https://www.spiked-online.com/2022/09/26/italians-have-dealt-another-blow-to-the-establishment/
Here I was thinking the populist revolt was over. After all, the neoliberal elites said it was. They pronounce populism dead every six months or so – seemingly convinced that one election result or external event has finally finished it off for good. Covid was supposed to kill populism, by reminding the supposedly ignorant oiks of the importance of experts. Then Putin’s invasion of Ukraine was supposed to kill populism, by reminding ‘nativist’ voters of the importance of international cooperation and the folly of authoritarian strongmen – something they are supposedly enamoured of. And yet those pesky voters just keep on electing the ‘wrong’ governments. If the triumph of the Sweden Democrats in supposedly sensible Sweden earlier this month wasn’t symbolic enough, Italy has just made the right-wing, anti-immigration Brothers of Italy the largest party, paving the way for what the media breathlessly call the ‘most right-wing government since Mussolini’.
After the elections yesterday, Meloni’s party is projected to win 26 per cent of the vote. The right-wing coalition she leads, along with Matteo Salvini’s League and Silvio Berlusconi’s Forza Italia, looks primed to take control of both the Senate and the Chamber of Deputies, with around 44 per cent of the vote. The centre-left coalition, led by Enrico Letta’s establishment Democratic Party, came a distant second. The surge in support for Meloni’s party specifically was stunning, securing its position as the anti-establishment choice. At the 2018 election, Brothers of Italy won just four per cent of the vote. Meanwhile, the Five Star Movement (M5S), which came top at the last election, has had its support cut in half this time around. And even then that was a better-than-expected result. The League – Meloni’s populist-right coalition partner, which formed a government with M5S after the 2018 election – was polling in the high 30s a few years ago, but got less than nine per cent of the vote yesterday.