October 1, 2022
HAVING FORSAKEN GOD, THEY CHOOSE IDENTITY:
Why Right-Wing Traditionalism Is So Appealing to So Many: Liberal modernity just isn't providing a sense of meaning to a lot of people--which is enabling the far right's rise. (Matt Lewis, Oct. 01, 2022, Daily Beast)
A snippet from a 2019 speech given by the incoming Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni went viral on Twitter this week.In case you missed it, Meloni (according to the translation) alleges that "everything that defines us is now an enemy." She adds that "they" attack "national identity," "religious identity," "gender identity," and "family identity." (Sure sounds to me like that bête noire of the right, identity politics.)Next, Meloni says that "they" want to turn her into a number, because "when I am a number, I no longer have any identity or roots." This process, she says, is done to make her "the perfect slave at the mercy of financial speculators--the perfect consumer."I don't pretend to be an expert on Italian politics, but I don't have to be. There are common themes between this and what we are seeing on the nationalist right in the good old U.S.A. For that reason (among others), it shouldn't be surprising that Meloni's speech was widely praised by the American right.
Posted by Orrin Judd at October 1, 2022 12:25 PM