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Why is the far right so popular in Italy now? Dario Cristiani o= n immigration, religion, and the ghosts of fascism.

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A Destra

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Why is the fa= r right so popular in Italy now? Dario Cristiani on immigr= ation, religion, and the ghosts of fascism.

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Bogdan To= doran

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Italy= ’s government collapsed last week, abandoned in a non-confid= ence vote by three populist parties in Parliament. The country will hold ea= rly elections on September 25, and polls show three parties on the far righ= t likely winning enough votes to form the next governing coalition. Italy&r= squo;s most popular party now is the fiercely nationalist Fratelli d’= Italia (Brothers of Italy), a direct descendant of Benito Mussolini’s= National Fascist Party. Members of Fratelli have praised the fascist era, = while the party calls for loosened ties with the European Union and zero-to= lerance of immigration. The other two right-wing populists are Lega (League= ), which also staunchly opposes immigration and supports closer ties with R= ussia, and Forza Italia (Forward Italy), the party of the former longtime p= rime minister Silvio Berlusconi. In the 1990s, Berlusconi—who owned I= taly’s most popular television stations and was Italy’s richest= man—articulated many defining features of the populism that’s = brought leaders to power in recent years in the United States, Hungary, Bra= zil, and the Philippines. But Berlusconi was forced to resign in 2011 as It= aly’s economy fell into recession and public debt climbed to dangerou= s levels. All this has taken place against the backdrop of Italy’s hi= storical experience of fascism, including the alliance with Adolf Hitler an= d the Nazis that led the country to ruin in World War II. So why do so many= Italians now support these right-wing parties?

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Dario= Cristiani is a senior fellow working on Italian foreign poli= cy at the German Marshall Fund of the United States, based in Washington, D= .C. For centuries, Cristiani says, many Italians have adhered to conservati= ve views, often from their Catholic faith. In recent years, that conservati= sm has been increasingly converted by right-wing populists into support for= positions against immigration and favoring Italian nationalism—as ri= ght-wing parties have effectively combined appeals both to social concerns = about Italian identity and economic concerns about jobs. Among them, Fratel= li d’Italia has won the advantage, ascending above Lega and Forza Ita= lia, by refusing to join a coalition government—including leftist and= centrist parties—that many conservative voters saw as fundamentally = at odds with their principles. Meanwhile, many Italians, especially the you= ng, don’t have qualms about supporting the party because they just do= n’t know its history—or the history of their country’s fa= scist period—at all. But, Cristiani says, the positions of a governme= nt potentially led by the Fratelli d’Italia remain unclear. It seems = particularly certain that such a government would clamp down on immigration= at home—but particularly uncertain how it would deal with the countr= y’s most important issues abroad, not least in its relations with the= European Union or its stance on the war in Ukraine.

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—&mdash= ;—

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Micha= el Bluhm: Why did populist parties in Italy’s governing coal= ition sink their own government?

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Dario= Cristiani: The Five-Star Movement, a left-wing populist party tha= t won the 2018 national elections, also chose not to support its own govern= ment in a vote of confidence. Five-Star is desperate to find a way out of i= ts internal crisis. In local elections in early June, it failed to win 2 or= 3 percent in some places. This was a wake-up call.

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Since then, t= he party’s leader, Giuseppe Conte, has tried to differentiate himself= from Prime Minister Mario Draghi and the government, because Draghi—= as the former head of the European Central Bank—was a symbol of the i= nternational technocracy that the party wanted to fight when it rose to pro= minence 10 years ago.

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Foreign Minis= ter Luigi Di Maio, who left Five-Star in late June to create a new party, a= lso helped bring down the government. He was trying to show voters that he = was inside the government but different from it: We are the anti-e= stablishment political movement that you voted for 10 years ago, and we und= erstand the discontent in the Italian population.

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Lega is anoth= er party that lost a lot of its support because they’ve been in a coa= lition with the center-left Democratic Party in support of Draghi. Lega Lea= der Matteo Salvini was looking for a way to start from scratch and show tha= t he’s ready again to promote the things that made him popular five y= ears ago.

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In the upcomi= ng elections, he can create a bloc with Forza Italia and Fratelli d’I= talia. According to the polls and given the current electoral system, they = have no real competitors, especially if the Democratic Party can’t cr= eate an alliance with any other groups—especially, in turn, with the = Five-Star Movement.

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Bluhm= : Why is Fratelli d’Italia so popular now?

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Advertise= ment

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Crist= iani: Fratelli appeals to voters for one simple reason: It was the= only major party opposed to Draghi.

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Italy’s= right-wing parties have undergone an interesting dynamic during the past 1= 0 years. Lega used to be called the Lega Nord, or Northern League. It was b= ased in the north of Italy, as it sounds, and had no connections with the S= outh. They were first in favor of secession by the North, and then they wer= e for an autonomous North within the Italian state.

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Salvini manag= ed to transform this party into a national party during this time by gettin= g the votes of right-wing voters who did not have a party to represent them= after Berlusconi’s party Forza Italia cannibalized a party called th= e National Alliance, which had represented the post-fascist groups.

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Salvini took = Lega from about 5 percent nationally to 17 percent. He did so by transformi= ng the party into a nationalist party like that of Hungarian Prime Minister= Viktor Orban. He took not only the voters but also some of the politicians= in the South who had no party after the collapse of the National Alliance.=

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When Fratelli= d’Italia was born in 2012, it won about 3 or 4 percent of the vote. = Fratelli managed to get some new voters, but they are also simply recoverin= g some of the former National Alliance voters who had supported the League.=

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Alaksiej = Carankievic

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More from= Dario Cristiani at The Signal:

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“As for Fratelli d’Italia, do not underestimate the ba= ndwagon mentality in Italy. Over the last two years, there’s been a n= arrative that Fratelli was the party on the rise. I don’t want to say= that lots of non-fascist people are now turning to neo-fascism because of = the party’s popularity, but they see this party as the winner of the = next Italian elections, so they get interested. Also, when a party is in th= e opposition, it can take positions and say things without having to back t= hem up. In many respects, Fratelli is giving the answers a lot of Italians = want to hear in the current crisis: more protection of the borders, putting= Italians first, fighting against moral decadence and new notions about gen= der. Much of the Italian electorate is conservative and Catholic, so these = catchphrases and key words are readily popular.”

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“Right-wing populism in Italy is based on an old-fashioned idea:&= nbsp;We protect Italian identity. We protect Italian wealth. By closing= borders, we don’t allow people to enter. We want to support jobs for= Italians. It’s the same mentality behind support for Brexit or = Donald Trump’s idea of bringing back jobs to the United States. Frate= lli D’Italia—like Lega before them—have been able to esta= blish themselves as the most popular parties in industrial areas and in the= suburbs of big cities like Milan and Rome, where many migrants live. There= are frictions between migrants and the Italian population in these areas. = Some Italians are afraid that migrants will take away jobs because they acc= ept lower pay, so these Italians vote for parties that promise them this wo= n’t happen.”

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“Berlusconi really is the father of today’s populism. = Over the past few years, there has been an attempt to re-evaluate him as a = “moderate” politician. But he was the first to create the condi= tions for a mainstream alliance with Italy’s post-fascist parties&mda= sh;and for the hyper-personalized politics of a permanent campaign. In 2011= , the country was on the brink of economic collapse because of Berlusconi&r= squo;s government; there’s always a reality check for politicians who= live on impossible promises. Giorgia Meloni and Matteo Salvini are somewha= t different from Berlusconi. Berlusconi was selling an idea of Italy that h= e created, partly through his TV channels. He also popularized the image of= the successful, self-made man in Italy; he was selling the idea that, beca= use he was a successful businessman, his reforms would make the Italian eco= nomy successful. But the promises he’s making now, in the electoral c= ampaign they just started, are exactly the same promises he was making 30 y= ears ago. Meloni doesn’t focus primarily on the economy. She has more= of a multi-dimensional approach that says, I want to protect your= well-being, your identity, and the order of society. You need a party like= mine that believes in Catholic values and tradition.”

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The Signal ex= plores urgent questions in current events around the world—to support= it and for full access:

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