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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsItaly's new leader is a very weird, Tolkien-obsessed right-wing extremist
Link to tweet
https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2022/09/italys-election-leader-prime-minister-right-wing-extremist-is-a-very-weird-tolkien-obsessed-right-wing-extremist-tolkien/
Early polls out of Italy following its Sunday election suggest that Giorgia Meloni, an ultra-conservative leader known for her opposition to gay rights and immigration, will become its first female prime ministerand the most extreme right-winger to run the place since, you guessed it, Benito Mussolini.
Melonis victory makes her party, Brothers of Italy, the most successful of the new radical-right movements thriving on Europes economic struggles and migration crisis. Its predecessor was a neo-fascist party formed by Mussolini supporters after World War II, although Meloni claims that shes gotten rid of the Brothers of Italys outright fascists. Her fixation on the Great Replacement Theory and her vendetta against George Soros are nothing to worry about, Im sure.
Meloni is also completely obsessed with J. R. R. Tolkiens The Lord of the Rings, regarding the serieswhich has been venerated by Italian fascists for decadesas an almost Biblical text. In her early twenties, Meloni haunted the web as Khy-ri, the dragon of the Undernet. Tolkien, she told the New York Times, explains better than we can what conservatives believe in. Her take on Mussolini? Everything he did, he did for Italy.
Meloni insists that she isnt a fascist herself, even if her partys flag includes the symbol of the old pro-Fascist party whose youth wing she belonged to. She praised Il Duce at the time, decades before her small, splinter party leaped to the top of the polls. Italians arent necessarily turning far-right themselves, one analyst told NBCbut after decades of gridlock and stagnation, theyre desperate for something new and disruptive.
*snip*
Sigh.
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Italy's new leader is a very weird, Tolkien-obsessed right-wing extremist (Original Post)
Nevilledog
Sep 2022
OP
'...after decades of gridlock and stagnation, they're desperate for something "new and disruptive."'
J_William_Ryan
Sep 2022
#7
SheltieLover
(57,073 posts)1. Pootin has apparently been busy there sowing discord
Elessar Zappa
(13,991 posts)2. Does she identify with the orcs?
Nevilledog
(51,102 posts)3. She's friends with Bannon.
regnaD kciN
(26,044 posts)4. Italy has as fucked-up an electoral system as ours...
Witness the fact that the right-wing coalition is going to get a comfortable majority in their parliament despite winning only 43% of the vote.
NoMoreRepugs
(9,423 posts)5. My friend JoeyBaggaDonuts thinks she's the bomb.
Walleye
(31,022 posts)6. Brothers of Italy elects the first female Prime Minister. Everybody's crazy
J_William_Ryan
(1,753 posts)7. '...after decades of gridlock and stagnation, they're desperate for something "new and disruptive."'
This is very similar to what motivated many Trump supporters in 2015/16.
Indeed, fascism has always thrived on the perception that democracy has somehow failed.