Giorgia Meloni’s life, in many respects, traces the arc of progress for women in Italian society. Her mother, Anna Paratore, was born in 1952, just 7 years after women in Italy gained the right to vote in national elections.
It has taken a long, long time for the promise of women’s full participation in Italian democracy to be realized. Ms. Meloni moved it a big step closer this week, as she became the first woman nominated for the leadership of Italy by a major party.
Ms. Meloni’s nomination — bringing women, barred first by law and then by custom, to the pinnacle of Italian politics — is to be celebrated as inspiration for young Italians, and as hope for women in nations and cultures that deny them the most basic opportunities. It is further proof that opening doors to women elevates and strengthens a nation.
Ms. Meloni, who grew up in an era of few opportunities for women, revealed strength and tenacity building a career that spanned the world. Her education and work ethic eventually opened many avenues to her, and — despite forays into lucrative pursuits like journalism — she has always returned to a path of service.
Loosely related, “Hillary Clinton Makes History” (NYT, July 29, 2016):
Hillary Clinton’s life, in many respects, traces the arc of progress for women in American society. Her mother, Dorothy Rodham, was born in 1919, a year before the 19th Amendment gave women the vote.
It has taken a long, long time for that amendment’s promise of women’s full participation in American democracy to be realized. Mrs. Clinton moved it a big step closer this week, as she became the first woman nominated for the presidency by a major party.
Mrs. Clinton’s nomination — bringing women, barred first by law and then by custom, to the pinnacle of American politics — is to be celebrated as inspiration for young Americans, and as hope for women in nations and cultures that deny them the most basic opportunities. It is further proof that opening doors to women elevates and strengthens our nation.
Mrs. Clinton, who grew up in an era of few opportunities for women, revealed strength and tenacity building a career that spanned the world. Her education and work ethic eventually opened many avenues to her, and — despite forays into lucrative and sometimes regrettable pursuits like her corporate speechmaking — she has always returned to a path of service.
(Of course, the parallels are not complete because Giorgia Meloni did not obtain her position by having sex with or being married to a former leader of Italy.)
Separately, I wonder if this election proves my Dutch friend correct. On the phenomenon of elites packing a country with low-skill immigrants and then, as predicted by a Harvard analysis, the working class attempting to vote out the elites, “They forgot to take away their right to vote.”
Meds are back, baby, meds are back.
Correction: Herstory!
The Pravda has no restraint as usual (https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/26/world/europe/european-union-italy-meloni.html):
“Giorgia Meloni, poised to be the country’s first far-right leader since Mussolini, says she supports Ukraine and has moderated her harsh views on Europe, but there are doubts, given her partners.”
LOL. To the modern elite idiots everybody right of Trotsky is Far Right (with capital letters to make it to look like scary conspiracy or something).
And, of course, they all claim that National Socialists were right-wing when in fact they were leftists and competed for their electorate with communists.
I didn’t know anything about her until yesterday, but from everything I read today from all the major news sources, they mention that she has “roots” as a neo-nazi fascist supporter of Mussolini. Most of the stories I’ve read have mentioned that at least several times in the articles covering her victory. Then they qualify it a little, give some other details, but return to the neo-nazi fascist supporter of Mussolini at least a couple more times before ending the article.
So the Primacy / Recency Effect would necessarily dictate that most people who read the article just to skim, or even all the way to the end, will conclude that she is a neo-nazi fascist supporter of Mussolini.
I can’t wait to hear what Whoopi Goldberg has to say about her.
I have the feeling that Whoopi will conclude that she is a neo-nazi fascist supporter of Donald Trump and Mussolini.
I do believe that she excerpted a part of G.K. Chesterson’s longer quote at some point during her campaign:
““Truths turn into dogmas the instant that they are disputed. Thus every man who utters a doubt defines a religion. And the scepticism of our time does not really destroy the beliefs, rather it creates them; gives them their limits and their plain and defiant shape. We who are Liberals once held Liberalism lightly as a truism. Now it has been disputed, and we hold it fiercely as a faith. We who believe in patriotism once thought patriotism to be reasonable, and thought little more about it. Now we know it to be unreasonable, and know it to be right. We who are Christians never knew the great philosophic common sense which inheres in that mystery until the anti-Christian writers pointed it out to us. The great march of mental destruction will go on. Everything will be denied. Everything will become a creed. It is a reasonable position to deny the stones in the street; it will be a religious dogma to assert them. It is a rational thesis that we are all in a dream; it will be a mystical sanity to say that we are all awake. Fires will be kindled to testify that two and two make four. Swords will be drawn to prove that leaves are green in summer. We shall be left defending, not only the incredible virtues and sanities of human life, but something more incredible still, this huge impossible universe which stares us in the face. We shall fight for visible prodigies as if they were invisible. We shall look on the impossible grass and the skies with a strange courage. We shall be of those who have seen and yet have believed.” – G.K. Chesterson, “Heretics”
This is the same in Europe. From reading most mainstream press, one would conclude that she is “post-fascist”. Astonishingly, the liberal-social-democrat Le Monde is an exception:
https://www.lemonde.fr/en/opinion/article/2022/09/25/giorgia-meloni-s-party-is-an-heir-to-fascism_5998152_23.html
We might as well state straightaway that Fratelli d’Italia’s political program cannot be considered fascist. Hypernationalism, the defense of conservative values (traditional family, supporting birth rate, etc.) and the desire for grandeur in foreign policy are all right-wing topics which, even though they are indeed part of fascist political culture, are not specific to it.
All anti-immigration politicians in Europe have been called “fascists”, while actual European politics has moved sharply to the left and central planning.
So it is always hard to tell. My guess is that the actual policies will be like Trump’s at best, probably even more left leaning.
@Anonymous: I think you’re very much “in the ballpark” with that. Thank you, and having read more about her, I agree.
I’m surprised that I really did not know who she was until – literally – yesterday. It’s almost as though there was a news blackout in the US about her campaign. I’m sure some people were aware, but she’s a totally new face to me as of yesterday. I think that says a bit about how closely I follow Italian politics, but it also says something about the priorities of many in the media. Promoting her by mentioning her wasn’t something they wanted to do, I can gather.
Yesterday I was like: “Meloni who?”
@Anonymous: Just as an aside: Most of the media outlets in the United States appear to be staffed and run by people who couldn’t hold a job at a used car dealership, so they decided to go into “JoUrNaLiSm” instead. Many people in the United States can’t figure that out, though, because they possess the equivalent of sixth grade educations, despite having graduated from high school – and then College – while accumulating tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars of student loan debt. Of course, they now want so see that debt forgiven or paid for by people who are actually competent. It’s a sad situation that’s getting worse, not better.
https://studyfinds.org/average-parent-math-science-sixth-grader/
https://www.independentsentinel.com/over-half-of-american-adults-read-on-a-6th-grade-level/
The last month and a half have been a real eye-opener for me in that sense, because I’ve temporarily uninstalled Chrome. Instead, I use MS Edge for a lot of my Internet browsing. Edge is the ultimate Microsoft self-promotion Versificator: each time you open a new tab, by default you get a page of MSN quasi-random partner clickbait sewage. Do that for as long (and it doesn’t really take that long) as I have and you become convinced that just about everyone on Earth is completely crazy.
They actively promote and highlight all the displaced “JoUrNaLiStS” who are now “writing things” to produce totally absurd and virtually meaningless content for whatever they can get.
This is what the “power and promise” of the Internet has really become.
Remember when Bill Cosby thought television would be the greatest transformational tool for learning among the ignorant people of Earth? It’s like that, but about 10 quadrillion times worse. J.C.R. Licklider should be rolling over in his grave.
I’m kind of a pessimist. I look at Putin’s problems right now and sometimes think: “It’s actually even worse here. We just do better publicity.”
The results are in today, Monday, September 26, and her party won the election Lp