Italy has elected its first female prime minister. Normally that would be cause for celebration by those who promote diversity, but press reaction in Europe and the United States is treating Giorgia Meloni as the second coming of Italian dictator and Adolf Hitler ally, Benito Mussolini.
It is always best to hear someone speak for themselves without the filtration of a hostile media.
Meloni said of the stereotypes associated with the family organization: “They said all sorts of things about this congress. They said we want to go back to the past. That we’re losers. That we’re embarrassing. That we’re un-enlightened. They said it’s scandalous for people to defend the natural family founded on marriage, to want to increase the birth rate, to want to place the correct value on human life, to support freedom in education and to say no to gender ideology.”
The same has been said by critics of conservatives and their organizations in the United States, but her platform is in tune with many Americans.
Like Donald Trump and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, she is not shy about firing back at her critics, some of whom were protesting outside the venue: “I say the losers are those who have nothing better to do than come here and insult us.”
She has proposed free nursery schools for mothers who work outside the home. She describes Europe’s low birth rate (much of it thanks to liberal abortion policies) as “the biggest problem facing Europe.” Not energy? Not Russia’s war against Ukraine? Nope. “If we do not address this,” she says, “everything else is pointless.”
Meloni also has a searing response to critics who claim she wants to return Italy to the Middle Ages: “The Middle Ages was also the time of the cathedrals and the abbeys, the founding of the comuni (small Italian administrative units), the universities, the parliament, the epoch of Dante, Petrarch, Boccaccio, Saint Francis, Saint Benedict. People who don’t know where Matera is, let’s not expect them to read history books.”
How about this zinger: “I believe in a society where every choice has consequences and you accept responsibility for them. I reject a society where every desire becomes a right.” That once was considered normal and admirable in America and in Europe.
You can understand why secular progressives hate her and fear her message. Perhaps she will soon visit the United States and put some backbone into the Republican Party.