. Us versus them.

Everyday people versus globalist elites who've shown they hate us. So familiar dog whistles and shit. but to kind of close this up i'm actually gonna do uh i'm gonna do a guy de board quote one of our favorite philosophers on the show can we put a little french on it can we have gui de boer gui de boer quote yeah so he he wrote the situations the situations philosopher wrote this in 1968 italy sums up the social contradictions of the entire world as such it is a laboratory for international counter-revolution um hell yeah so hilariously they held out longer than the french did so well what what what he's trying to say there is that it's a way to try out social change and try out the suppression of progressive social change. And it's like a model for the rest of Europe.

It's this own miniature model that you can try out things and see how they'll react on a grounder European political scale. And kind of in the vein of that, I'm actually going to do a quote from one of the Washington Post articles about – one of the better articles about Melani to kind of finish up the types of stuff that I wanted to talk about. So if there's been one dominant story in Western politics over the past decade, it's that the far right is no longer beyond the pale. Indeed, it has taken over the right wing mainstream in many countries, including and arguably most significantly the United States. In France, the far right has long been the leading force of the opposition. In Spain, it's also gained ground. In Sweden, a party originally founded by neo-Nazis and other right-wing extremists will now be the second largest faction in parliament. In Hungary and Poland, the far-right is already in power. terms of this overall trend of how people are trying to mainstream far-right things and how they're getting more normalized across Europe, in the United States here, and the types of aesthetics that they're using to gain such ground. Because the Italian voters were not convinced by the

left's attempts to paint Melani as a reincarnation of Mussolini. The way that she wrapped her fascism in contemporary US-style conservatism was convincing and the left did not offer any viable alternatives to fix the problems that the country is facing so she got 26 of the vote which was enough to get a majority so yeah that's that's kind of that's most of the stuff i have on the girl boss mussolini um any any other any other uh uh other comments on how the right's been talking about this, how liberals have been talking about this, how media has, or anything at all before we close up?

No. I wish her the best of getting strung up in the street. It is very funny to turn pictures of her upside down. People will tell you it's not funny It is funny

The 2020s seem to be turning into the 1920s But like tragedy as farce version of it But this means we can do it funnier We can do it funnier We can all go to Italy Wearing Mario costumes That's right We can do it funnier

It's always possible to be more funny That's what we can we can do it we can do it funnier it's always possible to be more funny that's what we strive for so yeah i'm still laughing about the brothers of italy thing that's wow that's pretty funny anyway uh go have fun fighting anthropomorphic lizards who steal the princess and hang her in a cage and go race around the Mushroom Kingdom on your way to save her with your brother. That is how I spend most of my free time. Yeah, in the Mushroom Kingdom? In the Mushroom Kingdom.

Jumping on lizards. Yeah. Yeah. Let's go. Let's a go! It Could Happen Here is a production of Cool Zone Media. For more podcasts from Cool Zone Media, visit our website, coolzonemedia.com or check us out on the iHeartRadio app,

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