Pete Kaliner: Gaslighting Americans on Italian fascism

Source: Photo 12 / Getty

Once again, American media is gaslightling its audience. This time it’s about the election of the new Prime Minister of Italy – Giorgia Meloni. Politico said the White House was putting on a “brave public face” in reacting to the news:

The earthquake in Italy has sent tremors that could be felt in the White House.

The victory of Italian far-right leader Giorgia Meloni rattled Europe, furthering fears about a new right-wing shift on the continent as it battles economic hardship and nervously watches a raging war on its Eastern flank. It also was met with deep, if private, worry within President Joe Biden’s administration.

The Associated Press headlined its piece “How a party with neo-fascist roots won big in Italy”:

The Brothers of Italy party, which won the most votes in Italy’s national election, has its roots in the post-World War II neo-fascist Italian Social Movement.

Keeping the movement’s most potent symbol, the tricolor flame, Giorgia Meloni has taken Brothers of Italy from a fringe far-right group to Italy’s biggest party.

A century after Benito Mussolini’s 1922 March on Rome, which brought the fascist dictator to power, Meloni is poised to lead Italy’s first far-right-led government since World War II and Italy’s first woman premier.

The memo has obviously gone out to American media – that Meloni is “far right” and “neo-fascist.”

However, fascism – specifically the Italian version – was of the political left. Not the right.

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