In case you missed it, Italy’s got a new prime minister in Georgia Meloni, and she’s — gasp! — on the Right. Not the far-Right, mind you, but she might as well be. At least if you ask all the liberals who have suddenly become experts in Italian politics.
And, as an aspiring far-Right dictator, Meloni is basically the lady version of Benito Mussolini, that infamous far-Right Italian dictator. At least that’s what The Experts™ are saying now.
.@cnn, why are you comparing Italy's incoming PM, the first woman elected to the post, to fascist dictator Benito Mussolini?
"Italy will be led by the most far-right government since the fascist era of Benito Mussolini, early exit polls suggest."https://t.co/30NdM2PACI
— Gabriella Hoffman (@Gabby_Hoffman) September 25, 2022
Well, if you can believe it, The Experts™ have missed the mark on this one. By about a million miles. Or kilometers, if they prefer. Either way, they’re wrong about Georgia Meloni being “Italy’s most far-Right prime minister since Mussolini,” because (a) it’s not really accurate to characterize Meloni as “far-Right,” and (b) Benito Mussolini wasn’t far-Right, either.
Tom Elliott’s got a great thread this morning to remind any of the liberals out there who are invoking Mussolini in order to stir up fear about Meloni that Mussolini was a dedicated and avowed Man of the Left — and the American Left loved him for it.
Memo to my friends in the media covering Italy's elections:
Italian fascism — and especially Mussolini — were not "right wing," but rather another statist/collectivist ideology that was worshipped among left-wing intellectuals of the day.
— Tom Elliott (@tomselliott) September 26, 2022
The parties were switched back then. https://t.co/IuprPpJny2
— Ekdahl Press Office (@EkdahlPress) September 26, 2022
Expect to hear that argument often in the coming days from leftists trying to paint Meloni as the spawn of Mussolini.
As @JonahDispatch documented in his excellent book on the subject, every liberal man of letters in the 1920s & 1930s saw Mussolini as a hero.
— Tom Elliott (@tomselliott) September 26, 2022
One of FDR’s New Deal architects, Redford Guy Tugwell, wrote of Italian fascism: “It is the cleanest, neatest, most efficiently operating piece of social machinery I’ve ever seen. It makes me envious.”
— Tom Elliott (@tomselliott) September 26, 2022
Hollywood produced a worshipful film celebrating his rise. Columbia University created a department studying Italian fascism. Over 3 years, the NYT and other publications treated Mussolini to more than 100 glowing profiles (by contrast, Stalin received only 15).
— Tom Elliott (@tomselliott) September 26, 2022
“Benito Mussolini … is the socialist of the heroic times.” — intellectual & writer and Mussolini mistress Leda Rafanelli
— Tom Elliott (@tomselliott) September 26, 2022
“You, Benito, are not only the representative of the Romagna Socialists but the Duce (leader) of all revolutionary socialists in Italy” — Italian socialst Olinda Vernocchi
— Tom Elliott (@tomselliott) September 26, 2022
Mussolini was himself a lifelong socialist intellectual. During his rise, Mussolini edited La Lotta di Classe (Class War), which Goldberg notes “served as the megaphone of the extremist wing of the Italian Socialist Party.”
— Tom Elliott (@tomselliott) September 26, 2022
When he eventually formed his new fascist party, he explicitly said the purpose was to advance socialism.
“12 years of my life in the [socialist] party ought to be sufficient guarantee of my socialist faith," he said. "Socialism is in my blood.”
— Tom Elliott (@tomselliott) September 26, 2022
“I am and shall remain a socialist and my convictions will never change! They are bred into my very bones.”
He wrote that it was “necessary” to kill off the old socialist party in favor of his fascist party, “in order to save Socialism.”
— Tom Elliott (@tomselliott) September 26, 2022
Not exactly far-Right, is it?
In his will he wrote “I bequeath the republic to the republicans not the monarchists, and the work of social reform to the socialists and not the middle classes.”
— Tom Elliott (@tomselliott) September 26, 2022
Welp.
It was only after the Soviets turned on Italy that America’s intelligentsia shifted allegiances. As the crimes of Nazism became clear, the American left began a furious effort to rewrite history and insist fascism had been right-wing all along.
— Tom Elliott (@tomselliott) September 26, 2022
And that’s still happening, all these years later.
We can now see that effort continues to this day (via, for example, @CNN & @nytimes, which had ironically been one of Mussolini's biggest boosters). But their current claim Mussolini was a man of the right is historical misinformation.
— Tom Elliott (@tomselliott) September 26, 2022
If you need any further convincing, read Jonah Goldberg’s “Liberal Fascism.” All I’ve done here is crib the first two chapters, and I recommend reading the full thing for anyone interested in the actual history of fascism.
— Tom Elliott (@tomselliott) September 26, 2022
“Liberal Fascism” should be a fixture in every home library in America, if we’re being honest.
P.S. I’m curious which parts of this fascist platform from 1919 modern progressives would take issue with? pic.twitter.com/oyQjB5aVdO
— Tom Elliott (@tomselliott) September 26, 2022
A lot of those things sound like they could be part of the modern progressive platform. Oh, wait. They are parts of the modern progressive platform.
And modern progressives are either ignorant about that or they actively choose to ignore it.
Witness these furious attempts at rewriting history (cc @Telegraph @washingtonpost @politico @BillKristol) pic.twitter.com/bGDbO7NlOu
— Tom Elliott (@tomselliott) September 26, 2022
They can rewrite history all they’d like (seems to be a very popular thing to do on the Left), but that doesn’t actually change the history.
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