Italy goes Far-Right: Brothers of Italy win in national election

[hammerofglass]

It's The literal fascist party. The party founders were leftover Mussolini loyalists. Fascism was named after them.

[Jonathan101]

There are at least 13 different types of definition of Fascism in the literature (not counting Fascist definitions), from different academics and ideologues. It's one of the most contentious and disagreed terms out there.

The Brothers of Italy have publicly renounced Fascism and renounced many Fascist policies and say that isn't them anymore (much like the National Rally in France). Whether they are Fascist or not depends on how sincere they are in this (though the fact is they have a lot of members who are, or have been, openly sympathetic to Fascism), although it is also likely that they aren't capable of going full Fascist (making the country a militarised one-party totalitarian state etc) even if they wanted to right now due to various checks and balances...probably.

Mussolini publicly supported Catholicism (despite privately being anti-clerical and an atheist) because he needed the support of the Church and the people as his regime wasn't secure and the Italian people were overwhelmingly Catholic, and this inspired more sincerely Catholic Fascist imitators abroad, so Meloni saying she's "just" a strong Catholic doesn't mean much if you are trying to ascertain whether she is a Fascist or not.

[Draco Dracul]

In this case it is directly descended from the fascist party of Italy through various renames, mergers and splits.

[Jonathan101]

Yes...though, that by itself would not make them a Fascist party, anymore than the Democrats are still the party of the KKK.

What would (or does) make them Fascist or at least in that ballpark would be their policies and romanticisation of Italian Fascism...which unfortunately seems to be present, despite their claims to the contrary

That being said, it's doubtful that they will go "all the way" and try and create a modern Roman Empire or attempt a revolutionary transformation of Italian society to model it on a military or anything like that, even if they wanted to. It will probably be a "neutered" Fascist party since they've got the EU to worry about amongst other things.

If other far-right parties come to power in other countries and the EU starts to collapse because of this, then you might see the more radical stuff come out, if the Brothers of Italy last that long.

[Frustration]

They likely merely believe that the government has both the right and the responsibility to impose their sociopolitical goals on society at large... which makes them, in practice, little different from either the Democratic or Republican parties of the USA.

[Jonathan101]

I mean...that's pretty much what every political party does though.

They definitely seem closer to the more radical elements of the modern Republican party in their rhetoric, specifically.

[Draco Dracul]

They likely merely believe that the government has both the right and the responsibility to impose their sociopolitical goals on society at large... which makes them, in practice, little different from either the Democratic or Republican parties of the USA.

A wing of the Republican party lead by thier most recent president launched a coup d'etat against the United states less than three years ago. I also think the party apparatus of the Democrats would happily go along with a fascist regime because fascism exists to protect capitalism

[Jonathan101]

They likely merely believe that the government has both the right and the responsibility to impose their sociopolitical goals on society at large... which makes them, in practice, little different from either the Democratic or Republican parties of the USA.

A wing of the Republican party lead by thier most recent president launched a coup d'etat against the United states less than three years ago. I also think the party apparatus of the Democrats would happily go along with a fascist regime because fascism exists to protect capitalism

Fascism is not about protecting capitalism- that's just Stalinist propaganda (literally- Trotsky offered a slightly different explanation, and Stalin pushed the "Fascism is an agent of capitalism" one which Trotsky thought was stupid, as part of their ideological war).

Fascists are neutral on the economy, with some supporting capitalism and others opposing it- NazBols are Fascists, but hardly capitalists, for instance.

[Draco Dracul]

They likely merely believe that the government has both the right and the responsibility to impose their sociopolitical goals on society at large... which makes them, in practice, little different from either the Democratic or Republican parties of the USA.

A wing of the Republican party lead by thier most recent president launched a coup d'etat against the United states less than three years ago. I also think the party apparatus of the Democrats would happily go along with a fascist regime because fascism exists to protect capitalism

Fascism is not about protecting capitalism- that's just Stalinist propaganda (literally- Trotsky offered a slightly different explanation, and Stalin pushed the "Fascism is an agent of capitalism" one which Trotsky thought was stupid, as part of their ideological war).

Fascists are neutral on the economy, with some supporting capitalism and others opposing it- NazBols are Fascists, but hardly capitalists, for instance.

In practice every fascist government that has gotten into power has been hypercapialist and backed by big business, even when nominally espousing socialist or communist economic policy. If they got power thr National Bolsheviks would no more be Bolsheviks than the National Socialist la were socialists.

[Madner Kami]

That's nonsense. Especially the Nazis were anything but capitalists. They cooperated with select industrialists, sure, but their stated ideal was a state-controlled economy. The entire society was supposed to be "Gleichgeschaltet", meaning all power and control was to be concentrated in the hands of the state. Hypercapitalist is something quite different.