By Chris Trotter*
Italy has been voting, and, as you read these words, may already have elected its first female prime minister. According to the pollsters, Giorgia Meloni, leader of Fratelli d’Italia (Brothers of Italy) is the most likely winner of this snap election. Founded in 2012, Brothers of Italy is currently the most popular of the right-wing parties vying for power.
The rest of Europe, well aware of the Brothers’ antecedents, is looking on aghast at Italy’s electoral behaviour. Meloni’s party traces its ideological lineage all the way back to Mussolini’s fascists. Indeed, she has been known to proclaim the original fascists’ slogan: “God, Country, Family”; at her party’s rallies. Officially, the Brothers of Italy have repudiated Italy’s fascist past. Unofficially … who knows?
The rise of parties like Brothers of Italy in countries with a long tradition of left-wing electoral strength is one of the most puzzling aspects of twenty-first century electoral politics. The surge to the right in Italian politics follows an equally dramatic electoral swing in Sweden, where, earlier this month, the Social Democratic government fell victim to a voter surge towards the far-right Sweden Democrats.
Like the Brothers, the Sweden Democrats’ ideological roots are also problematic. They, too, extend all the way back to the 1930s and 40s when Sweden boasted a large number of Nazi sympathisers – especially among the country’s military, cultural and commercial elites. Stieg Larsson, author of the extraordinarily popular series of novels built around the characters of Mikael Blomkvist and Lisbeth Salander, spent much of his professional life researching the persistence, and growing strength, of fascist ideas and organisations in Swedish society.
How is it then that in Italy, where whole cities have stood as electoral redoubts of communist and socialist strength; and in Sweden, where the Social Democratic Party enjoyed fifty years of back-to-back electoral victories; political scientists are now recording startling reversals of ideological loyalties. The former communist stronghold of Sesto San Giovanni, in Milan, is poised to fall to the Brothers of Italy. The Swedish Trade Union Federation stands evenly divided between the Social Democrats and the Swedish Democrats.
It gets worse. According to Lily Lynch writing in the New Left Review: “[I]f only men [had] voted in 2022, then right-wing and nationalist parties would have gotten nearly 60% [of the popular vote] and the Sweden Democrats would be the largest party.”
That gender gap is equally evident in New Zealand polling, with support for the right-wing National and Act parties disproportionately concentrated among males, and female voters skewing dramatically towards Labour/Green/Māori Party. Clearly, cultural drivers are at work here in New Zealand that bear close comparison with those influencing the outcomes of elections in Europe. What is not replicated here, however, is the formation and growth of parties rooted in the fascist right.
Not that there isn’t an ongoing effort on the part of the academic left to elevate the threat of white supremacist and Nazi-inspired political groups operating in New Zealand. In spite of the fact that the largest, and allegedly most fearsome, of these groups, Action Zealandia, would be lucky to muster 20 active members (most of whom live in fear of public exposure and job loss) considerable energy continues to be devoted to building New Zealand’s tiny far-right community into a terrifying bogeyman.
Similar concerns are voiced about the clutch of tiny right-wing parties that have either already stood, or intend to stand, in New Zealand general elections. Even when taken together, it is rare for these parties’ electoral support to crest the 5 percent MMP threshold.
Also absent from the far-right scene in New Zealand are the sort of individuals who end up fronting parties like the Brothers of Italy and the Sweden Democrats. New Zealand has no one on the right of its politics to match Giorgia Meloni. Impeccably turned out, passionate in her delivery, Meloni doesn’t just have charisma – she has style.
The only political figure in New Zealand politics who has come anywhere close to Meloni in terms of charisma and style is, of course, Winston Peters. Indeed, for the past 30 years, Peters has offered what amounts to a master-class in the prosecution of populist electoral politics. Long before Meloni and the Sweden Democrats leader, Jimmie Akesson, began making headlines, Peters’ astute mixture of right- and left-wing ideological themes has, on no fewer than four occasions, lifted him up to the coveted position of king – and queen – maker.
The issue of race lies at the heart of all right-wing populist movements, and in this respect Peters’ party, NZ First, is no exception. As a “successful” Māori himself, the NZ First leader has turned to his political advantage the desire of many Māori to be accepted as full and equal citizens of New Zealand. This “we are all one people” theme was a twofer, simultaneously attracting the support of Pakeha voters alarmed at the radical demands of so-called Māori “separatists”. Peters also exploited the deep-seated historical hostility towards Chinese and Indian immigration which has long been a feature of New Zealand’s racial politics.
Such has been Peters’ ability to play upon the sensitivities of the electorate that he has been able – like Meloni and Akesson – to attract significant financial support from the business community. In Italy and Sweden, it is the negative consequences of immigration that have loosened the donors’ purses. That said, however, it would be foolish not to factor-in the many opportunities for extracting political concessions that proportional representation provides. If the votes of your party are crucial to the construction of a working parliamentary majority, then your leverage is considerable.
While Peters, now 77, remains a runner in the populist stakes, it is unlikely that any other serious contenders for the prize money will emerge. The key to the success of the Brothers of Italy and the Sweden Democrats has been the abject failure, in both countries, of the formerly dominant Left. The vacuum thus created has seen the rise and fall of many far-right experiments aimed at rounding-up voters who feel betrayed and abandoned by their erstwhile leftist protectors. In Meloni and Akesson the formula would appear to have been perfected. In Peters, however, the populist soufflé would appear to be running out of puff.
*Chris Trotter has been writing and commenting professionally about New Zealand politics for more than 30 years. He writes a weekly column for interest.co.nz. His work may also be found at http://bowalleyroad.blogspot.com.
105 Comments
Sure.
NZ could have a referendum on the structure and documents required to form a republic and then a referendum on its go ahead, democratic, no?
So.. maybe a three waters type implementation as NZ is ill equipped to understand all complex aspects, for the good of all.
Winston still has a few decent bones to pick
https://www.kiwiblog.co.nz/2022/09/a_speech_by_winston.html#comments
Chris, as a lifelong lefty, occasionally acknowledges that the NZ left have over the last few decades relocated the Overton Window a long way from its working class origins. The difference with the current graduate entry program is also apparent in their inability to deliver anything outside their dogma.
His speech is worth a read as you said but a vote from me is not. Voted at least twice for him in the last 20 odd years and been disappointed. Have concluded he likes the baubles of office and is content with a nice ministerial post. He was fine as a foreign minister but that's not good enough. Need a new Winston but I don't see any around.
My observation is that the left is now for academics and those that can think outside the square, the right is for folk who like a simple black and white society (or should that be a simple white society). The right think the solution to crime is to lock everyone up (the obvious solution that has been proven wrong repeatedly), the left think the solution is to remove inequality (although I’m still not convinced whether poverty is a cause or effect), but they don’t seem to understand that you can’t have capitalism without inequality, it will just make everyone poor. Personally I’m not attached to either side, which is useful as I don’t really care too much who wins the next election but I hope it is one of the centre parties so we don’t get too much craziness.
This is typical pseudo intellectual thinking of the current left.
It’s the othering and superiority assumption that underlines why the ideology is dangerous.
Personally I believe in personal agency, enterprise and supporting the vulnerable. No one represents me lol.
The politics and financial wizardry of Mario Draghi look to have been served up their just desserts.
Perhaps this is more Donald Trump than anything else. He, and Giorgia Meloni may not be the answer, but at least they have asked the question. (Which is: Has what we've had, for the last 40 years, worked?)
Bottom line is countries in Europe are getting sick of illegal immigration which is stuffing up their country. We are just lucky we have a large stretch of water between us and Australia and have no land boarders or you would be changing your tune real fast when they started pouring in. The UK is currently getting crazy, my Cousin informed me the other day that they had 1000 in a single day, how long would we last with that sort of inflow ?
Legality has nothing to do with it. Western capitalist democracies around the world - New Zealand included - are blindly putting economic growth above all else, and in order to achieve economic growth you need to expand the supply of human capital. People can't afford to have kids anymore, so we're having to import that capital from other, poorer countries, who have no shortage of it to share. This is being done in full accordance with the law.
This contributes to economic growth, no doubt about that, but with increasingly disastrous consequences. In business parlance these consequences are referred to as "externalities". They're problems, sure, but they're somebody else's problems, and therefore nothing which we need to factor into our economic modelling. Insufficient infrastructure, lack of housing and accomodation, cultural issues, downward pressure on wages and salaries, overpopulation, crime, environmental issues, these are all socialised costs of chasing economic growth, and the people benefiting most from this growth are normally not the ones suffering the consequences of it.
People in Europe are getting sick of this, and - unfortunately, in my opinion - their frustration is culminating in support for far-right politicians, since they're the only ones claiming that they'll do anything about it. Racism gets mixed up in all of this too, as it always does, but the problem runs much deeper than that. We're hitting limits to growth, and until we stop treating GDP as a measure of success, we're going to keep suffering the consequences of it.
Googled it: ""An explosion shook the Swedish capital on Saturday, spreading fear among locals following another blast a little over a day earlier, local media reported. The blast took place at an apartment building just past midnight in Stockholm, just a day after a major explosion that devastated another apartment building in Solna, north of the capital."" dated 24/Sept/2022 https://www.aa.com.tr/en/europe/explosion-rocks-another-building-in-swe…
I think I prefer our ram-raiders.
Put that in to perspective. if we say that peak 1,000 per day is more like 300,000 per year, then that is 0.45% of their 66 million population per year.
In NZ we were running at 80,000 per year or 1.6% of our population. That is over three times the rate that you say we should be up in arms against. But we are not. We just stupidly accept it. It was and still is totally intolerable especially while we still have such enormous social and infrastructural deficits and increasing numbers of people living in tents, garages and motels etc. No immigration to NZ is tolerable until these issues are addressed. In a world where we are trying to reduce our human induced CO2 emissions no immigration ever should be tolerated.
It is not immigration it is low-paid low-skilled immigration. Any country with a welfare system will be a target. However there is little wrong with high-skilled immigrants with sufficient money to build a new house.
The reasons NZ doesn't suffer like Sweden despite more immigrants per capita are (a) wide range of ethnicities (b) usually good English and willingness to become Kiwis (c) more often than not well educated (d) most Kiwis are well travelled and tolerant.
NZ does have trouble with rapid population growth by immigrants - infrastructure, houses, schools, hospitals, etc but just change our quotas to match average OECD countries would solve that.
In peaceful Leicester it is now Hindu -v- Muslim Indians. When I was young it was peaceful Northern Ireland but that changed. There were peaceful Yugoslavia that shattered and peaceful Lebanon that is now impoverished. It is mistake to encourage identity groups - we need to concentrate on what we have in common first. Applies to religion, class, caste, ethnicity. NZ is OK for now - why tempt fate - why reduce social cohesion?
Stop thinking of the political spectrum as a straight line, and start thinking of it as a ring; head to far in one direction and you pop out the other side. Makes a lot more sense that way.
Extremes on either side of the political spectrum are almost indistinguishable from each other.
Easier to understand if do it as a graph. Left and right pertain only to economics, left of the collective, right of the individual, in the middle is a mixed economy, in my view, the best, though what is the responsibility of the collective and what the individual can vary, and that is what we argue the toss about.
Up and down are authoritarian and libertarianism. As soon as you get your head around that, you can see that personal social freedoms can vary at any point along the left and right line.
Too bad the world is moving closer and closer to authoritarian states. It won't end well until it ends.
I couldn't agree more. Most of this left/right labeling is just lazy writing, something we have come to expect from our media, but disappointing coming from Chris Trotter. Facism is not "far right ", nor was Nazism, both being almost as collectivist as their arch enemy communism. All represented state control and the subjection of the individual.
Accepting that our Labour government has its roots in socialism, (albeit much fudged, in the interests of getting re-elected,) it is not surprising that, faced with crises such as covid/global warming/environmental ,...(you name it) that they have reached for their main (only) tool in their toolbox...growth of the state matched by reduction in individual sovereignty.
It seems that their main call has been to join the..."team of 5 million" and leave all the problem solving to nanny state. This approach mirrors that of the pre war Labour government run by the saintly Micky Savage who told the plebs that they didn't need a bank account anymore because.."we, will look after you from cradle to the grave". A nice thought for those suffering the Great Depression, but making the individual citizen a passive beneficiary of the state didn't help then,...mainly because the mythical "State" couldn't organize a booze up in a brewery, and the current lot are no better.
Perhaps we need a government that maybe a bit boring, but at least tries to keep out of the face of the citizens, which might result in a better level of individual resilience?
Or, according the CT, is that a "far right" conspiracy?
Pardon me for giving you a reality check , Chris : but the definition of fascism is a centrally controlled government , a dictatorship , where the ordinary citizens are not able to question the rulers ....
... that's Jacinda " Private Jet " Ardern !
The current government has at every turn exhibited the very abhorrent traits that you ascribe to the right ... Mandates anyone ... theft of RATs ... 3 Waters ... bribe money for journalists , a nice muzzle .... MIQ ... on & on we go down the path you describe as fascism , with a left leaning Labour government ...
Our government certainly tries to justify their actions in the same way any fascist regime would: "it's for your own good".
Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.
- C. S. Lewis
Nothing of the bloody sort. Fascisms origins are in racism and 'othering',and tend to find favour when times are not so good, as in Nazi Germany and the depression, you gotta have someone to blame.
The government is trying to address long ignored treaty wrongs, and that you don't like it, does not make it fascist. How do you think Maori have felt about it since from when the treaty was signed and then ignored by guess who?
As for mandates, temporary and necessary (think Samoa and the measles epidemic that killed over 80 of their littlies because of mis and downright dis information).
And if you think the media is bought off, you clearly haven't tuned into Hosking, Hawkesby, Woodham, HDPA for a while or read many of the contributors to Aunty Herald. Bought off, my rear end, bacon saved, probably.
Google: "" Why did fascism rise in Italy? Fascism arose in Europe after World War I when many people yearned for national unity and strong leadership. In Italy, Benito Mussolini used his charisma to establish a powerful fascist state. Benito Mussolini coined the term “fascism” in 1919 to describe his political movement.""
In 1919 Italy had few immigrants but it was a recently formed from a diverse collection of states. To this day the North and South look at one another as being different. That applies to England and maybe NZ too.
Isn't fascism derived from the idea that a single stick is weak and easily snapped but a bundle tightly bound while flexible is also strong? A good image for a trade union movement too.
GBH,
By dictionary definition, fascism is a right-wing totalitarian political system, but many here have called her a socialist, or even a communist. I am a little puzzled. Surely she can't be both?
Does she own a 'private jet'? Presumably being in charge of a fascist regime, she won't allow there to be a real election next year.
Don Brash has been reviled & vilified , banned from Massey University , for saying exactly that : we are one people , equal rights for all , no preferential treatment ( no co-governance ! ) ... David Seymour says the same ...
... yet ... Chris Trotter besmerches the " right " as fascists ...
Most people who are singing that tune are old and white and at present the biggest beneficiaries of both the social welfare and health budgets. They're also the biggest beneficiaries of untaxed wealth as a result of owning property. And yet any mention of trying to even things up has them up in arms.
Here's some stats for you:
- Household net worth - European $138,000, Maori $29,000
- Life expectancy at birth - Maori 7.0 years less than non-Maori
- Māori have higher rates of infectious disease, mental health disorders and suicide, interpersonal violence, poor oral health, poor infant health, renal disease, more unintentional injuries and are less likely to survive heart attack, stroke or cancer.
- Superannuation cost 16.59 billion in 2021, well over half of the total social welfare budget and close to the entire health spend
European - Maori - is there no inter marriage? When there is who decides what the next generation are called? Do the poor ones decide they are Maori and the wealthy ones claim they are European? How do Maori compare with Pacifica and Chinese? My household is 20% European (myself) and 80% Melanesian - where does my household fit in these figures? NZ has a large non-European, non-Maori population and your stats ignore them. My guess is you are on the right track but I'm suspicious of the accuracy and worry that stats that split a family by ethnicity are bad; certainly I want no outsider splitting my family.
It’s time to take some personal responsibility… they have the means to educate oneself in being a decent, healthy, contributive member of NZ..
and yet we have now a society without acceptance for their own actions laying blame on some historical injustice… the world is tough, look at any nation’s history you’ll see the ones that do best are those that trade with, learn from, and live with other cultures whether enforced or from more peaceful evolution.. if you hold onto old injures you never evolve… the ones drumming that beat do so to maintain power and position.
"Most people who are singing that tune are old and white and at present the biggest beneficiaries of both the social welfare and health budgets."
On the contrary Sparrow, I think those people would be the most likely to have paid much more tax towards health, welfare and other government services than what they draw down.
Race is no barrier to engaging in all those activities.
I am still pushing back on Sparrow"s claim that "old white people" pay less tax and use more government services than other old people. That is the sort of BS that fuels a backlash and splits the country along ethnic lines. Show me a country where that has turned out to be a good idea.
There was an article on here a few years back pointing out many boomers were likely to be net negative tax contributors, given their free education, earlier generous benefits, and universal pension. Along with tax cuts along the way and being nudge-wink excused from taxes when buying and selling property for capital gains.
It has to be a) the Te Reo version and take into consideration all the stuff they were signing up to that were completely foreign to their culture. Has to be, no matter how Pakeha protest, and I am 100% Pakeha.
My thinking has evolved from many years ago when I began to understand that solutions for Maori had to come from Maori and therefore their own tikanga and that eventually we must embrace it in return, if we expect them to walk in the Pakeha world then the reverse must stand as well...
I see no other solution.
Does your theory apply to all ethnicities in NZ? Specific to my family can only Melanesians find solutions to our difficulties? A Māori living in an extended family in a Māori village/town speaking Te Reo daily is quite different from a small nuclear family non Te Reo Māori living in the city. For the latter a Pakeha solution to their problems might on occasion be better.
BTW I agree that the treaty that was signed (ie the Te Reo version) is legally the correct one. There does seem to be some dispute about its translation with some suggesting that the modern translation of the Te Reo is a distortion.
Pakeha is really a term exclusively labelling the largely white male descendants of the British Empire. We have found ourselves at this juncture at a bit of a disadvantage because, almost to a man, we have embraced individualism, inclusivity, modernity and effectively "the end of history" while everyone else hasn't. We love this way of life, this freedom, which is stripped of myth, superstition and familial obligations, however it leaves us atomized, the opposite of what the fasces represents and no longer in possession of any realistic vision of a destiny.
BS ! ... so long as we are like " Kiwis " ... sports mad nutters , who dearly love their kids & extended families , who head next door & help out their neighbours , who grow some silverbeet every year even though no one but grannie or auntie eats it ... Colour doesn't matter .. Tribe doesn't matter ... language doesn't matter : we are New Zealanders .. Kiwis !!!
Do you seriously think when Maori signed the treaty, that what they were signing themselves up for was for the new status quo to attempt to crush their tikanga and culture. Do you seriously, seriously think that?
When I asked myself that question, I think, was the lightbulb moment for me, of course they bloody didn't.
Looking at the two local body mayoral candidate election debates on TV in the last few days was revealing.
The socialist candidates were masters of rhetoric but that is all that they had to offer. When it came down to the nitty gritty of what they were going to do and how that was going to be achieved, they were lost and all that they could do is revert to grandiose rhetoric. Unfortunately that made the the incumbents and those skilled in the detail look ponderous and less presidential.
It was notable that the socialist candidates approach to politics is one of pursuing a career. Work for a political party or policy areas in a government department, maybe then local body politics. Next parliament, and you can swap backwards and forwards, but rarely in the cut and thrust of the real world where they are accountable for real results.
If I understand correctly none of the mayoral candidates are also standing to be ordinary councilors. (does the system allow this) If I am correct then this means that we have mayoral candidates who are only interested in the power and prestige of being the mayor and are not prepared to join the ranks of the team of ordinary councilors. This does little to support any claims that they want to do all that the can to serve their community and demonstrates a poor attitude to working as part of a team and parking personal egos. Not a good recomendation for a true leader. Would it be better if the the councilors chose the mayor from their own ranks after the election?
So to sum up the socialists. Lots of grand visions, eloquent rhetoric and political ambition, but when it comes to achieving anything real or helpful to those who they claim to support; abject failure because they are not trained or experienced in the skills necessary to achieve anything concrete.
I suspect that this is what is going on all around the world and people are getting bloody sick of putting their faith in left leaning governments who enevitably let them down and load the country up with poorly thought through policies based on little more that the extreme parts of their dogma. People are at their wits end and are resorting to extreme political lurches in desperation because governments will not listen to what the ordinary public want.
The next step is violence.
.. demonstrated by the violence which erupted in Wellington , as the anti mandates protesters were cleared by the police ... a moment of seething anger at the government ... a very diverse group of people , yet each one totally hacked off with covid controls & the governments transformational policies ...
"The rise of parties like Brothers of Italy in countries with a long tradition of left-wing
electoral strength is one of the most puzzling aspects of twenty-first century electoral politics"
No it isn't.
"How is it then that in Italy, where whole cities have stood as electoral redoubts of communist and socialist strength; and in Sweden, where the Social Democratic Party enjoyed fifty years of back-to-back electoral victories; political scientists are now recording startling reversals of ideological loyalties."
Simple, the mainstream 'Left' have embraced massive immigration, particularly from non European countries despite large numbers of their citizens being uneasy if not out right opposed to those policies. The link between non European immigration and increases in crime is also very clear regardless of what talking heads on tv say. Common people on the ground see the effects of those immigration policies and they oppose them.
As far as comparing the NZ National party to any of those 'far right' European parties, laughable. The National party are the biggest supporter of massive immigration, particularly from India and anywhere else as long as they will help suppress wages all the while selling the countries land to the highest bidder which tended to be the government of China. There is nothing nationalistic about the NZ National party, sadly.
New Zealand would be lucky to have a viable 'far right' party to vote for, without one we continue to become a Babylon in the south pacific. God help us.
The left have also failed to do anything meaningful about rising inequality and things such as extremely unaffordable housing.
Ardern and her government exemplify that better than anyone. 5 years ago she came to power with vows to address child poverty and housing unaffordability. Both have got profoundly worse on her watch.
That hasn't stopped the media from beating the drum though, trying to convince everyone that the next big threat after COVID-19 is the rise of violent far-right extremists.
And if you're not prepared to accept ever-increasing levels of surveillance, censorship and control, then you must be one of Them. Nothing to hide, nothing to fear.
I don't know if i'm left or right.
I just want a system that means when i park my car its still there when i come back,
where i arrive home and find it hasn't been broken into
where i go to the jewllers and find its not shut due to a bunch of thugs wanting the contents.
What ever direction that is,i want it.
It's interesting that far right parties like Swedish Democrats can appropriate the democratic label, because that's the ground the left and centre left have vacated. Now we have the most anti-democratic initiative we have ever seen - Co-Governance
I'd include Nzs National Party as centre left under any meaningful measures. They are just somewhat more likely to uphold democratic values than Labour That's not a criticism - just an observation.
As for the Moari Party, they've made the full transition to fascist racists.
Newton's Third Law. For every action in nature, there is an equal and opposite reaction. The more the Left embraces extremist policies (gender identity, critical race theory, anti-white policies) the more the Right will react in opposition.
In NZ Labour has had only 2 years to go full blown loony left, so there hasnt been time for the far right to get up and running. Hopefully Labour will be turfed out next year and we will never have to see the rise of the far right. But if they get re-elected then you can expect it to happen here as Labour pursue more racially divisive policies and woke political pandering.
Left or right - 2 wings of the same bird, 2 sides of the same coin.
Used to be left was pro workers/human rights and right was pro corporation/owners rights. I'm not sure what any of them stand for now other than obtaining power.
How left was Rogernomics? How right was Muldoon? It's always been authoritarianism. Democracy just allows you to choose the ruler rather than having one imposed on you.
Colonialism was effectively fascism as dictated by the Doctrine of Discovery. US foreign policy of bringing democracy to the world is effectively fascism. Highlighting Mussolini and Hitler is the same hypocrisy that turns a blind eye to the origins of our own "Empire".
NZ is of course not immune to the effects of an effective class war, waged by the business community globally, against workers for the last 50 years. Just focus on one (crucially important) factor: taxes. In the 1950s and 60s, the top marginal tax rate was often in the 80-90% range (think of the Beatles' 1965 complaint in 'Taxman'). It is no accident that, during those years, a single (typically male) worker could support a family on one income. That remained true not just in NZ, but throughout the Western world, nearly through the 1970s. When Ronald Reagan took office in 1981, the top marginal tax rate in the US was still 70%.
Basically, working people, including many professionals, have seen their and their families' fortunes decline over the last 50 years. Trotter is not quite right that this is a failure of the "Left." What is indisputable, however, is that Labour and major left-leaning political parties everywhere have been high-jacked by business interests at the expense of workers' interests, cemented by the "third way" and "New Labour" of Bill Clinton and Tony Blair over 30 years ago. Any progressive who expected the policies of a government led by Jacinda Ardern (who of course worked for Blair) to be any different was bound to be sorely disappointed.
No, it is not! In fact it can find itself anywhere along the line between left and right economic policies ie left/collective, right/individual, as that is all that left and right are.
The main thing that defines the origin of fascism is racism and/or othering of some group or another. One of the groups coming in for singling out fo othering now is the lgbtq+ one. Women are also coming under fire, with conservatives trying to restrict their right to control their own fertility. These are some seeds of fascism today
An important hallmark of fascism is the uniting of the aims of govt and big business - between them they run the show - govt directs business to produce what it needs, and business relies on govt authority to serve their interests. I suppose that has more of a right wing feel, but is a world away from free markets.
We were in Italy just over a week ago. Amazing country. Lovely place! Lovely people.
I think NZ’s chardonnay soft communist left is truly in some strange lala land and are for the most part doing what they are encouraged to do so eloquently under this present cohort of Labour eggheads. Namely that being calling out anyone and everyone “on the political right” as some sort of misguided simpletons just gagging to unleash Fascism on the populace.
The Italian cities were literally thronging with homeless immigrants.
Talking to a number of locals large well organised immigrant gangs are terrorising communities.
Governments got most militant during COVID as such people are completely over the political class (Italian politics are famously brutal).
As NZ is going to learn via societal and economic upheaval, if the political class and MSM demonise enough of the population and allow uncivilised behaviour to be tolerated, bad stuff happens!
Bring back mild incompetence around the centre is what the west should experiment with going forward. Both extremes suck equally as bad!
CT chose a not so flattering photo of Giorgia Meloni
Here she is on the war path.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=da4OO5mLZv0 and
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jMad7nLO3OM
much better looking her than Truss or Adern to boot
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