What the MSNBC-Ideologically Aligned Media Got Wrong About Italy's Prime Minister

Akin to their fearmongering of Argentinian President Javier Milei, they are proven wrong again.

By Chuck Warren

It has been two and a half years since Giorgia Meloni has been the prime minister of Italy. This in itself is no small feat.

Legendary 19th-century Austrian Chancellor Klemens von Metternich once called Italians “an ungovernable people,” and it shows. Meloni is already one of the longest-serving prime ministers in Italy’s entire history. Since World War II, very few have managed to remain in office longer than three years. Since the 1990s, only Silvio Berlusconi accomplished this largely because he was a billionaire who owned three of the largest TV channels in Italy.

At this point in their premierships, Italian prime ministers have typically faced cracks in their coalitions and begun preparing for their collapse. Meloni has shown no signs of weakness so far.

Meloni’s approval rating is 42%. This might not seem impressive, except that it is the highest in the European Union and the United Kingdom. In fact, only Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelensky is more popular than Meloni in all of Europe—which is a wartime phenomenon. More to the point, a 42% approval rating in Italy after two and a half years in office is equivalent to about 70% in most other countries.

Before I get to why Meloni has been successful, let’s quickly look at what the MSNBC-ilk mainstream media said about her when she was running to become the prime minister in 2022.

Every article said that her government would be “the most far-right since World War II,” i.e., heir to Mussolini.

In fact, the ever-objective, never-unreliable New York Times literally had called her “heir to Mussolini” in 2018. In 2022, the Times covered Meloni’s victory saying that her supporters had a chance to “give a final blow to the stigma and shame of their association with Fascism.”

The Times also published an opinion piece by David S. Broder, an alleged historian of European fascism, which argued that, beyond any doubt, Meloni is a fascist. (The author happens to be a writer for the communist journal, Jacobin.)

The Guardian mentioned her party’s roots in fascism and accused her of election-time lying when she disavowed fascism.

The Associated Press began a story about Meloni this way: “Her heart steeped in far-right tenets, as a young teen Giorgia Meloni embarked on an ideological quest that has propelled her — 30 years later — to the height of government power.”

Ruth Ben-Ghiat, best known for starting every tweet with “Scholar of fascism here,” before proceeding to call every conservative a fascist, wrote for The Atlantic that Meloni is definitely a fascist.

Even after she became prime minister, these accusations didn’t stop. Broder published a book a year later about how Meloni’s a fascist, and the New York Times still publishes him as the authority on Meloni. In fact, his stocks have only risen. Foreign Policy published an endorsing review of his book.

How is Meloni a fascist? Well, she is socially conservative and opposes gay marriage, gender self-identification, and abortion. Mind you, we are talking about the country where the Catholic Church has the most influence—it is literally located there. 80% of the population is Catholic, making it the largest Catholic population in Europe and one of the largest as a percentage of the population. She also campaigned against “the LGBT lobby,” arguing that it had disproportionate power over politics. You do not need to be an expert in Italian politics to know this is true. The LGBT lobby is extremely well-funded. Most of the money flows from the United States into other countries, and other interest groups cannot compete. They are domestically funded, and no country is as rich as America. So the opposing lobbies cannot compete with American money, especially George Soros’s.

Another reason Meloni is a fascist is that she loved Lord of the Rings. I’m not kidding! The New York Times’s Rome bureau chief wrote 1,600 words about how this proves that she is a fascist. (I guess I’m a fascist too. Not just that, Hollywood is one fascist conspiracy for giving a record-matching 11 Oscars to The Return of the King.)

To be fair, Meloni’s party, Brothers of Italy, has its roots in fascism. That much is true. Meloni also said stupid stuff as a teenager, which she has since disavowed. Are these concerning? A little bit. Are they conclusive evidence? No. And they certainly are not relevant when these journalists endorse the Democratic Party, which has its roots in being the pro-slavery party and was the segregation party as recently as Brothers of Italy was fascist.

Of course, both Democrats and Brothers of Italy rebuked those stances, but only one counts.

There were signs that Meloni was not a fascist, which were conveniently ignored. For example, there are actual far-right parties in Europe that we should be wary of, including in Italy. But Meloni has significant differences with them.

First of all, all these parties are hostile to the United States. Meloni campaigned on becoming closer to America. Second, these parties always have strong ties with Russia—and sometimes even take money from Russia. Meloni promised to be a stalwart supporter of Ukraine, and she has been. She also emphasized her commitment to NATO, which isn’t something pro-Putin fascists normally (ever) do. Those dangerous parties are also always pro-China. Meloni, on the other hand, tweeted a picture with the Taiwanese representative to Italy during her campaign, referring to him as an ambassador rather than a representative—crossing a red line for China. She said in her tweet:

“Fruitful working meeting with the representative of Taiwan in Italy, Ambassador Andrea Sing-Ying Lee. Always at the side of those who believe in the values of freedom and democracy.”

Come on! This is not fascism. This is something Ronald Reagan would say. Okay fair enough, he was also called a fascist. Never mind!

Opposing mass migration does not make anyone a fascist. Indeed, every Democrat running for office is against mass migration—but only then, they are for it when they win—and I haven’t heard them being called fascists. Being a social conservative doesn’t make you a fascist either. It makes Meloni a Catholic politician running for office in a Catholic country.

Meloni has lasted this long because she knows her audience. Her recent predecessors were either captured by the left-wing elite consensus and thrown out, or they were actually far-right, maybe even fascists, so they were thrown out of office too. Meloni is giving Italians what they want and what they need.

Unemployment is at 6%, down from 8% when she took over, and the lowest since the 2008 great recession.

Italians’ purchasing power per capita has increased from $56,000 when she took over to $62,000 today.

Consumer confidence is growing for the first time since the pandemic.

Her recently adopted budget is forecasted to reduce the deficit. This is in part thanks to economic growth that has increased revenue—and she has promised that more tax cuts are on the way. She has also reduced spending on social services while increasing defense spending by 5% to come closer to meeting NATO obligations.

Being a member of the European Union, Italy is required to accept immigrants who have E.U. passports. Italy’s immigration problem is with those who arrive from North Africa through the sea. And sea arrivals are declining. After fights with the Italian judiciary and the European Union, Meloni secured her border security plan in 2023. After years of more than 100,000 sea arrivals a year, the number dropped to 66,000 last year.

She has taken the preliminary steps to increase the punishment for sex crimes, and rapists and pedophiles will be chemically castrated. She’s also battling the LGBT lobby, pushing back against their outsized influence. For example, she has banned women’s competing in men’s sports, and transgenders cannot compete in Miss Italy.

Meanwhile, she is one of the most supportive European leaders when it comes to Ukraine. She has recently supported giving Ukraine NATO security guarantees without membership.

Meloni is not a fascist. She is as close to an old-school, Reagan conservative as you will get today. She still faces a challenge economically: Convincing investors that these changes are long-term. Investors, especially, foreign ones, still worry that these reforms are short-term and will be reversed after she leaves. But if she convinces the world that these changes are permanent, Italy is set for an economic boom.

Note: the opinions expressed herein are those of Chuck Warren only and not his co-host Sam Stone or Breaking Battlegrounds’ staff.