Perspective

A Brief Guide to the Italian Elections

The Italian general elections, scheduled for this Sunday, March 4th, are now hard upon us. They are unlikely to receive the kind of broad international scrutiny which attended the late French elections; nonetheless, in certain ways they will be even more consequential for the near future of Europe: Italy in the present moment is, together with Greece, the major gateway for the hordes of foreigners that now accost European shores, and is almost the exclusive port of entry for the waves of African infiltrators, who, unless we very rapidly change our ways, are destined in coming years to pullulate out of the Black Continent and toward our West in numbers astounding. Moreover, the consequences of this election could potentially reinforce, or hinder, the growing trend of nationalism in European politics. This election therefore most assuredly deserves our attention.

I therefore think it might be of use for my Alt-Right companions in arms to have some basic points of reference for those four parties with a real possibility of winning, as well as the men who most closely represent them. (Whoever is interested in hearing some word exclusively on Matteo Salvini, who most closely represents our own position, is invited to skip directly to the last section of this essay.) I leave aside a discussion of CasaPound and Forza Nuova, though they stand nearer to our views than any of the mainstream candidates. I leave them aside for the simple reason that their candidates cannot win, and the extremity of the hour does not permit us to indulge in idle democratic fancies. Also, for reasons of space, I will restrain myself primarily to the question of immigration here, which is the most pressing issue from a European perspective.

At present, the Silvio Berlusconi-Matteo Salvini coalition is at the forefront of the polls; but the Five Star Movement has also maintained a consistent presence. The race is tight enough that it would be foolhardy to make any predictions as to its outcome, especially given the surprising results of various elections and referenda in recent years throughout the Western world.

The Old Fox: Silvio Berlusconi and Forza Italia

Silvio Berlusconi of the “center-right” has been a fixture in Italian politics for almost as long as anyone of my generation can remember. He has served as Prime Minister for a total of nine years during his more or less quarter century in politics, which is a remarkable achievement in the constantly shifting terrain of Italian politics. He has survived an impressive onslaught of allegations (such as collusion with the Mafia) and official court charges (including defamation, bribery, and soliciting sex from minors), as well as a single serious court conviction (tax fraud). Despite all of this (or, one is sometimes tempted to wonder, because of it?) he continues to be a force to be reckoned with.

Berlusconi is charismatic as the devil. He has a countenance reminiscent il Duce—or at least did have, before innumerable plastic surgery operations transformed him into a waxen statue before his time. The Italians like to compare him to Trump, for good and for ill. He, like Trump, burst unexpectedly onto the political scene after becoming an extraordinarily wealthy building magnate and media tycoon; he, like Trump, has a tendency to dance over the top of scandal and to constantly arrest the public attention. He has publicly compared himself with Jesus Christ and Napoleon, and revels in retelling the latest jokes about him during his speeches. Unlike Trump, he knows how to laugh: after one of his enemies exploded a bomb at his private gate, he was recorded in a private telephone conversation laughing uproariously after commenting that the bomber just wanted to leave a message, but probably didn’t know how to write.

All of this is charming, but it is also largely beside the point. Berlusconi’s politics is nothing we can count on. It is a mixture of old-style conservatism and unabashed self-serving, which will lead without doubt to more of the same. His major theme during campaigns tends to be taxes; my American readers will already understand everything from this. Moreover, it is essential to remember that Berlusconi himself cannot serve as Prime Minister, since he has been found guilty of crime in an Italian court of law. It has as of this day been announced that Antonio Tajani, the current President of the European Parliament, will be the new prime minister in the event of a victory of Forza Italia. Tajani is in some ways a promising figure. He was a monarchist in his youth, and has demonstrated himself, especially by loose Italian standards, to be a generally clean and honest politician. He has, however, been long involved in the European Union to an extent which is sure to trouble anyone remotely skeptical of that governing body. It is also important to remember the shadow that would inevitably stand behind a Tajani victory; Berlusconi, though he remains himself ineligible, is jealous of his influence, and would not lightly concede it. A victory of Forza Italia would be a gamble with the future, to say the least.

The Young Weasel: Matteo Renzi and the Partito Democratico

Matteo Renzi, candidate of the leftist PD, is surely a creature of the globalists. He (and the “technical government” that followed his collapse, which is universally recognized by the Italians as the same regime wearing a different face) has been primarily responsible for manufacturing the
immigration crisis in Italy. It was Renzi who presided over the beginning of that crisis, it was Renzi who was responsible for almost every step in its aggravation, and it would be Renzi to continue without hesitation along those lines were he to return to the government.

The mass immigration of Africans and Middle Easterners into Italy is so unpopular in Italy that even Renzi has been forced to modify his rhetoric on it. He recently stated that “it would be better to help the Africans in Africa” rather than importing them here to Europe. But this very idea has been one of the talking points of certain “far right” elements for some years. (Not one of the major candidates, unfortunately, has the courage to state that it would be better not to “help” the Africans at all, but, at most, to leave them to their own devices.)

It is unlikely this change in approach will save him, however; he is generally unpopular after his utterly inept term in office. Renzi’s return to rule would be a disaster for the Italians, and a serious blow to the Europeans. Supposing there is any hope of turning the unwieldy bark of contemporary European politics around without first capsizing it altogether, the weasel aforementioned is to be opposed thoroughly and unambiguously as the charlatan and spineless stooge he is.

The Two-Star Candidate: Luigi Di Maio and the Movimento 5 Stelle

Il Movimento 5 Stelle, the Five Star Movement, has put up a clean-cut young man (he was only born in 1986) by the name of Luigi Di Maio.

There have been attempts in the recent past to associate the Five Star Movement with the same populist right which forced Brexit and elected men like Trump and Kurz to office—but this is simply fatuous. The Five Star Movement is populist only in the worst sense of the term; it panders to the mysterious god of the demos and follows that deity’s every obscurest whim. In consequence, it is impossible to pin down on any major issue.

It is still unclear, for instance, what Di Maio would do about immigration or what his stance on the European Union might be. He is certainly all for fiscal responsibility of one kind or another, and would desperately like to reduce the stipends of the Italian parliamentarians. That is nice, but at this historical juncture it would be like administering a band-aid to a chainsaw wound.

We can also be sure that a Five Star government would push for bike lanes in every city and universal access to internet for all citizens. If any one of my readers supposes that this is the stuff of statesmanship and high rule, then by all means, Di Maio is strongly to be recommended.

A Scrapper for the Populist Right: Matteo Salvini and the Lega

This brings us at last to Matteo Salvini, the candidate for the Lega, or League, and the man who, to my mind, is really the last hope for saving the present shambles known laughably as the Italian republic.

The Lega, originally the Lega Nord, takes its name from its early goal of breaking northern Italy and southern Italy into two different countries. Matteo Salvini is almost single-handedly responsible for transforming this local and essentially regional Lega Nord into a national rightist-populist phenomenon Lega. Toward this end, he has quite naturally distanced the Lega from its original separatist intentions. Whatever he might think about the north-south question, it is certain he will, save as he be suicidal, never speak a word the more about it. If he dared to so much as touch on the question, the mechanism of Italian politics would grind him up without further ado.

Salvini is a rough and ready, sharp-tongued, quick-witted man, and has demonstrated himself utterly unafraid in the face of his detractors. He most refreshingly refuses to play certain of the more offensive games of contemporary politics. As but an example, he speaks openly of the globalist elitists who are financing and promoting immigration, and has no fear taking the name Soros in vain. He has also submitted a few fantastic rants in the European Parliament. During one of these, when someone began to press for censorship of Facebook, he responded that the parliamentarians needed “to visit a good doctor” and to “pack their bags and get a real job,” or else to start thinking about the true problems confronting Europe.

I will recount three episodes to indicate what kind of man Salvini is.

During a television confrontation with a rather outspoken leftist politician named Pina Picierno, Salvini made the mistake of calling her “Signorina Picierno” (Miss Picierno). She hotly informed him that she was not “Miss Picierno,” but “only Pina Picierno.” Salvini, after muttering under his breath and rolling his eyes to the heavens, proceeded to call her “Pina Picierno” for the remainder of his debate with her, in many cases finishing every clause of every response to her with name in full. (“The countries of Northern Europe take one month to identify refugees, Pina Picierno, while Italy takes a year and a half, Pina Picierno; we have to appoint people capable of determining who is a refugee and who is not, and non-refugees, Pina Picierno, must be immediately deported, Pina Picierno…”)

On another occasion, again on a television show, the anchorwoman trotted out the tired accusation that Salvini’s views were somehow “inciting hatred and violence.” She quoted several comments posted by presumed Salvini supporters on Facebook to bolster her claims, and asked Salvini if he did not feel responsible for these “hateful comments.” Salvini, by way of response, took his Smartphone in hand on the spot, and began reading word for word the obscene and violent statements that were being written against him on his own Facebook feed in that instant, by viewers of the interview presently underway. He then demanded to know if the anchorwoman was to be held accountable for these statements, and cordially asked her to return to serious matters.

Lastly, after the recent shooting of a number of Blacks by a White Italian, he was accused by several imbeciles of being the cause of the violence. Rather than blubberingly distancing himself from “hate groups,” as would have been the overriding instinct of too many American politicians, he retorted simply that the real blame for the violence lay on those who had forced these migrants upon Italian society in the first place.

His views in many ways mirror our own. He supports stopping mass immigration immediately, and rigorously pursuing the repatriation (or, when this is impossible, the expulsion) of illegals. He has stated he would abolish the gypsy shanty towns which blister out across the face of Italy. He opposes jus soli, the wild notion (embodied to some extent, alas, in American law) that a child born on Italian soil of non-Italian parents should have an automatic right to citizenship. He upholds the right of a man to defend himself in his own home from burglars, rapists, and attackers without being prosecuted for doing so (as is sadly the case at present in Italy, as in other European countries). He believes that the punishment for certain crimes, as for instance repeat-offense rape, should include chemical castration. He opposes gay adoption. He has spoken approvingly of Putin and Trump. He also upholds a universal flat tax of fifteen percent, which would be a vast improvement over the present miserably laborious system. If elected, Salvini would surely be a politician of the rank of Viktor Orbán or Sebastian Kurz—supposing, naturally, that his government did not collapse immediately upon his election.

It is difficult to say to what extent Salvini agrees with us so far as the deeper questions go. I suspect his views on the racial question harmonize with ours more than might sometimes seem. He is capable of using the harshest language when speaking of immigrants, though he is careful to state repeatedly and vocally that his stance has nothing to do with “skin color.” In his speeches, he takes up a kind of “Italy First” attitude which is reminiscent of Trump’s position (to which Salvini makes frequent and approving reference). He likes to refer his more controversial propositions back to questions of citizenship; for instance, when menacing the gypsies with eviction, he always states that if they live in Italy they deserve no special privileges, but have to be ready to “be good Italian citizens.” (The idea of a common gypsy being a “good citizen” is of course risible, but we will set that question aside.) Yet I am not alone in suspecting he would be none too pleased, for instance, if his daughter came home with a gypsy for a boyfriend.

It is difficult not to like Salvini despite his failings. He has the same unapologetic magic of Trump. But past the narrow limits of our damaged day, from any higher perspective, Salvini’s quality is contestable. As regards a true vision for the future of the West, I am of the view that Salvini has nothing whatever to offer. He is best understood as a brash representative of a more traditional constitutional liberalism, which, while being manifestly preferable to the system presently in place, is also that which brought about the system presently in place. Salvini really wants to get back to a quiet, secure, nicely democratic Italy of yesteryear; he would like to join this pastoral vision with the economic and political efficiency of the North of Europe, and with the scientific innovation of America. He would be perfectly content with this; but we cannot be.

For the immediate protection of Europe, Salvini is without question the best candidate we have at our disposal. For the realization of its higher future, he cannot represent anything other than a stepping stone.

John Bruce Leonard
John Bruce Leonard, Editor-in-Chief of Arktos, studied philosophy, letters, and languages in a university curriculum based exclusively on the great books of the Western Tradition. After taking his degree in Liberal Arts he moved permanently to Italy, where he nourishes his ever-living preoccupation with the heritage and the future of Europe.

61 Comments

  • I hate …HATE Grillo , his 2 stars Hotel -Party , his thoroughly illiterate and retarded beyond reason base and I hate almost each single thing they stand for or promote.
    While I am happy for Lega and for the potential chance of the nationalist extreme right wing movements to expand their base and become necessary factors in the near future, I have an hard time celebrating anything here , while this mob of Italian negroes confirms the first party and the dominating factor.

  • Apparently Lega is doing much better than the exit polls said !
    What do you know , maybe the exit polls were wrong !
    “Never heard of such phenomena before ” .

    Lega is clearly beating Forza Italia, so Salvini is becoming the clear leader of the right, taking Berlusconi ‘s place .
    On Casa Pound , I have to inform that there was a 3% threshold, so they are not a factor at all .
    Maybe that’s in part because of the threshold itself , causing the ” wasted vote ” reasoning ,since they are also not initially part of the coalition, so.. much of Casa Pound potential votes I guess went to Giorgia Meloni’s Fratelli d’ Italia, who is actually not so bad ( and comes from a fascist sympathizers family ) ( or they went to Lega,of course ).

    • Yes. The centre right coalition is edging the lead right now, with Lega at the top. This is the best outcome that we could have hoped for.

      As for Casapound they have done a lot of great work on a grassroots street/activism level with no funding from a Berlusconi, Trump or Soros and will continue to do so. The situation is too dire right now for many people who probably sympathize with them, to use their vote on a party that isn’t going to win anyways. They should continue to focus on obtaining power on a local level right now, and continue with their activism and community/culture building. Rome wasn’t built in a day.

      • Yes , Casa Pound is around 1% anyways .

        There is no actual win for the Right coalition, no chance for them to form a government all by themselves , because of the particular , new Italian electoral system.
        With the old system the right would have probably been able to form a government with these results , but not now .
        They either compromise and find an agreement with one of the other 2 remaining poles or … they will have to go to new elections soon , maybe with a different electoral system
        The win should have been much clearer to be considered ” a win ” .
        The only interesting , positive point to me here is Salvini soundly defeating Berlusconi.

        • They haven’t yet finished the count; it’s still too early to say whether the center-right has sufficient votes to govern. And in any case, President Mattarella has the final say on what happens next. But two things stand out at present: the total collapse of the left, and, as you indicate, Stefano, the fact that Salvini has come out over Berlusconi.

      • I agree entirely, Johnny. The best thing that could come of this election is that it might buy some time for movements of real interest to grow and increasingly gain support at the local level.

  • I find it intresting that so many white nationalists here support Casa Pound.

    Simone Di Stefano, elected head of CasaPound recently stated, “We accept immigrants into our movement, including Africans and Asians, and have no problems with Italian Jews.” He added: “The Jewish people in Italy helped the fascist party rise to power … We acknowledge that the introduction of racial laws in 1938 was a mistake.”

    The famous Italian model and CasaPound activist Nina Moric – herself an immigrant of Croatian origin – announced that she had agreed to invite an African migrant to live in her home for a week as part of a reality TV show. For this she would be paid $250,000, which she claimed she would use to “help more Italian families,” and her participation in the show would demonstrate that “I am not a racist person” and that “never in my life have I made distinctions based on race.” Immigration controls, she went on, “should be about protecting our towns – skin color is not important at all.”

    FORZA NUOVA is an actual white nationalist organisation. Forza Nuova, the most traditional fascist group, only supports ethnic Italians. When asked if Forza Nuova would accept Africans, or even Jews into their ranks, Luca Leardini – Forza Nuova’s organizer in Veneto – said: “We want to avoid accepting them because of the system that there is in place where Africans are intended to replace Europeans, and how many Jewish people appear to be behind this system.” When asked for his thoughts on the purported Jewish conspiracy, he asked abruptly: “What is Soros’s origin?”

    When asked if Europeans not of Italian origin would be accepted into their movement, a spokesperson said: “Europeans can integrate into Italian society, but non-Europeans generally cannot.” Their position on Nazism slides between studied ambiguity—“That’s in the past and we deal with the present” — and outright evasion — “Millions of people died making the pyramids too, but I don’t see anyone saying: ‘Let’s dismantle the pyramids, or let’s worry about what the Egyptians did at the time.’”

    Please, support Forza Nuova, not the Kosher immigrant worshipping faggots over at Casa Pound.

  • On the good news side , here is clearly one :
    Some regional elections are also occurring in Italy and the “White race candidate ” , Fontana , the one who , during a radio interview ,mentioned the fact that the white race is being exterminated and we will not survive as whites if we don’t put a stop to such extermination , seem to be in the clear lead as the President of the Lombardy region ( some kind of regional ” governor ” so to speak) .
    Lombardy is the region of the city of Milan.
    It is the largest and most prosperous region in Italy.
    THAT …would be a win.

  • First exit polls seem to confirm the worries and the polls predictions , if they are confirmed true :
    Hung parliament .
    All kinds of dealing and wheeling and compromises and Berlusconisms to be expected …in short democracy exhibiting all its amazing splendor and wonderful glamour.
    Nobody runs away with a clear win , but the democrats , representing the typical ,liberal -socialist democrat western left are pretty much the losers , as expected.

    The right coalition altogether on top ,yes ,but with no clear cushion between them and the rest, a very tiny distance ,an almost irrelevant ,minimum dominance.
    Not enough to call it a full win.
    Not enough.

    First party in Italy ,slightly beating the prediction polls ,the ones who are actually feeling the sexual thrill of ” a win ” , when compared to expectations , seem to be the pointless and utterly confused and confusing ,super-progressive socially ,global warming fighters , ultra -democracy worshippers (“democracy must be even more democraticized, and then some more, to reach the super-democraticization of the modern democracy of the future ! ) , ” every single thing must be “MODERNIZED” as an answer to literally everything …the sad , pitiful headache called ” 5 stars ” movement .

    HOY!!
    Are you saying that … NOW MAYBE ..FINALLY …WE WILL GET A MINI – LANE WITH A BYCICLE RIDDEN BY A HUMAN BEING SIMBOL.. IN EACH ONE OF OUR ITALIAN STREETS???!!!
    REEEEALLY ???
    YEEEAAAAAAAHHHHH !!!!!!!!!
    Open the bottle of Dom Perignon ’64 Guido !

    • ( Still some vague glimmer of hope the exit polls are wrong and the right coalition win is clearer, but I won’t lose sleep on it.

    • The interviewer was an insufferable faggot.
      It’s not good enough for him to just go back to his multicultural urban center where he can virtue-signal in peace and be completely left alone by Italian fascists who give zero fucks about his comfortable bourgeois world.
      For these tolerant liberals, absolutely everyone must be exactly like them.

  • It is worth mentioning in the comments, if not in the article, that Fratelli d’Italia and their leader Giorgia Meloni, rather than the Lega, are the ones that put the demographic problem at the top of their agenda, not in terms of immigrant presence, but of an “empty cradles crisis”.

    They have proposed very radical and very EXPLICIT measures to raise the Italian fertility rate asap, going as far as flat-out PAYING families to have kids (400€ per month per kid for 6 years). Even though they can’t outright say WHITE babies is what we need, this is clearly what they mean.

    Another thing worth mentioning is that saying “White” babies, and generally being more explicit than they already are about matters of race, would be almost impossible. This is not only because the Italian public is simply not used to think in those terms, but because it is currently against Italian law to do so.

    This is all to say that what we have today in Italian mainstream politics are people that go just about as far towards our positions as they can.

    Note for example that Salvini’s slogan is not “Italy first”, but rather “ITALIANS first”, which we all know what that means in practice. The only thing they didn’t put in their shared program is repealing the “hate-speech” laws that force them to self-censor and adopt civic nationalist positions. Casa Pound didn’t either, btw. Forza Nuova are the only ones as far as I’m aware. Could be low-key cucking, could be strategy, no way to know at this point.

    All in all, I agree with your conclusion: a “center-right” victory tomorrow with the Lega as the internal winner would not really be what we need, but still a major step in the right direction.

    • There are some excellent points in this comment. I agree, it is especially important to keep in mind the hate-speech laws in Italy, and the effect they might have on the candidates’ way of speaking. I, too, am disappointed that there is not a greater movement to eliminate these laws. Let us hope the silence on this point is just strategy on the part of the valid elements within the “center-right.”

  • Mr. Leonard I have to admit that , for an Anglo, you are incredibly , surprisingly and uniquely well informed on the details and main characters of the Italian state of affairs .
    And secondarily a very clear and smart writer on such affairs too.

    • Many thanks for your kind comments, Stefano. I do not know how much credit I can take, however; I have the benefit of living in the country.

        • Certainly there was a trick! Else it wouldn’t have been a very decent article on Italian politics, would it have?

          • I’ve just read ” Europe and Europa” of yours.
            Even thou I am an old fascist by roots I came to reach a very similar view-point.
            Hence both my current support of Lega Nord and my appreciation of the paleo-libertarian Dixiecrats.

          • The parallel which you draw here, as well as in your comment below, between the Lega and the Dixiecrats is a most fruitful one, to my mind, and one that I hadn’t considered before. The tenor of the two parties is somewhat different, but I think that is owed more than anything else to the different laws and attitudes surrounding racial questions in our day. A most interesting observation, Stefano!

  • Finally back !
    And with an article right on what really matters right now :
    The Italian elections
    The Italian elections could be much more important than most people realize, if we hope of shaking the fundaments of the status quo power worldwide .
    The problem is the current Italian electoral system ,which is mostly proportional :
    If the win is not very abundant and clear you could have a hung situation ,with all kinds of political compromises , Berlusconi being probably the weakest link of the Right coalition.
    He is too easy to black mail.
    Salvini ,instead , is the man.
    I know he is very based and kind of red pilled , even on ((( Foreign affairs ))) matters , more than Trump is .
    My hopes are all on him.

  • The article was informative BUT it need to mention Brothers of Italy which will enter parliament(they are around 5%) and are part of the right wing coalition.The Brothers are to the right of Lega on the immigration issue.I like the new website.

    • Your point is well taken. But the purpose of this article was not to give an overview of the Italian political scene; in that case it would have been both desirable and indeed mandatory from our point of view to provide some commentary on CasaPound, Fratelli d’Italia, and Forza Nuova. It would also have been worthwhile, in such an overview, to at least touch on some of the yet more offensive elements on the Left, such as Laura Boldrini. The purpose of this article was rather to provide some orientation on those political parties and figures that really do stand a chance in the coming election. Whatever one thinks of the smaller parties—and I, for one, have a great deal of respect for CasaPound, for instance—they cannot win in this election, and their effect in any eventual coalition will be minimal at best.

      • Yes.
        Writing mostly for a country , the USA ,where 98-99 % of the population does not even know who Berlusconi is to begin with , you can’t fast forward to ” an Alt Right view point” article .
        You have to first do a basic information job on what a hell is really happening there , in the mainstream .
        On Casa Pound I have a feeling they will beat the polls and maybe , MAYBE.. even become some type of factor .
        On the side line ,minimal factor , but a factor .

    • Sorry , but literally :
      Nobody in the world is right of the Lega Nord ‘s base on immigration issues.
      No movement in the world that I know of is to the right of them on immigration..
      They are much to the right on both Fratelli d’Italia and even Casa Pound on that.
      They have an almost medieval vision of immigration :
      They are not just 100 % against all kinds of open national borders , they are also against “open regions” or ” open different cultural areas” .
      Closing the Italian borders to them is just the first necessary step.
      Also , they speak very clearly and abundantly of RACIALLY discriminatory type of immigration , more than based on ” merit ,civil or nativist-national ” type of immigration.
      Salvini is good at mediating , moderating and make his base ideals more sellable and mainstream .
      But that’s where they ( and him ) come from really.

      • Yes , in the past , right here in this forum , to find an international movement comparable to Lega Nord that Americans could easily understand and realte to I had to jump over 50 years in the past and fish back up The Dixiecrats .

  • The head of an anti-migrant party who is running to be Italy’s premier came to the defense Monday of an Italian gubernatorial candidate who advocated for clamping down on immigrants’ numbers to preserve “our white race.”

    While political opponents condemned the comment by Attilio Fontana, who is running for the governorship of prosperous Lombardy, his League party leader, Matteo Salvini, said Fontana had rightly raised a worry about an “invasion” by Muslims.

    • Fontana is the same guy who, just a month ago during a radio interview ,said something like :
      ” This is our last call to save the white RACE “.
      And came under all kind of fire for that ,and then some.
      He did not say “the western world , our Christian traditions ,our culture” or anything like that , he simply said :
      “The white race “.

    • Fontana is Lega Nord by the way ..
      Not the head , the head is Salvini.
      He is one of the major 3-4 lieutenants in Lega Nord .
      But Salvini is the Captain, in any sense since Salvini’s nickname between his followers is actually ” Il Capitano “.

  • Did you see the recent polling with CasaPound? I know it’s not “much” in the grand scale of things, and you did say they won’t win at least yet and that’s true … but they are garnering around 2% and the other far-right coalition looks to be .5-1%. Could be interesting if we see a 2-3% far-right group in the Italian parliament. Along with this the Communists seem to be getting around the same, 1-2%. Years of Lead 2.0?

    • You raise an interesting possibility. I have spoken to Italians who tell me that the social and political atmosphere at present is reminiscent of that of the Years of Lead. The political tensions between left and right, as in many countries in the West, are presently becoming extremely acute here; in the past in Italy that has been a recipe for violence.

  • My biggest concern with the League is its relationship with Russia. Putin has show in the last week that he’s pro-diversity and anti-traditionalism and it’s fair to say that those around him share those views. Berlusconi is also close with Putin. The winner needs to be independent. He can’t be pro-US or pro-Putin.

    • Yeah, I don’t really trust the centre-right coalition. Berlusconi is a sleazebag and I was glad to see him go a few years back. He’s like the Italian Trump and I don’t trust him at all. Not saying I want the left coalition to win instead, I just wouldn’t get my hopes up that their actually going to follow through on their promise to deport all 600,000 parasites. Their just telling people what they want to hear to get elected.

      • I agree entirely that we cannot count on Berlusconi, not so far as we can throw him. The hope—which is not altogether unwarranted—is that the Lega will take the greater share of votes, which would position Salvini as Prime Minister. Salvini, too, is a politician, but he is at least a politician who has built his career on what has long been an unpopular platform; that indicates that he might be at least somewhat serious about his positions. Of course, even were he to win, he would still have to act through his coalition, and you are right to point out the problems with this. Nonetheless, the question to my mind in this election is what is possible; the only real and concrete possibilities I see arising are embodied, unfortunately, in Salvini.

        • Yeah, the coalition is the best option Italy has right now. It’s not ideal, but you can’t always wait for the ideal situation to present itself. I do think Salvini is genuine, and it remains to be seen exactly how much sway Berlusconi will have over him should he win. After seeing campaign Trump vs President Trump, I’ve been skeptical of all centre right, populist parties and candidates and I don’t think victory for us will occur only in the ballot box, but you have to take what you cant get. I don’t think Casapound or Forza Nuova can actually win right now, so it is what it is.

      • Good to see you Johnny .
        I agree about Berlusconi , if anything because he is so easy to blackmail and so it is easy to force him to compromise,even with the left ..we already learned that.
        Main thing for now is to get Salvini’s Lega Nord to have more votes than his Forza Italia AND to see Casa Pound growing.
        Another, separate thing :

        I noticed Spencer debated a guy from some ” New Right ” movement ?
        Are they just plagiarizing the European New Right ,which was a great fash-nationalist ,etreme right , reactionary intellectual movement in my generation?(70’s -80 ‘s ..it was even called literally “New Right” in England ..in English of course.)
        Who the hell are these frauds ?

        • Likewise Stefano, and yeah, I hope its good news tommorow!

          As for the new right, after “heil gate” a lot of the more moderate and non-racialist people who had been calling themselves “alt-right” wanted to distance themselves from the term. People like Paul Joseph Watson and Mike Cernovich. “New Right” is what they came up with. I assure you that they have no clue what the European New Right is and there is nothing new about their politics. Their just basic bitch republicans/trump personality cult marketed towards younger voters.

          It might also refer to Greg Johnson/Counter Currents who used to call themselves American New Right, but if Spencer and Johnson had debated I would have heard about it. Johnson does definently know about the European New Right. There’s a lot to like over at Counter Currents, but as a personality Johnson is problematic.

          • I will search Greg Johnson and counter currents .

            But on the Alt-Lite people transforming themselves into ” New Right ” I have a feeling that they just realized that the term:
            ” Alt-lite ” simply sucked and it sounded super cuckold-ish , cowardly ,pointless and made them sadly irrelevant.
            So ,they fished for something that made them sound cool again.

            But they can’t use what’s not theirs , not historically ,not culturally.
            We truly shouldn’t let them.
            They can have ((( neo))) thou…just like the neo-con.
            ((( Neo))) -Right sounds more like it to my ears.

          • Berlusconi really does suck , I am finding just now that he has been working super hard during the last few weeks to convince the rest of the coalition to stay in Euro.
            No Ital-exit with him around .
            I am taking a serious hit about that…
            massively curbed my enthusiasm .

          • That is indeed disappointing. One should remember, however, that Berlusconi is not immortal, despite his attempts to become so through plastic surgery.

    • According to all media in Poland, there is nothing worse in the world than Mr Putin. No wonder that someone with a Polish name (no matter if a Slavic Pole or Jew) absolutely must criticize the Russian president.

      • Is Putin not to be criticized? I’m a Russophile and I have close relations with many Russian nationalists who despise Putin because if his pro-immigration and anti-Russian rhetoric. Just yesterday he said that he regrets the demise of the USSR and that he would love to bring it back… you know, the USSR that killed millions of Russians, Ukrainians, Poles, etc. He wants to create a multicultural Soviet Russia rather than a nationalist Russia which unfortunately many on the American alt-right think he supports. And drop the whataboutism. I criticize Poland’s government too for not being able to separate Putinists from the true Russian people. Also, I hope you know that Putin has been working to bring back Russian Jews from Israel and most of his close advisors are Jewish.

        • Thoughts on Zhirinovzky ?
          ( Pardon the spelling)
          I take all you are saying as 100% true ( why shouldn’t ?) and very interesting.
          But then I also wonder:
          Why would an hard core nationalist-identitarian like Zhirinovzky still fully support Putin and almost worship him ?
          ( If he still does ).

          • Zhirinovzkyis is nothing more than a useful tool of Putin. He yells loud stuff and gets a lot of media attention. His rhetoric makes Putin seem moderate, which is the entire point of his existence. Zhirinovzky has family in Israel and is nothing more than a useful puppet.

          • But then you also have to wonder :
            Why the courageous support of Assad?
            That does not look very Zionist from here .

          • The US supports Saudi Arabia which is as anti-Israel as Assad. It’s not about Zionism, it’s about a proxy war between the US and Russia in the middle east.

          • Uhmm ..ok .. maybe..
            just not 100% sold thou , because the Saudi seem to have become pretty good allies to Israel.
            I don’t know ,you made me looked more into this , and you may be 100% right ,but I will still keep an agnostic stand on all this , for now.
            And for now also a pro -Assad vision , anyway.

        • You overestimate the support for multiculturalism of Putin. He makes Russia multicultural but he’s no Merkel or Obama, he doesn’t give a shit about Italy’s multiculturalism, openness and what not, so to say that Lega Nord’s ties with Putin are discrediting because suddenly they will come out as leftists as in Sweden is far fetched and indeed looks like Eastern European prejudices towards Russia

Leave a Reply