Most Italians were horrified and the video went viral. Which was, of course, Di Giulio’s hope all along. You can tell by the smile on his face. Surely he knew when he uploaded his clip that there was no way voters in his left-wing constituency would switch their support. His gesture was purely performative, a tacit reminder to political sympathizers across the nation that if Giorgia Meloni’s Brothers of Italy win this week’s election as expected, people like him will soon have a chance to shape the political agenda. Meloni is adept at both flirting with and distancing herself from such extremists whenever she sees fit. Earlier this summer, during a visit to Spain, she delivered a speech to supporters of the far-right party Vox in which she celebrated “patriots” and the “natural family” while attacking “the LGBT lobby” and “enemies of culture ». In Italy, by contrast, he has recently been posting cat videos and heavy selfies to cultivate a bland, vacuous image designed to win over moderates. It is striking, too, that unlike allies such as Matteo Salvini, who is synonymous with his draconian security bill, or Silvio Berlusconi, who has been pushing for a fixed wealth tax for years, Meloni it has no flagship policy. Her party’s most dramatic intervention in the campaign so far has been a proposed boycott of children’s cartoon Peppa Pig, on the grounds that a new episode featuring same-sex parents constitutes “gender indoctrination”. But Peppa Pig doesn’t fill the squares. Indeed, the most disturbing thing by far in this election is the almost complete invisibility of Meloni’s supporters. A few days ago, I visited a Brothers of Italy rally in an anonymous concrete arena in the suburbs of Florence. A few volunteers were handing out leaflets, but none of them seemed to know what the party stood for beyond its conservative, family values. When I asked them to name a single policy, a young man put into my hands a “puzzle book”, a small booklet with crosswords and mazes challenging the reader to write down the names of various pro-EU “Traitors of Italy”. Depressingly, this puzzle book is the closest thing to participatory democracy I’ve seen this election. 35 percent of voters are expected to abstain – and worse, the parties, without exception, appear to have acquiesced. The liberals, the Action party and Matteo Renzi’s Italia Viva, have given up trying to reach out to non-voters and are instead drawing support from the weakened centre-left Democratic party. The Five Star Movement, which as recently as 2011 was able to mobilize tens of thousands on the streets, is ravaged by factionalism and has lost its appeal among the disaffected. The left and the Greens have not been able to break out of their respective echo chambers to tap into the inclusive anti-fascist energy that animated the Sardinian movement just two years ago. While Brothers of Italy has little grassroots presence, the party’s strategic manipulation of a wide swath of conservative voters looks set to propel it to power. The consequences are alarming. Some commentators have interpreted Meloni’s new, softer image as evidence that she will be a moderate prime minister. Her party’s record in local government suggests otherwise. In the Marche region, which Brothers of Italy has controlled since 2020, the administration has limited termination of pregnancy to the first seven weeks. While Meloni claims she has no intention of making the procedure illegal, she has close ties to anti-abortion lobby groups such as ProVita & Famiglia, and in a country where an estimated 64% of gynecologists are already conscientious objectors, she will face few obstacles. to further suppress women’s reproductive rights. Then there is the threat to civil society. If Meloni’s coalition wins more than 44% of the vote, it could take two-thirds of the seats in both the chamber of deputies and the senate. This would not only give the far-right a supermajority for the first time in the history of the democracy, but could, as a result, make changes to the constitution without the need for confirmation by a public referendum. This is particularly worrying given her party’s close relationship with Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán. Indeed, human rights groups have long warned that he hopes to impose a similar authoritarian regime in Italy. Of course, none of this is going to happen overnight. Meloni, Salvini and Berlusconi are deeply at odds on pressing issues such as the war in Ukraine, the energy crisis and how to deal with inflation, and there is a good chance their coalition will collapse even sooner than the average Italian government 13 months. However, this is hardly comforting. However short-lived, the economic and social consequences of a Melon administration would likely be dire. And while centrist and left-wing politicians may take solace in the hope that the spring of 2023 might purge the political system of populist rioters, it is too little, too late. Yes, Italian democracy has been in decline for decades, but the imminent rise of a far-right government marks a new low.
