Italy’s Northern League: A New Fascist Nightmare
Italian politics are notoriously chaotic. The country has had 65 governments in the past 70 years, and many Italians, my family included, have a deep seated mistrust of government and political authority figures. However this hasn’t stopped the far right from rising there too, and Italy may be the next domino in a long line of European states that have fallen into right wing populist insanity. How did we wake up to find the world’s 9th largest economy and the Eurozone’s 4th strongest, on the cusp of a right wing fascist take over in the upcoming March 4th elections? The Northern League (Lega Nord), a major part of the centre-right coalition that is rapidly gaining support based on racist and anti-European rhetoric in the vein of LePen, is as good a place as any to start.
Founded in 1991, the political party is centered in Northern Italy, the country’s wealthiest and most industrial region and is now led by Matteo Salvini, who somehow manages to be more of a blatantly racist, xenophobic asshole than our own bloated demagogue. Imagine Trump if Trump were ferret level smart. Their ideology began and continues to be based in the idea that the regions making up the northern part of the country should secede from the rest of the country to form a new nation, “Padania,” centered around the Po river, one free from those pesky, lazy southern Italians (there is historically a stark difference in identity between the two).
The party has traditionally viewed southerners as second rate Italians, who wealthier northerners see as having to subsidize, despite the fact that their economy is heavily contributed to by southern labor and talent. For instance, a few months ago the Lega Nord governors of Lombardia and Veneto, the regions known for Milan and Venice, respectively, called a vote for greater autonomy. The goal being to pay less taxes to Italy’s central government, and therefore less subsidies to the economically less advantaged south.
Salvini saw the winds of populist asshole change, and quickly cut the secessionist rhetoric in favor of a populist right wing message that is virulently racist and anti-migrant, heavily targeting southern voters who are at the forefront of immigration into the country. This is an attempt to gain broader national support, pulling their nationalist agenda from northern isolation and onto the national platform. As a result, they’ve managed to gain more support than they’ve ever previously had by joining in a “centre-right” coalition currently dominating the polls (more on that later).
I could write another fifty pages detailing the ins and outs of their specific policy platforms, but I won’t. Because that would give them the legitimacy of a rational political party. Instead, here the 4 positions the Northern League and likely (at this point) future government of Italy holds. Keep in mind this is one of America’s closest allies, most popular travel destinations, and a pretty big world player. Not to mention the fact that we possess one of the largest population of Italians outside the country itself.
- Salvini, a moderate compared to some in the party, has called for a “mass cleaning” of Italy by ridding it of all immigrants.
- He also believes the Euro is a “crime against humanity,” and would like nothing more than the country to Brexit its ass out of there so quick you won’t be able to chug a bottle of prosecco in time to cope.
- Muslim Italians would not be welcome (an understatement if there ever was one), and the party has vowed to close worship sites.
- “Italy first.” Or Italy for Italians. White Italians. Sound familiar yet?
