Italy’s Giorgia Meloni isn’t prepared for what’s ahead

Hey, everybody, Peter Zeihan here, coming to you from home in Colorado. I just wanted to take a couple of minutes to talk about what’s happened with the Italian elections. Now, normally Italy is such a chaotic place that the elections really don’t matter. 

I’m not 100% sure that this is any different. What has happened is a right-wing alliance, led by a woman by the name of Giorgia Meloni, has taken control of the Italian Parliament, and she will be the next prime minister of Italy. 

She represents a group that is .. well, the conventional wisdom is pretty much right on this one, neo-fascist, and her partners have shifted more and more to the hard right over the last ten years. This is by far the most proto-fascist government that Italy will have had since the days of Mussolini. 

Does that mean that it will be fascist? Way too soon to know. Three things, four things really. Number one, Meloni is wildly inexperienced. She was Minister for Youth before and that’s the sum total of her professional experience. So she’s never actually run an organization except for a political party. And it’s a political party in Italy so it’s a little, the lines of what that looks like are a little bit different than what we get in the United States. 

So I think the big takeaway here isn’t so much that Italy is about to get a fascist government. It’s that Italy is about to get a government with someone in charge who has no idea what they’re doing in terms of their previous work experience. 

Second, one of her coalition partners of Forza Italia is Silvio Berlusconi, who does have experience. He has been prime minister a couple of times, three times, four times, five, it’s hard to tell in Italy. What can I say about Silvio? He’s not a fascist, or at least in the past he hasn’t been, but he’s certainly been on standard. This is the guy who arranges for big sex parties on government property. And to have him back in government at a time when Italian finances and political system are in flux is, you know, I guess the German-descended person that I am, perhaps not the best choice at this time. But he will certainly make things colorful. 

A third. This is the seventieth government I think since World War II that the Italians have had. So the chances of Meloni’s coalition serving out its full term are probably about as good as they have been for about 67 of them that have not served out the full term. Italy is a very unstable place. It’s always quite chaotic. And this is going to be no exception. 

And then finally, the way that Italy is really run is that they rely on bureaucrats and directors from the European Union and funding from the European Union in order to get everything done, which is part of the reason why we’ve got this righteous rejection to a degree. But in every previous populist government we have ever had in Italy, the EU keeps doing its things because the alternative for the Italians is a disaster. So if Meloni really wants to implement a lot of her policies, she is not just going to have to break with history, she’s going to break with the funding mechanisms that allow the Italian government to function. That’d be a tall order and would probably result in the fall of her government anyway. 

So keep an eye on it. Yes, of course, this is probably not the sort of thing we need to panic about. Okay, that’s it. Take care.