How Giorgia Meloni’s Election Victory Fits the Nationalist Bill
Giorgia Meloni, Italy’s incoming Prime Minister, is a divisive figure in the arena of European politics. Her recent election victory in the wake of Mario Draghi’s resignation illuminated the underlying currents of frustration impacting the people of Italy. Her platform was based on a firebrand form of nationalism, espousing many of the tenets exemplified by the modern conservative nationalist. The Brothers of Italy party leader is anti-Europe, anti-abortion, anti-euthanasia, anti-same-sex marriage, anti-multiculturalism, anti-mass migration, and an outspoken opponent of contemporary gender movements. Her support for the Great Replacement theory highlights an alarming sentiment of white nationalism spreading through the ranks of the Italian polity, but why was her message so resonant?
Andrew Heywood claims nationalism “can be defined broadly as the belief that the nation is the central principle of political organization” (Heywood, 2021, p. 168). Furthermore, he observes that “nations are cultural entities,” and “collections of people bound together by shared values and traditions” (Heywood, 2021, p. 173). They hold a “common language, religion and history,” and are “usually occupying the same geographical area” (Heywood, 2021, p. 173). Meloni’s views satisfy these criteria on many counts. She values the nation first and foremost and this forms the basis for her political philosophy. She is committed to maintaining this identity by emphasizing traditional values and frames contemporary social movements as following a trend of moving away from these values, perceiving them as a threat to identity itself. Moreover, she connects her identity as a Christian as being necessary to the make-up of Italian identity, castigating non-Christians and non-believers to the realm of unbelonging in her quest to “defend God, country, and family” (Bump, 2022). She holds tight the desire to contain the nation within the same geographical area, promoting strict border regulations and a clampdown on the influx of migrants.
Meloni interprets contemporary social movements as representing an attack on the traditional family as a unit of identity, claiming family “defines us” and “is our identity” (Bump, 2022). She views this perceived attack as being one among others, making further reference to “national identity,” “religious identity,” and “gender identity” as other forms of threatened traditional identity (Bump, 2022). This concept of shared values and traditions is presented by Meloni as something to be defended from utter ruination. She frames traditional values as being “an enemy for those who would like us to no longer have an identity and to simply be perfect consumer slaves” (Bump, 2022). Certainly, the concept of a nationalist invoking freedom as a key goal and political aspiration is not overtly atypical of proponents of the ideology. However, the idea of being “perfect consumer slaves” reflects a subtle smuggling of class distinction into her proposed political framework.
It may be argued that “nationalists address voter’s concerns through both identity appeals to the nation and nationalist policy offers” (Howe, Szocsik, and Zuber, 2022, p. 864). The populist slogan “we the people” may impact a wide scope of the populace, but the appeal to the nation through nationalist rhetoric and policy can become more targeted than a simple slogan that seeks to encompass the people of a state. Meloni is committed to ensuring the nation is maintained in Italy, with explicit reference to its cultural and identity-based makeup. She postulates that the best way to solve the migrant labor crisis is for Italians to have more children. To her, this solves the problem of labor worker shortages and provides an alternative that helps to facilitate her commitment to closing the country’s borders.
The key question is: How has Meloni sold this idea to the Italian public? And why do so many of them believe that her nationalist methodology will be beneficial? Warning the public of the danger of becoming “consumer slaves” highlights an effective tactic used by Meloni to convince her adherents of their impending doom. This tactic fits the nationalist description, as “positive appeals to national identity motivate voters to think of themselves primarily as members of that nation, rather than a declining socio-economic class” (Howe, Szocsik, and Zuber, 2022, p. 865). Moreover, it is no coincidence that such appeals were to arrive on the back of the resignation of the outgoing Prime Minister Mario Draghi, who despite his many successes as prime minister, caused widespread tension with economic policies and found himself presiding over a crippling cost of living crisis. Meloni’s policies like many nationalists “aim to improve a nation’s relative cultural and political status” with the promise to voters of “a future change in the social order that would benefit them as members of the nation” (Howe, Szocsik, and Zuber, 2022). The economic issues and migrant issues at the forefront of the Italian political agenda presented fresh ground for such promises and prospective improvements. Meloni used nationalist rhetoric to frame economic circumstances as being a direct threat to identity. She promised to save people from becoming consumer slaves in a nihilistic, identity-less society, in favor of the development and attainment of a meaningful, shared identity; shaped by affinity to the traditional conceptions of the Italian nation.
This concept of a meaningful, shared identity is reflected in Meloni’s firmly expressed allegiance to “the people” as a homogenous and undivided whole, portraying a perfect example of the populist sentiment that has so successfully influenced the sway of elections in recent years. One thinks of Donald Trump’s victory in the 2016 US election, the Brexit movement, Brazilian President Bolsonaro’s 2018 election campaign, and the recent Indian presidential victory of Hindu nationalist Droupadi Murmu as prominent examples. Nationalism and populism are often entwined and Meloni’s campaign follows a similar trajectory. Just as former President Trump promised to “drain the swamp” of bureaucratic and corrupt elites and former UKIP Leader Nigel Farage promised to wrestle sovereignty from the subjugating European Union, Meloni promises to save the Italian people from being “slaves and simple consumers at the mercy of financial speculators” (Bump, 2022). With the demonization of “financial speculators,” she continues this nationalist, populist trend; framing people in competition or under threat from an ill-intentioned elite or external force. It is the rallying of the masses as a holistic entity with the focus of defeating an evil that shows the true color of the manipulative, populist, form of nationalism that Meloni embraces. With undocumented migrants and “financial speculators,” Meloni picked timely, tangible, and tactical targets upon which to prey in her triumphant election campaign.
George Orwell described nationalism as being inseparable from the desire for power, observing that the nationalist desires power and prestige for the nation rather than themselves (Orwell, 2018). Meloni exemplifies this description in the “three main elements of the political and economic revolution on which the new Europe should be based” (Sondel-Cedarmas, 2022, p. 61). Economic freedom and social values as previously discussed are two of these three elements, but it is the other element that most visibly fits Orwell’s definition of the nationalist. This is the “patriotic soul,” which must strive to defend the “national interests and sovereignty of the people” (Sondel-Cedarmas, 2022, p. 61). The success of the patriotic soul is predicated upon its ability to maintain national interests and sovereignty. Meloni's successes are in part determined by the effectiveness with which she created a basis for her demand that the Italian people fulfill this perceived duty.
Ultimately, Giorgia Meloni’s election victory fits the nationalist bill as she beckons the Italian people to draw upon their national and traditional identity in order to save themselves from what she portrays as a perilous state of identity-less, consumerist, nihilist, neoliberal, slavery. Doing more than just identifying a problem or creating an existential crisis to ponder upon, she provides a solution that revolves around national identity and the return of a traditional set of family values, assuring the Italian people that the crisis they find themselves in can be overcome by backing her brand of holy nationalism.
Works Cited
Heywood, A. (2021). Political ideologies: An introduction. Bloomsbury Publishing
Bump, P. (2022, September 27) That Giorgia Meloni speech captivating the U.S. right doesn’t make sense. The Washington Post: United States
Howe, P. J., Szöcsik, E., & Zuber, C. I. (2022). Nationalism, Class, and Status: How Nationalists Use Policy Offers and Group Appeals to Attract a New Electorate. Comparative Political Studies, 55(5), 832-868.
Howe, Szocsik, Zuber (2022, March 10) Capturing the pessimists: How nationalists exploit status concerns in elections. The London School of Economics and Political Science: United Kingdom
Orwell, G. (2018). Notes on nationalism. Penguin UK.
Sondel-Cedarmas, J. (2022). Giorgia Meloni's new Europe: Europe of sovereign nations in the Brothers of Italy party manifestos. In The Right-Wing Critique of Europe (pp. 60-75). Routledge.
