History repeats itself as a farce, but it has the ingredients of a tragedy. To the “March on Rome” with which Mussolini seized power, it was done by hundreds of thousands of fascists who converged on the “eternal city” to impose Victor Emmanuel III to remove the liberal from the government Luigi Facta to deliver it to the duce.
One hundred years later, a handful of irresponsible right-wingers pushed a brilliant and respected economist out of government, speculating on seizing power in early elections. In 1922, Prime Minister Luigi Facta tried to convince the king of the need to resist the putsch of the fascists, but he was unsuccessful and Mussolini began to take over Italy.
In 2022, unlike those “blackshirt” mobs, it was not hundreds of thousands who destroyed the government he heads mario draghYo. It was four unscrupulous characters who tripped him up and ended up turning over the most prestigious prime minister in Europe today. A highly trained economist, who had excelled as president of the European Central Bank guiding the helm with a master hand in financial storms.
Also leading the Italian government was showing its capacity and effectiveness. There were no objective reasons to remove him from office. On the contrary, there were more than enough reasons to support him in the technical management that had been entrusted to him and he was complying with solvency. But a gang of greedy conservatives put his ambitions for power above emergencies of the country and Europeshaken by the typhoons caused by the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
The first irresponsible is the gray character who took over the 5 Star Movement (M5E) after showing mediocrity as first minister: Giuseppe Conte. hurt because the position was removed from him to give it to the prominent economist, he took advantage of a vote of confidence to stretch his leg and trip him up.
Then, in an unusual event in this time of rulers losing prestige and support in record time, a clamor arose in society accompanying the president’s request Sergio Mattarella for Draghi to continue in officeAlso in the European institutions and governments, the request was heard to withdraw the resignation. It is essential for the EU that the Italian economy is well managed in such circumstances.
The scene was unusually good. Edifying. He was contagious with optimism. In this time of demagogic monstrosities kicking boards and causing tremors, the Italians sported a prime minister with vigorous moral authority and an excellent reputation. Precisely this exalting exceptionality highlights the disturbing of the scene that came as soon as Draghi agreed to withdraw his resignation on the condition that all parties commit to act responsibly.
The helm was once again in the hands of Draghi, which returned serenity to the Italian ship that navigates the troubled waters due to inflation and the energy crisis caused by Russia. But instead of breathing a sigh of relief, the extremist leaders of the League and the center-right Forza Italia, let themselves be led by the nose by a neo-fascist leader.
Giorgia Meloni was seeing in the polls that if the elections are brought forward, the extreme right-wing party that she leads, Fratelli d’Italia, can obtain the largest number of votes with 22 or 23 percent, which added to the twenty-something that the League of Matteo Salvini, plus what Silvio Berlusconi’s party can contribute, it will be the right that can form the next government. With that, she managed to convince them to give her the coup de grâce.
Giuseppe Conte did the initial trip while Meloni, Salvini and Berlusconi gave the government the final push. If their calculations turn out to be correct because the center and the center-left fail to agree on a common front, the election at the end of September will produce a government made up of friends and admirers of Vladimir Putin.
If the polls are correct, a woman would rule Italy for the first time in history, which would be great news if she were not an admirer of Mussolini who identifies with the Russian president’s ultra-conservatism and militarism.
Since the fall of fascism, the only figure from the Italian Social Movement (MSI) that the unrepentant disciples of the “duce” had founded in 1946 was Gianfranco Fini, who came to preside over the Chamber of Deputies and to be Minister of Foreign Affairs in the first decade of this century. But at that point in his political life he had already broken with Alessandra Mussolini (the granddaughter of the founder of fascism), he had left the MSI and had proclaimed an ideological turn towards liberalism and the center-right.
Instead Giorgia Meloni and his Fratelli d’Italia maintain the essence of MSI, the party in which they originated. They identify with the Spaniard Santiago Abascal and his neo-Franco party VOX, in addition to thinking, like Matteo Salvini, that Italy must move away from Atlanticism to strengthen ties of all kinds with the Russia that the current head of the Kremlin shapes.
Mario Draghi had aligned Italy with Atlanticist Europe determined to resist Putin’s plan, which consists of forcing the Europeans to leave NATO in order to sign a security alliance with the military power that supplies them with gas and oil: Russia.
He had also contributed his economic knowledge to develop sanctions aimed at weakening the Russian economy and not being able to sustain his war of conquest over Ukraine.
If the plan with which Giorgia Meloni dragged Salvini and Berlusconi into the folly of overthrowing Draghi works, Italy could be left in the hands of a leadership that weakens liberal democracy and turns the bow from the Atlantic to the East. Meloni was minister of a Berlusconi’s government and until recently looked down on Salvini, but having remained the only opposition force during the year and a half of the government headed by Draghi, made it the pole of attraction for supporters of the authoritarian right and for Eurosceptics of the anti-system. That’s why she went from supporting actress to protagonist of this comedy that could end in tragedy.
