Italy’s first-ever summer election does not take place for another month, but the outcome already appears certain: the country’s centre-Right coalition — comprising Giorgia Meloni’s Brothers of Italy, Matteo Salvini’s Lega and Silvio Berlusconi’s Forza Italia — is leading the polls by a wide margin. Victory seems guaranteed.
Brothers of Italy, in particular, continues its surge ahead of all the other parties, establishing Meloni as the de facto leader of the centre-Right coalition and as a likely candidate to become the first female prime minister in Italian history. Her party is now polling at around 25%, with Salvini’s Lega at 15% and Forza Italia at 7% — close to potentially giving the coalition more than 60% of the seats due to the current electoral system.
On the opposite front, the centrist Democratic Party (PD), the party of the establishment, has severed all ties with Giuseppe Conte’s Five Star Movement, which they hold responsible for the fall of the Draghi government — an unforgivable sin in the eyes of the Italian elites. However, by foregoing an electoral alliance with Conte’s party, which until a few months ago seemed all but certain, the PD has effectively given up its only chance of coming anywhere close to a majority. On its own, the PD is currently polling at 23%, making it the second party in the country. But with its centre-Left coalition made up of small parties, they are unlikely to gain more than 30% of the votes.
For its part, the Five Star Movement has experienced the most spectacular fall from grace of any party in modern European history: at the last elections, in 2018, on the back of a strongly anti-establishment rhetoric, it gained an astonishing 32.7% of the votes, 11 million in total, making it by far the most-voted party in parliament. Today it is polling at around 10%.
This is the result of what many view as a betrayal of the party’s ideals. Failing to achieve much during its short-lived “populist” government alliance with the Lega, it subsequently underwent nothing less than a full-blown transformation, first allying itself with the pro-establishment PD and then offering its unwavering support for the technocratic government of Mario Draghi, the embodiment itself of post-democratic technocratic management. Needless to say, voters weren’t impressed — hence the party’s free-fall in the polls.
Indeed, for the many millions of Italians who placed their hopes in Five Star, the lesson is a bleak one: voting is pointless. Unsurprisingly, most polls forecast the turnout at the upcoming elections to be the lowest ever — with potentially more than 40% of voters not bothering to head to the polls.
Join the discussion
Join like minded readers that support our journalism by becoming a paid subscriber
To join the discussion in the comments, become a paid subscriber.
Join like minded readers that support our journalism, read unlimited articles and enjoy other subscriber-only benefits.
SubscribeMany thanks for a great and informative article. Great Italy, another sad state where political governance and elections are just a masquerade. The technocratic anti-democratic fungus has spread across so much of the ‘free’ world, stifling and burdening citizens for their own good.
“Many thanks” is just how I was to open my own comment!
I am no expert on Italian politics, but one does wonder, as this essay suggests, that internal politics in most EU-member countries amounts to noise. The only real issue is exit from the EU … which is hard to engineer, when the EU can judiciously distribute funds here and there.
Were exit merely a matter of tearing off a band-aid–that would be one thing. But, having to give up a limb or two to secure exit makes the politics of it much more fraught.
that was the point of the euro really wasn’t it. I’d still do it though.
Chauncey me old mucker good to see you on here – cousin Jayne and I were just earlier today talking about young Oliver and his plans.
In spite of inflation, cost of living, NHS problems etc, etc, we need to thank our lucky stars that we ( UK ) got out of the EU when we did
Yes, because that’s going really well (NOT)
One does have to ask: “Compared to what?”
Compared to pre Brexit UK on such items as starving and freezing to death and swimming in sewage: that kind of thing.
LOL if we had stayed in the EU like Ireland we would have had no houses available to rent.
LOL – Brexit Britain is exporting more to the EU since Brexit than before. The only bad news is it is gas/oil and electricity. It seems the EU has a problem with all three of those at present.
The City is also raking in more profits from the EU than France’s banks.
https://www.cityam.com/boost-for-global-britain-as-uk-exports-to-eu-defy-brexit-challenges-and-hit-highest-level-ever/
https://uk.finance.yahoo.com/news/eu-banks-demand-access-city-170454643.html
https://www.cityam.com/city-blows-away-gloomy-brexit-forecasts-as-profits-soar-at-fastest-rate-since-2015/
https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/german-energy-market-would-collapse-without-gas-levy-habeck-2022-08-15/
Below is the best link however
https://www.bloombergquint.com/gadfly/if-italy-fails-then-europe-fails-too
I now get
“It is ‘no longer available in your region”
I suppose that’s why Brexit Britain’s Europhiles don’t know just how dire the situation is in the EU? 😉
Yeah, if only we’d stayed in we wouldn’t have inflation and wouldn’t be on the hook for the financial carnage facing the Euro.
Germany and the US shouldn’t have left the EU either, just look at their problems!
You say ‘in spite of’. The rest of Europe also has rampant inflation, high cost of living, and in some areas a far more critical energy problem.
The biggest difference between the UK and the EU is the ONS get their numbers out quicker, so that gives a little window where journalists and other prophets of doom can shout about UK inflation being the worst in Europe.
Absolutely agree – we have got the wherewithal to sort it out as well. We have serious problems but not as intractable as in the EU.
Anyone running a business or studied stats beyone A level knows the ONS is fake. They have you fill out forms on stats you cannot possibly get in real time, count employees twice or even 3 times if they are temps or part time and generally behave like apparatchiks from the USSR. They keep a few thousand admin bods in Cardiff off the dole but at such ridiculous cost the game is not worth the candle.
For reference:
Inflation is higher in the Netherlands and Spain.
The cost of living (inflation minus wage growth) is higher in Germany, France and Italy.
Cost of living is what really counts. If you wages are rising along with the cost of goods and services, at least you have a chance of keeping up.
Suspiciously both Germany and France stopped publishing wage growth figures recently. Can you imagine if the UK stopped publishing figures to avoid bad press?
I own a 1 bed flat in London, and my electricity bill is £177 a month. My sister and husband, who own a 2 bed flat near Florence, pay €35 euros a month. These are real numbers. Care to explain?
Oddly enough in another post you accused me of ignorance of Italian economics, and yet you seem completely clueless as to why an Italian electricity bill (at least in a small flat) can be much lower than in the UK.
Start by looking at the fuse box, your sisters electricity supply is probably limited to 3KW. This is peanuts by UK standards.
Up until the 60s electricity was very limited in Italy, so much so that they actually used to provide most of it from hydro-electricity. This was quite important with Italy not having much in the way of fossil fuels.
So Italy has grown up with a culture of low electricity usage. It is hardly ever used for heating, and people in Florence will hang their clothes out to dry rather than use a dryer. Appliances tend to be lowwer power. A typical kettle is 1.7KW. An oven 2.2KW. Instead of comparing the cost of electricity, try looking at the KWh consumed.
Then I’ll throw in another factor. In order to encourage low consumption, the state electricity company used to stagger prices based on consumption. Although this is being eliminated, it is still present, so the first part of you consumption is paid for below market rate. This is subsidised by higher tariffs on high consumption.
In addition the market is now private. Many people have contracts with prices fixed for a year (more often than not as an introductory offer). Is your sisters contract one of those?
If you think the UK Tory party and ALL of its MPs are anything other that puppets you are, sadly naïve. Indeed most politicians in the Western world are no different!
To see who the puppet masters are is very simple: in the words of Cicero: “Qui Bono?” or for whose good: or who gains? If the millionare classes including banksters and other shysters are raki g it in then there are your puppet masters, right there as the Yanks say!
Yes of course some payments must be made to the angry masses (mainly lip service of course) in order to keep the idiots from voting in their own interests. To keep facilitating enrichment of the already super rich you have to throw a few crumbs of bread (+circuses*) to the plebs. *the current race for no.10, parties, arms to Ukraine etc etc.
I’m trying to be positive here: to hear the negative theory tune in to Neil Oliver’s take on this enslavement, starvation and freezing of the masses!
I don’t disagree with you but at least we can throw out governments we don’t like which puts a ( tiny) bit more pressure on them than it does on the EU leadership. Our government won’t be able to blame the EU – at least my vote counts a bit in the UK
Which is really the point Farsi is making. If we’re in the shit, it’s our fault, and we have to fix it. When asked, the Greeks, Irish and apparently the Italians, would prefer mummy to sort it out. They need to grow up, or at least talk to mr orban
Absolutely
Yeah real positive. If that were a given as you believe, brexit would never have gone through.
Good article – and a fair warning regarding the clear Imperialist tendencies of the EU. However the writer is very much mistaken by ascribing the current energy crisis to sanctions against Russia and support for Ukraine . The problems go much deeper that – and were created by the same supposed elites who run the EU – and much of the U.K. Civil Service and Academia.
Putin is a convenient scapegoat for the Energy crisis, they’ll even try and blame him for the QE/Low Interest rate meets Covid lockdown inflation, as that starts to hurt more. Net Zero and the Green agenda needs scrapping now.
The ukraine war started in February 2022. Was there even a hint of an “energy crisis” before that?
“…This is the result of what many view as a betrayal of the party’s ideals. it first allied itself with the pro-establishment PD and then with the technocratic government of Mario Draghi, the embodiment of post-democratic technocratic management. Needless to say, voters weren’t impressed — hence the party’s free-fall in the polls. …”
I wonder if anyone from the UK Conservative party is reading this. If so, I wonder if they will see the lesson that is heading their way.
They won an 80 seat majority by expressing a set of exciting values that the voters are desperate for. Then they promptly, and completely betrayed those voters in every single thing thing they said and did in office. The voters’ revenge will be a “dish best served cold”, just two years from now.
The five-star movement was more like the reform party. People supported it because they claimed to be something new and clean.
Of course all politicians are new and clean until they get into office. Then they become like any other politician, but with less experience.
The five-star movement was made worse by a limit of max 8 years service and a wages cap that limited their salary to that of a typical office worker (the rest of the MPs salary being donated to the party). This means that anybody with a decent career would be mad to give it all up for the ‘glory’ of being an MP. In fact most of their candidates were unemployed or in casual work. Once they were elected it became clear why…
What, by voting for Starmer et al? Sadly, probably by not voting at all, as the French and now apparently the Italians are choosing to do. This cannot end well.
I always think that referring to Starmer, being a KC as a ” silk” is a manifest insult to hard working silk worms.. he is a Polydrayloncorfam….
Outside observers of Italian politics tend to underestimate the degree to which the immigration issue fuels popular sentiment. Italy is doubly on the front line of the migrant crisis: to the south, NGO’s and the Italian Coast Guard ferry thousands of mostly Muslim, mostly male migrants to Italian shores; to the north, France cynically does everything it can to prevent those migrants from leaving Italy and entering its territory. Ever since the Lega’s Salvini was booted out of his position of Interior Minister because of his efforts to stem the tide, successive Italian governments have operated pretty much of an open borders policy. As the only major party that has never participated in recent Italian government coalitions, the Brothers of Italy naturally attract the votes and support for those who have given up on hoping that other parties will actually ever deal with the issue.
Brits seem not to understand that Italians always have disliked immigrants ” of colour”: debating the rights and wrongs is irrelevant… it is just fact.
It matters little if a centre-right coalition wins next month, as the deep state which was almost killed off by extremists in the 70s + 80s is alive and well and will try to do what their US and UK equivalents did to Trump and Johnson. Back in the good old days Pirelli, Fiat and Agip ran the economy, the Pope did morality/immorality. The Mafia, Brigate Rosse and similar outfits looked after crime and punishment. The politicians were shut in the Montecitorio and really quite powerless. Sadly they escaped and have proved at least as bad as the vernacular powers they replaced. They did so using the same state capture methods we have seen in all other “social democratic” nations. Civil service including police, educators, judiciary all selected or brainwashed as collectivists and used to coerce formerly free citizens and businesses into bowing to their simplistic and destructive take on Marxism.
Effectively ALL EU politicians are owned by Brussels.
That’s their choice. It allows them to deflect to Brussels the blame for their own incompetence. That’s why the EU always wins.
The problem is the EU isn’t going to win when it turns violent, and by ensuring there is no other way of winning, it is quite likely it will turn violent.
certainly all those trapped in the euro zone, or profiting from it
Whilst Meloni has declared herself to be an ‘Atlantist’ (commited to NATO and western alliances), I would dispute that she is so committed to the EU.
The pledge “full adherence to the European integration process” comes from the center-right coalitions manifest, not Meloni’s own party. I suspect it’s origins have a lot to do with having Berlusconi on-side.
Frattelli d’Italia have a long history of opposition to the Union. The lega, which is the second largest party in the coalition, stated in their last election manifest that they thought the EU should be unwound to the pre-Maastricht EEC – as do an awful lot of Europeans who are doubly angry about never being given the chance to vote on unification.
If the center-right coalition win with Forza Italia as the minor party (which is the most likely outcome), don’t expect it to be an EU friendly government.
Yes, they will want to keep the PNRR, the financial package with which the EU have ‘purchased’ Italy. But expect them also to be pressing for the rolling back of the ‘Union’ to the ‘Community’ that preceded it. And I would expect such a move to generate a lot of synergy in Europe in general, including with UK leavers.
Excellent piece. Fazi is on the button as usual.
Is there any reason to suppose that Italy could fix its economic malaise if it left the European Union? A devalued restored national currency would no doubt be welcome but could it control its public spending?
Up until the 1980s it did manage quite well. Had it managed it’s own currency rather than join the Euro then it could, arguably, now be in the same condition of many eastern European countries whose manufacturing industries are booming.
But that boat sailed long ago. If Italy left the Euro today it would be bankrupt. And the industry in the north has long been decimated.
In fact this is at the root of Italy’s economic woes. In line with EU policy, industry has been ‘migrated’ to France and Germany. It was supposed to be ‘replaced’ by tourism and ‘Made in Italy’ (lux. fashion etc).
That has happened to a limited extent – tourists now flock to beaches in areas that were once a mafia run far west – but as one observer put it, there are limits to how many tourists you can fit in the foro.
Two-thirds of Italy’s large population actually live in and around the Po valley, and it has very limited tourist potential. It used to be wall-to-wall with industry – automotive, white-goods, machine-tools. electronics, you name it, they made it. That has now mostly vaporised, and so have the skills that would be essential to a re-birth. let alone a ‘catch-up’.
A lot of Italian money is actually being ‘wasted’ trying support that large section of the population who no longer make any economic contribution.
As the author notes, Italy is now an EU principality. It’s government is like Sturgeon on acid – making bold propositions about things over which they have no control.
Whilst there can be no drastic change to that, at least in the short term, a non-EU friendly government could gain traction in Europe as a whole. Most Europeans don’t actually want the union, and were a bit miffed about not being asked.
So whilst Italy could no longer leave the EU, it could succeed in starting a movement that could roll-back the ‘union’ to the ‘community’.
Then there is the issue of Target 2 and what it actually is. According to the ECB it is a paper exercise, but according to some German economists it is
“Interest free, collateral free loans.”
IF the German’s are right. Then IF Italy does end up out of the Euro or bankrupt, then who is going to pay back the Germans and in what currency?
The prospect of a default was suggested in the lecture given by a German economist IIRC, and he said a default would mean the bankruptcy of the Bundesbank.
When I begin to wonder IF there is a God, I always then wonder; Is he an Englishman (Fid Def) ? Brexit couldn’t have been better timed.
I think Target2 is a lot more complicated than that.
Superficially it’s a debt – it’s no different from a supplier being lenient over an unpaid invoice so the customer has breathing space to be able to repay. This is often done because bankrupting the customer will usually not allow the debt to be fully recovered, if at all.
But in this case there is a flipside; it has allowed Germany to become the dominant economy and gain a lot of power.
When countries export more than they import then they need to invest overseas in order to balance payments. Within the Eurozone things are a bit different. Germany has a trade surplus with other Eurozone countries. This is in part due to its industry, but also due to its central location making it the ideal place for single market distribution centres, in particular for goods being imported from Asia.
At a global level the Euro’s balance of payments depends on the average of Eurozone countries. Within the Eurozone Germany maintains what would otherwise be an unsustainable balance.
Instead of ‘investing overseas’, Germany’s surplus has effectively allowed them to build up a controlling interest in other Eurozone states.
Target2 debt can be viewed as an investment that is paying off. Only a fool would want to ‘call it in’.
Let us not forget that the old Lire/BTP capital markets worked in a peverse way as volatility, supply, demand, derivatives and a massive retail domestic bond buyer support somehow came together and just ” functioned”?!!!!
The Italian word for it was ‘Systemazione’.
Industrialists, Politicians and Bankers would make under-the-counter deals to make it work.
It worked fine as long as import/exports represented a small proportion of the GDP, and Politicians succeeded in balancing the various internal factions.
In the 1980s two factors combined to make it collapse. Firstly Craxi decided he wanted to take on the role of the Christian Democrats as the leading and co-ordinating political force. Although he partially succeed, he did not win over important industrialists such as Agnelli and DeBenedetti. The political fabric was irreparably fractured and the Christian Democrats party, which had dominated politics since the birth of the Republic, eventually folded.
But another problem was the EEC, as it was then, tightening the screws on open market rules. The Italian government could no longer wade in to protect and subsidise Fiat. They could no longer use Olivetti as their single source for IT and office equipment.
However much one might want to criticize the ‘First Republic’, if we look at charts of economic development, GDP, living standards and national debt from WWII up until the 80s then it apparently worked.
It’s open debate as to how much Italy’s current woes are due to Craxi, and how much to the EU, but with the passage of time – Craxi is long gone – the EU seems to be the culprit.
The EU has forced Italy to abandon its old economic model, but it has provided no replacement.
You obviously haven’t got a clue about Italy’s economy and economic history. I’d love to engage in a healthy conversation with you but it’s clearly impossible as you’re not reasoning, you just want to confirm your uniformed bias and assemble few sentences around it. It’s fine, luckily everyone’s in his own bubble.
OK, let me try and engage in a healthy conversation. If I have no criticism then I’m doomed to remain in my own personal bubble.
By the way, I’m not so much ‘reasoning’ as ‘recalling’; when I first came to live in Italy Andreotti was PM. I have witnessed a massive transformation.
So, what particular aspects of Italy’s economy and economic history do you think I have got wrong?
Ultimately, it would have to.
Surely Italy’s biggest issue is that during the post 2008 recession, it, like several other countries needed the EU to prop up their failing economy & relieve their debt burden. The old saying “he who pays the pipe, calls the tune” is very apt here. Had Italy managed their own affairs better in the past, then they’d be much more able to stand on their own feet & therefore be able to express a free opinion in the EU’s affairs.
Exactly. The Italians resentfully stick with the EU because they fear they’re not up to self-government. That’s why the EU always wins in the end.
I think what drives a lot of Italians to ‘accept’ the EU is they think EU funds and the Euro are Manna from Heaven.
In Italy politics revolves around greed. Everybody wants to be ‘clever’ and get an unfair slice of the budget. Political life revolves around how much money you are perceived to be bringing into the local economy.
Their actual quality of life is not important, as long as Italians believe they are getting something for free they’re happy.
Currently everything revolves around the PNRR, the Covid recovery plan funded by the EU. The EU know full well they are losing money, but they also understand that Italians are selling the farm.
Just to put it in context, Fiat auto is now part of a French conglomerate and most Fiat cars are made in Poland. If the EU was a game of Monopoly, the Italians are like the kid who has sold up all his properties and is gleefully happy because he has more cash in his hand than the others…
Italy is 2 countries- Country 1- The state that eats money, and Country 2- the people who avoid taxes, so having income, revenue and savings that provide cash and capital inflow into the economy…..
What a shock! the EU: Entitled United are finally being exposed for what they are. Power to the generation who provide nothing rich.
I support Giorgia Meloni she is not another cookie cut globalist like Von Laden.Many people in Scotland wish we had leader like her who is straight forward not mincing her words.Instead we get backstabbing Liz Truss,Sir Keri & Sunak & Sturgeon,Who don’t give the people what they want or broke promises all the time.I know Silvio Berlusconi very well he is much loved in Italy and did a lot for people when he was in office.
Berlusconi gave Italians their Target2 debt
In an election speech given today, Meloni made it quite clear she was not going to let Berlusconi muscle his way into her government.
As an Italian I can say that we blame europe because we do not have the intellectual an moral rectitude to blame ourselves….europe steps in because we cannot manage our economy on our own and we do not have leader strong enough to pay a short term prize for gains in the long term…
I agree with the basic idea in teh article that there is a uniformity of economic thought, but that is not imposed by europe, but by self convenience…to give an example, among the reforms that draghi goverment was imposing, one provided for compulsory involvement of small business offers when tendering public contracts in municipalities and local districts….to avoid discretionary choices made in favour of public companies where politicians have huge influnces and interests… this provision, after Draghi resigned, has been cancelle dwith unanimous support from all coalition parteners……
Italy has itself also mostly to blame for the energy mess. Its byzantine and dysfunctional regulatory process made domestic gas development, LNG and pipeline projects virtually impossible. Blaming sanctions after putting oneself squarely in a thug’s crosshairs is a similarly short-sighted diagnosis.
Sump’n to that.
That country to the west named after an Italian (“America”) has been making fitful progress toward its own, sclerotic EU-ization.
Is it true that a popular “ancestry” site has revealed that Franz Kafka was actually…Italian?
No one can or will say the reason for Italy’s enslavement? Perhaps the body blow suffered by Germany by Mutta Merkle’s years of complacent ignorance of reality–if not willing– will soften its rage to rule the lesser nations.
Thanks to the author for helping me better understand what’s happening in the EU (I read https://staging.unherd.com/2021/07/the-eus-plan-to-defeat-euroscepticsm/) too, I see that the EU and the US are on parallel paths of ideological capture for the same reasons. I have children and this will not end well for them if the current trends continue. I don’t know how to stop them from continuing. Any ideas out there?
Itally’s economic problems are self inflicted. Blaming the EU is like blaming a hospital that’s treating a drug addict.
Italy has always been chaotic, but they did it their way and I forget how many zeros were on the end of the Lira exchange rate but it balanced the chaos and allowed them to trade, or at the very least to be a great place to holiday.
The EU put an end to all that with tying them into the Euro, and with Germany absolutely loving how a massive trade surplus never led to an appreciating currency thus maintaining their competitive advantage, Italy and the other basket cases served their purpose.
Is the reason that people don’t buy Fiat cars anymore the fact that they are sold in euros? The currency is just an excuse, the country’s problems go deeper, from lack of investment in innovation, education & R&D to rampant bureaucracy, gerontocracy, corruption (remember, this is the home country of the mafia) and acute demographic decline. Little to do with the EU and the euro and a lot to do with Italy itself. There is a reason why some eurozone countries are successful exporters and some aren’t, and it’s not the euro.
How I wish that my old friend and business relationship, Luca di Montezemolo could run Italy?
My memories of working in the corporate finance, M and A in automotive and financials, in Italy ,in the late 1990s and early 2000s,,is one of wistful memory of pleasure, and enjoyment, via my priveliged access via Medibanca and relationships to and with The Fiat empire, and others including The Benetton, Lazard, and the all powerful Generali.
A unique form of powerful and undemocratic ” getting stuff done”, that the American’s just did not ” get”, but it worked.
It was the power of relationships and access, that used to reign in the old City, and on Wall Street, and modern egalitariansim, that has replaced it, just does not…
What is so macabre is that, as I keep saying, Mussolini was like Hitler a National Socialist: As in Britain, the LBGT / racsim/ eco zealots ARE national socialists, so for them and their quisling media to describe a politician who wants more freedoms, as a ” fascist” is not only utterly nonsensical, but hypocrisy in extremis!
As has been the result in all recorded history, rule by an elite group only benefits that elite group whether they are Czars, Kings, Kaisers, or puppets and politicians… disaster results. The rhetoric differs, but the goal is the same. “Enough is never enough”. Crumbs and corruption for the citizens, Largess, and luxury for the leaders. EU Brussels ain’t new it’s screwing you in committees too.
Watching EU sensibilities dry rot for what they are aka garbage is quite pleasant. When will the EU finally shirk the yolk of bureaucratic malaise towards their citizens to treat them like nothing more than an infinite fountain of taxpayer money to fund their lavishness from Brussels on the next trendy political matter of the day? Currently, that’s Climate Change aka the weather and how on summer days it’s really hot and it bothers the pearl clutchers and when it’s cold why, they are going to turn off their heaters because they can’t afford the power coming to them from politicians who for decades set up policies that led to rationing, carbon credits (the scam that it is), and eschewing the very thing that has kept them blindly allowed them to live somewhat comfortable lives, energy generation because CO2 was deemed a pollutant. And now they have to live with it.
Meloni’s speeches against the techno’s, the oligarchs, the bankers, and the SJW’s is spot on. She’s revealing the game to what we already know has been happening in the states. That radical marxism intersection SJW wokeness is infecting the body of citizenry through political edicts and public policies. That the destruction of institutions, traditions, mores, values, and families is anathema to its continued bulldozing through all of your lives to turn you into a number. The soviet union tried this. The DPRK has done this. The CCP is engaged in it right now and yet, in America and the EU, this is an ongoing fight.
So the leftists create this mess of insane policies, the right-thinking people of America and the rest of the world think that the lunatics are running the asylum and the lunatics turn around when criticized point at the right-thinkers, and call them Hitler. Everyone they don’t agree with is Hitler. Why are you putting up with this? Why have you put up with it? Is it because you hate conflict? You don’t want to fight anymore? You’ve pacified the populace to the point that any criticism against your betters may lead to being a nail that has to get hammered?
We aren’t putting up with it in the US. In a few weeks, voting will take place and we’ll see if people want a change away from this nonsense or if they want to keep the current administration of utterly incompetent imbeciles in power and headed by a geriatric dementia patient that is barely coherent and doesn’t know where he is in time and space. At least in the EU you can hide said incompetence in a new public edict that will take years to pass by the bureaucracy, but you guys better pray that the people don’t turn on the nameless, faceless bureaucrats.
Is Paolo Cornetti an EU puppet? I have all the evidence needed….in a hollowed-out pumpkin in my Maryland farm.