I find the Most Recommended comments "curious" in that they seem to make the unwarranted assumption that Italy and Eastern Europe in fact have substantial traditions of democracy and liberal values. But, hey, what do you get if you cross the Marx boys, Karl and Groucho? "Trolls and bots of the world unite. You have nothing to lose but the truth!"
Of course I, too, as well as those recommending this comment, could be coming to you from scenic, downtown Leningrad (sic.) So, in reading comments we are stuck with either thinking for ourselves or lazily wallowing in the "certainty" of having whatever we believe or fear confirmed, possible evidence to the contrary notwithstanding.
Italy was not even a country until 1861, its various regions having only since then to work at developing a collective identity. Meanwhile, its experiment with democracy and liberal values essentially only began after losing World War II. For Eastern Europe, democracy and liberal values scarcely have any tradition to speak of, efforts in those directions merely a few decades old. (The Czech Republic is arguably an exception to that.)
America is not and never has been Italy. Meanwhile, an important discussion Americans have avoided is the difference between democracy and traditional liberal values. The two tend to be conflated, so when push comes to shove here or abroad, it borders on the impossible to develop anything close to a consensus about our goals and how to achieve them.
4
Reading this article helped me understand why people in the USA voted for Mr. Trump. The article is condescending. The author cannot see through his biases to recognize that there do exist legitimate concerns regarding the maintenance of a long-standing established culture and the economic plight of youth is both southern AND northern Italy.
15
I bet new elections in just a few months...since 5* runs Rome the stink there over the summer may impact that nest election heavy.
But, then again, I thing left Social Dems split from the grand coalition in Germany pretty soon, too.
1
Victor, You're quite right. It's not just the uninvited arrival of of low-skilled, illegal migrants into Italy, it's their arrival at exactly a time in which there are absolutely no jobs for them in Italy that makes this doubly bad. Italy today isn't exactly the U.S during the industrial boom of the later 19th and early to mid 20 centuries, when the U.S. needed and asked for migrants. Italy is in a long-term slump, and 100,000s of its young people leave every year because they can't find jobs. Italy does not have the luxury of also taking in 600,000 migrants. It is simply not do-able. And the govt., which currently has the second worst debt after Greece in the EU, can't afford to pay for these people to sit around doing nothing all day. They need to go, and if they won't go voluntarily, then they will have to be deported.
16
The "every right wing government is Mussolini" trope looms large in the minds of frightened equalists, but has little truth in reality.
Liberal democracy was never a good idea to begin with. It's a flash in the pan, a delusion of 18th century academics with no application to the modern world. It will pass, and we will all be better off for it.
4
Roger, people are disenchanted with the status-quo, and perhaps us liberals on the center left need to reflect and introspect. Rather than lament on what we deem retrograde electoral results, we must exhibit our aforementioned virtues, instead on copying how conservatives point fingers at others.
4
Good Lord. If Trump, Brexit and now the Italian election results are so awful, what does that say about the politicians and politics that preceded them? Obviously Obama, Blair/Brown, the EU and Renzi weren't that hot.
Goodness, who'd have thought?
7
Mr. Cohen ends his article with an enthusiastic endorsement for Mario Draghi. Mario Draghi embodies everything that Italian voters have just rejected. He is the consummate insider who inhabits the cosmopolitan world of the wealthy, protected elites and technocrats. That’s not to say he’s not competent or suitable to be PM. Mr. Cohen seems to have missed what the point of what just happened in Italy and, instead, prefers to denigrate Italian voters by implying they are stupid, racists and deplorable.
Decades of stagnation along with an uncontrollable invasion of illegal economic migrants tends to focus ones political views pretty quickly.
19
The instability in Italy at the moment comes after years of of corruption in government resulting in a stagnant economy and lack of jobs making it ripe for the rise of neo-fascism, nationalism, racism and the veneration of the inept. Of course, blaming the serious issues of the country on porous borders and the European Union is very convenient and absolves the country of any internal responsibility. In the country of Leonardo da Vinci, there will now be a government made up of flat earth and chemical trail idiots. Mama mia.
4
I am struck by how many comments seem to assume that immigration is the problem. Not to excuse illegal immigration, but I recall that the Italian economy has been a mess for at least a generation, and certainly many years before the recent wave of immigrants. Is it possible that the focus on immigration is simply an effort to avoid the reality that whole swaths of the Italian economy are obsolete and cannot compete in a vastly changed world market? It is, of course, always easier to look for a scapegoat than confront the real problem. But when in human history did that ever solve the problem? I can recall many instances when it created a whole host of other problems. Italy, read your own history.
4
Too bad this article doesn't explain the differences and commonalities between the Five Star Movement and the League. I look to the NYT to take on the complex and the nuances. I don't think this article even comes close.
7
I hope that time is up for the hypocrite and truly classist limousine liberals and all their lies.
They are the leeches of the poor!
10
I agree with most of Mr. Cohen's analysis. However, as much as I think Trump has done damage to the US and the rest of the world, blaming Trump's disengagement from the world for the right wing ascendency is quite a stretch. This rightward shift in Europe has been coming for a number of years, brought on primarily, I think by the strains of the mass migration from the Middle East and Africa, as well as the willingness of national politicians in Europe to blame national problems on the EU.
I think Italy has been left to its own devices to cope with the brunt of the migration to Europe, and just like Greece, their ability to cope with the issues have been strained beyond their limits.
As someone who grew up in Germany, I think the EU (together with the fall of the Soviet Union) are the greatest positive events of the post-War era, but to be sustainable, national politicians must stop taking its benefits for granted and actively emphasize its benefits of the EU to their constituent, AND show more solidarity towards their partners in the EU.
3
LePen,Trump.Brexit, 5 Stars are reflections of the crisis afflicting the
world system which is in its DNA to favor the establishments and to spread rust belts allover. The angry 'peasants' are now revolting.. The liberal Left (social democrats etc) too busy worrying about same sex marriage, abortion etc has abandoned them to the wild eyed demagogues
who are acting out as their only defenders
5 Stars to gain respectability has recruited a number of academics who
have presented a serious progressive program which puts the Left to shame..
Unless the democratic Left returns to its progressive roots there is no one left to save democracy under attack by the wild Right.
This applies,of course also to the US
3
Italians are stuck in a Kobayashi-Maru scenario between the imperfect idealism of 5-Star, the fascism of League, the inefficacy of Renzi, a repackaged Silvio (proto-Trump, minus the nukes), and all Mr. Cohen can prescribe is finger-wagging?
Do better.
3
Many comments here are directly or indirectly seeking to blame immigrants (African, of course) for Italy's current problems. That's not a surprise since it has always been easy and convenient to blame black and brown people for white people's failures.
Italy and many other countries have done a remarkable service to displaced Africans and those efforts are to be commended. But, for Italians and commentators here to claim that these poor people are to blame for their woes is just plain wrong. Italians need to take a deep look at themselves to identify the fundamental causes of the challenges they face. Italy has been struggling for quite some time now, well before the waves of immigrants landed on its shores. Italy could kick out every African in the country today and have the same problems tomorrow.
This opinion applies to the US as well.
21
I can not understand why anyone is surprised at the outcome of any Italian election.
6
Why do you have such contempt for ordinary people?
15
I find the Most Recommended comments curious in that they seem to make the unwarranted assumption that Italy and Eastern Europe in fact have substantial traditions of democracy and liberal values. Italy was not even a country until 1861, its various regions having only since then to work at developing a collective identity. Meanwhile, it's experiment with democracy and liberal values essentially only began after losing World War II. For Eastern Europe, democracy and liberal values scarcely have any tradition to speak of, efforts in those directions merely a few decades old. (The Czech Republic is arguably an exception to that.)
To update Karl (or is it Groucho?) Marx: "Trolls and bots of the world unite. You have nothing to lose but the truth!"
5
Even by Roger Cohen standards this is an unbelievably superficial column. Cohen has long been a cheerleader for neo-liberalism with a human face, but this is ridiculous.
When the the system breaks down as it has in Italy, especially since the formation of the EU, you would think a columnist assaying the political lay of the land would describe the 40-60% percent youth unemployment, anemic growth and a government that continually needs to cut social spending since that is the EU mandate for low growth, Italian banks that are mostly technically bankrupt, and wages that are generally stagnant or declining, even as a new/old class of superrich frolic in some of Cohen's favored Roman, Tuscan and Riviera fun spots.
But no, Cohen instead offers up generalities about lazy, graft addicted southern Italians and the internet replacing TV. As for Cohen's endorsement of Mario Draghi, I'm sure that's going to carry a lot of weight with Italian voters though the Italian Ruling class will of course be delighted if they can find a party for Draghi to run on. 19 months is a long time in politics Cohen; don't hold your breath.
11
It is astonishing that a newspaper in America would allow publication of such odious anti-democratic drivel; spiced, ah, liberally with borderline racist invective against southern Italians, Poles, Hungarians and anyone else who does not "measure up" to the writer's racist "standards" of correct thinking and acting.
Alas, that's New York Times. A long history of racism, sexism, and a plethora of elitist "isms" to overcome before joining the civil society.
But some fact checking would perhaps avoid a larger degree of embarrassment that this drivel is already generating; Bannon's comparison of Tuscany to Wisconsin simply pointed out, correctly, that both shared a troubled history of allegiance to unworkable, nonsensical left-wing ideologies; not that they shared some form of "axis". If Putin is happy about the outcome of the election, his happiness was engineered by democracy hating and disdaining mandarins of Brussels, egged on by opinion such as this. Poor people leaving their homes searching for jobs elsewhere is a tragedy not an excuse for snickering and racist name-calling. The anti-democratic maneuvering of Merkel and Macron to strip their respective voters of their rights under democratic franchise is hardly to be celebrated.
But then, you did already know that.
13
Wow. Astonishingly shoddy commentary. So Roger Cohen talks to one Italian journalist and decides that Movimento 5 Stelle are inept and opaque? They are easily the most transparent of any mainstream party in Italy and possibly in Europe. First of all, they have vowed (and kept their word) to give back 50% of their salaries (unprecedented, I believe, in modern politics). They have extremely rigid rules and vetting processes for their MPs, including criminal background checks (a refreshing response to decades of Italian corruption). Their policies are voted by members, online, and therefore public (rather than made behind closed doors, unlike the vast majority of political parties in Europe and the US). In terms of their ineptness, well they are new, but I'm not sure what that proves. They have a concrete platform that involves bolstering labor rights, pension reform, protecting the environment and moving towards a universal basic income. The only area where you could characterize them as 'populists' is their soft-right position on immigration, which is more a by-product of anti-globalism than xenophobia or racism. M5S are not fascists, in fact much of their support comes from the left. They simply want to stem the flow of immigrants coming in from Africa by closing the border. I smell fear in Mr. Cohen's commentary. And that, to me, is a sign that M5S are on to something.
20
Italy's North sounds a bit like the Coastal U.S. elites' (of which Cohen is one) attitudes toward the rest of America: we'll extract your resources (coal, timber, grain and cannon fodder), send your jobs abroad, govern you, tell you who to vote for, redline and price you out of our states and communities while simultaneously sneering at you for not picking up stakes and moving to cities with median housing costs of over 500K for job "opportunities" that we've already given to our well-connected kids. And if you don't toe the line, you're deplorable, ignorant and lazy.
11
As a proud member of the Italian diaspora, I just have to laugh at some of the ideas that the far right is promoting, clearly via Russia, in some of these comments. What of the "hordes" and "boats" and "invasions" of the Italians here in the US 100 years ago, not to mention the millions more who went to Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay, Canada and Australia and still today go to Germany, France the UK, not speaking the native language, not having the native culture, and in some cases being part of the local religion? Do the voters for the bigot Salvini, who has family that emigrated, think their own right to leave Italy, or their children, should be restricted? Same with the Poles and Hungarians. I was just in Italy and there's a handful of non-white folks at best, all of whom that I encountered spoke fluent Italian. My great grandfather came here from Bari, was undocumented, worked at coal mine in West Virginia and then bought a store in Brooklyn. Yet, some in Italy feel that if the skin isn't the right color people should not get that opportunity in their country. Southern Italy was always poor and corrupt. The idea that that can be attributed to the undocumented is an absurdity. It's typical of these far right movements to scapegoat minorities for their own deficiencies and we see that here again but with extra irony.
4
And still, the liberal establishment will not acknowledge the message. People everywhere are fed up with open borders, stagnant economies, high taxes, bloated governments and liberalism run amok. Voters look to the left and see the source of their problems and no willingness to change. Can they be blamed for looking to the right? There, they see at least the promises of new direction and relief from their problems. The liberal excesses of the recent past will have to be balanced by conservativism before people are once again attracted to centrism.
40
http://edicola.iltempo.it/iltempo/books/iltempo/2018/20180305iltempo/#/1/
Please publish the actual 5 Points, the platform of the Party. It had little in common with the hysterical opinions of this writer.
15
A simple question
Who created the waves of immigrants swamping Europe ?
That is putting populists into power ?
Could it possibly have to do with US wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, bombing of Libya, Interventions in Syria, Yemen... ?
70
Italy is being swamped, primarily, with Africans from Sub-Sahara. The waves of immigrants are swamping Europe because they can. They are not swamping the Gulf States, Europe signed up to the 1951 Refugee Convention, which subsequently was expanded to include the Middle East and Africa and elsewhere. They come because the Convention provides for them a sense of entitlement. And many people, like you, feel Europe owes them. Not only to Europe are they coming they are now flooding into Canada, getting Visas into US, and marching across the border to claim their entitlements. It's really a no-lose situation for them.
11
Reply to Gerhard:
Mrs. Merkel's open border policies over the objections of the citizens of the EU.
7
Poor Italy...the article is well centered with the description of the problems of the south of the country. 5 Star got almost all the votes and the space left by the MORON Gianfranco Fini who, between scandal of laundered money, scission from Mr. Berlusconi and thirst of power aimed by the ex President Giorgio Napolitano, destroyed the ex right party.
if you only imagine that 20 years ago he had the 19% of the votes and most of them in those regions...what a shame...
The wonderful country in the hand of a maniple of trouble makers, unemployed people (ops...now employed with ONLY 25k Euro a months and tons of benefit...), people who has never spent a day working in their entire life...
The day after the election in USA, one year ago, trough the web TV I manage, we shot a short video on the street of New York asking impressions and comments.
Some people told that they would like to have the chance to have more parties to choose from and nor only two that in that moment did not represent their choice. Well I wish I could reconnect with those people and ask now the same question pairing as example the present Italian situation.
There is a phenomenon in the US (currently California) and in the UK
metropolitan cities like London, the phenomenon is termed 'white flight'.
Crudely put, the indigenous white population are heading for the hills. If one accepts this is occurring why is it occurring? Equally there is a phenomenon happening with voters across continents; Brexit, Trump, Austria, Poland, Hungary, Czechoslovakia now Italy and Merkel politically limping along wounded by her German guilt. Could the answer to these cultural tsunamis be Immigration? One trembles to say such a thing such might be the cacophony of ad hominen name calling and character assassination that may ensue. What I find really alarming about the NYT comments is the universality of the voice of the anti-Trump herd, no one appears to veer off from this comments stampede for a little reflective grazing. But Hello Liberals the 'deplorables' (moi) are aspirationals too. My advice to Liberals is that it would be a very naive sort of dogmatism to assume that there exists an absolute reality of things which is the same for all: meritocratic diversity globalists just might have seen their time come and go, for they too are a phenomenon and as to those indignant to an opposing view I close with a quote from Erich Fromm,'There is perhaps no phenomenon which contains so much destructive feeling as moral indignation, which permits envy or hate to be acted out under the guise of virtue.' Now will this pass the censor, I wonder?
10
My advice to the right-wingers would be to stop Global Warming, the main cause of immigration from the Middle East, North Africa, and Central America insofar as I can see.
1
No population explosion is the root cause for both global warming and immigration from Africa. It is as simple as that!
3
I'd say the main source of immigration is the Internet and TV which present other countries as an El Dorado compared to the migrants' countries. In the past, people didn't know about the stark differences and were happy with their lot. Now any person in any poor country feels entitled to move to Italy or the UK or Norway or Germany.
"Italy ...['s] resilience will be tested by an election that has given two out-with-the-bums parties 50 percent of the vote, pulverized the mainstream, ... Europe is split between its Franco-German liberal democratic core, led by Emmanuel Macron and Angela Merkel, and the angry illiberal movements "
The NYT really truly has changed to word "mainstream" to mean "anti-democratic". You folks really do have the wording so ingrained in your heads that you cannot even conceive that Democracy means anything other than
electing your friends, who think of themselves as given to the World by themselves (they not having an external God) as Saviors.
Despite cast number of comments like this, not even to mention the election of Donald Trump and Brexit, you just don't understand that Democracy means choice by the people. A true democracy such as ours still is means
people can decide for themselves who they want to elect, and for what reason.
You, of course, fervently want to change that by repealing the 1st, 2nd, and 10th Amendments and dedicate to yourselves only (i.e. "the Party") the right to determine the elements whose discussion will determine the issues.
We, the people, don't consider your issues to be controlling.
You, the NYTimes, should "out" yourselves and officially state that you want to end Democracy and make yourselves "The one and only Party forever".
13
Brexit, Germany's and France's voting results, and now Italy's. The common thread is the justified backlash against illegal immigration and the financial burden it places on the citizens of those countries, just like here in the US.
This is the Resistance against liberal leftist policies that have forsaken their own citizens and placed illegals above them. Bravo to Italy, Germany, France, Poland, Hungary and every European country resisting the destruction of their country from third world invaders and their Western liberal leftist socialist supporters.
11
Another conservative bravely embodying the dictates of Christ. If God had meant for us to care about our fellow human beings he would have given us the warmth and compassion to do so!
3rd world invaders, indeed!
3
If Steve Bannon is for it must be bad.
Modern populism is a scam to take advantage of those to addled by revenge to see their own interests clearly.
The thrill of seeing things burn down is very temporary and when the smoke clears, you have less than you started with.
5
Guilt by association just never seems to die.
2
So did Putin Inc. have thumb on the scale here or not?
How well did the Rousseau system work? Or not?
Enquiring minds want to know!
All the comments in the NYT and WP are written from the same script. One simple point refutes them: If you are in the midst of an invasion, being anti-invasion is a rational choice. Italy is being invaded. The former government went into the Med and rescued the invaders. In turn, the invaders have been raping and killing Italians, and chapping them into little pieces. Opposing invaders who rape, kill, and chop into little pieces makes sense to me.
12
Roger, you blame Trump for Italy's latest election, you blame the US for not keeping Europe liberal enough for your tastes, you blame the Italians for wanting to keep illegal immigrants out of their country, you blame Italians because they don't like seeing their jobs shipped overseas. As long as you keep heaping blame on others, while refusing to see how liberals contributed to this, then you are a big part of the problem.
16
The progressive or liberal (never the classical liberalism of John Locke or Thomas Jefferson) parties of Europe are VERY ngry whenever they are challenged.
Not walking-around-packing-rifles-and-hit-lists angry like American progressives trained into doltishness by the coastal media and rich men's blogs, but angry enough.
And, isn't it interesting that all the mass shooters are default progressives whenever we hear that they actually have political orientations? The Islamic terrorists like the Army Major at Ft. Hood and the others at San Bernardino and at that Pulse nightclub were obviously on Barack Obama's and Hillary's side against the GOP but had already decided to kill Americans before they were political.
And yet, Barack Obama handed us the Promise program that kept Nik Cruz legally able to buy that AR-15. And now the same side demands that the other side be disarmed by the government that allowed all the other killers into the country or to escape notice until it was too late.
We hear that many Europeans bought guns as that ocean of Muslim immigrants entered Europe, but very little is said about anyone using them to deal with Islamic crimes since. Is that too hard an issue to cover here?
2
I hear the echo of Mussolini. Italy will reap what it sows.
3
Democracy is over. Voters are idiots.
The dominoes are rapidly falling. Turkey, Hungary, Poland, Britain, now Italy, and of course the United States. Time to duck and cover, everyone.
All of the hopes of the 20th century now shattered on the anvil of this dystopian 21st century. In hindsight, it happened so slowly, it seems like we did not see it coming – but we could have, had we been paying attention properly and done the right things to cultivate an educated citizenry. Too late.
3
Italians have had a lot of help getting to where they are. Americans installed mafiosi in Sicilian town governments at the end of WWII. Hey, better than Communists, right? We wanted to develop markets and establish capitalism in Europe. (No, the Marshall Plan wasn’t developed out of the goodness of our hearts.) The CIA interfered in Italian elections for years and supported the corrupt mafia infested Christian Democrats until they finally imploded. In later years the EU took over the job of putting the boot on Italy’s neck. The poverty in the south has less to do with migrants than with northern determination to deprive the south. Bannon, and the northern fascists, are not even sure that Sicilians are white. Well, what better than to declare Sicilians honorary whites and turn them against people even poorer than them. Angry people have no power other than to overturn the corrupt system even if anarchy results.
5
Everybody find your happy place and stay vigilant on the lesson we learned in 2016.
Trump has NO TRACTION. For his nonsense to succeed he needed to gain popularity fast, and do at least one big illustration why he was a good gamble.
The OPPOSITE has happened.
Trump is over 70 years old, with no one that remotely looks like successor. He can’t even hold together the top tier of his cabinet for more than 30-40 days without another jolt of disgusting behavior, never mind that his media attention is overwhelmingly negative.
There is no looming dictator when you can’t go a week without appearing either totally unglued or totally uninformed.
One dumb mistake didn’t make our country stupid....
For God’s sake he is the Monkees not the Beatles...
He is the calculator not the smart phone.
How do no liberal consciences feel the hypocrisy when reading the victim-blaming in these op-eds?
Blaming poor voters for their anger is only slightly less shameful than blaming victims of sexual assault for their predicament. But seeing socioeconomic justice as comparable to gender equality is anathema to the New York Times, which now writes glowing pieces about the exciting “experiment” of middle-class Americans living in tenements.
Where are readers who would rather feel for these voters than sneer at them to go?
7
Goodness gracious, Roger. You’re going to ignore the open borders policies of Angela Merkel as an obvious cause for this election comeuppance, and somehow blame Donald Trump? Have you no sense of journalistic fair play ?
12
It's interesting how many of these comments are in opposition to the establishment liberal positions of the NY Times. Maybe it's time for the editors of this paper to wake up and realize their readership and their "base" have become two different groups--the base still being the squeaky wheel Democrat coalition and the readership becoming closer and closer to Trump. In my case, I can now accept what I would have until recently considered unimaginable--I could vote Republican.
11
Back to square 1. World Wars I and II never happened. Amnesia reigns supreme. About this, my father who lived through the rise of Hitler, the Spanish Civil War and World War II was right: humanity has an infinite capacity for ignorance and stupidity.
4
Anti-immigration is popular, therefore populism.
Populism will be a force until immigration is cut. The present situation is a catastrophe. NY Times has had articles about the Italian state and NGOs essentially facilitating the delivery of young African girls into prostitution on Italian streets. One sees the prostitutes everywhere. No wonder voters are upset...
10
Wandering African and the EU can hardly be called 'scapegoats' when it comes to Italy's present debacle.
Recently I watched the movie Darkest Hour where a beleaguered Mr. Churchill seeks to deal with a distant and disinterested Mr. Roosevelt on the imminent Nazi threat in 1939. Europe again is facing Rightwing populism that's threatening European unity and liberal democracy with Italy being the latest. And again we have a ÙS that's not interested. Roosevelt pleaded the Neutrality Act while Trump's blatantly projecting America First and Only! Also he admires Russia and China's autocrats and dreams of a term UNLIMITED American presidency!
3
Veritabl Vincit-- the last time the USA was "interested" in a European war, 416,800 American soldiers lost their lives-- including my uncle-- defending allies. Time for Europe to step up and fix its own problems.
6
A little sorry to nit-pick--"the money that long oiled the crony politics of the South has" either "dried up" or "run out." Unless you're making a very nice little pun on laundering or counterfeiting.
I'm not sure why journalists insist on generalizing all of these different movements. Italy is not France is not the US.
I'm not sure how anyone could have honestly expected the Italians to continue to vote for the parties which have repeatedly failed them.
I'm not sure what kind of reaction you expect re the migrant situation when your German Franco defenders of the liberal order turned their backs on Italy.
Where is your reporting on France guarding their border against the influx of migrants from Italy? Where is your reporting on Spain shooting on migrants in the Mediterranean?
11
Excellent comment! I live near the Italian-French border and see the French gendarmes in action on every, single train into France. They check every one & remove anyone who might conceivably be an illegal migrant. If they can't produce the proper documentation, the are sent IMMEDIATELY back to Italy. But this fact is inconvenient to Cohen's worldview that Macron is some kind of pan-Euro savior. BTW, the Italians seem to be almost ready to adopt France's immediate return to country of previous residence policy. I wouldn't be at all surprised if sanity returns to the Italian govt. & the reception of migrants in Lampedusa and Sicily is completely stopped, with all would-be migrants returned to Libya.
7
The Times & other big media are reluctant to call fascists what they are so you call them populists, distorting the meaning of the term & reporting inaccurately.
1
Isn't it curious that when the angry, disenfranchised poor exercise their votes in ways the #Liberals don't approve, that "assistance for the most vulnerable" quickly turns to "state handouts"?
13
Stupid article. People are upset about uncontrolled immigration because they see the obvious, govt is incompetent to moderate and manage immigration. Common sense sees that "do gooders" would bring in potentially too many of the world's starving, sick, uneducated, culturally different BILLIONS and the lifeboat of their country would sink. The big ship EARTH (not Lollipop) has hit an ecological iceberg and the countries / cultures that don't encourage family planning want to ship their masses elsewhere. The lifeboats are filling/ full and the do gooders don't see that obvious facts. The ecological, humane response is to provide family planning and education for women to countries that don't have it. Trump and his evangelicals are opposed to women's rights and education, family planning, and the reality of ecology / Earth limits / climate change. But do gooders think that permissive immigration is OK. They are wrong. Even the USA is riding low in the water. There is very little free space, land, extra resource now with 8 BILLION people. Conclusion: Brexit, German political issues with immigration, Italian elections, French elections, and Trump are the way many people are expressing dismay at out of control immigration. It's a political and ecological death trap!
10
Awful article.
Poorly researched, simplistic in its analysis of the issues affecting Italy, offensive in it's remarks and deeply offensive in its analysis of the Five Stars Movement and its voters. if I weren't Italian and I didn't know how the situation really is, I would think of Italy a a new Venezuela.
I detest Trump but with articles like these you are playing in his hands and tarnishing the glorious reputation of the NYT
7
Another victory for Putin that Trump and Bannon think is a victory for them!
1
“ Politics of the mob” is hardly one would expect from a presumed liberal.
Briefly what Mr Cohen is saying amounts to “nothing but thr old Esatablishment parties will do.”
And a parliamentary majority is no longer the sine quo none it used to be since it is a prelude to,government of the mob!
Is the Israeli saga the new model?
Cohen could not avoid being influenced by the Israeli saga which may lead to what Cohen seems to hold! MODEL Israel.
Cohen’s departure from the leftish liberal camp should NOT come as a surprise HE being a life long Zionist !
3
"The lamps are going out all over Europe, we shall not see them lit again in our life-time."
--- British Foreign Secretary Sir Edward Grey
August 3, 1914
2
What Roger Cohen ignored is the impact of an 18 year old girl being murdered and dismembered by a Nigerian migrant https://www.dailywire.com/news/26679/suspect-brutal-dismemberment-murder....
8
As the Italians said after Brexit: We're next.
Brussels central committee of cultural Marxists soon what Isis is, on the run.
5
Here in the US of A, it all started in some 4chan chatroom, so innocently. We were appalled by Gamergate, those of us that noticed it, but some said ha ha to 2014's troll army. Its just crazy mixed-up kids having fun with all their KKKThis, and HilterThat. How can you call that racist? You're just not getting the joke: Darth Vader isn't a Sith, he's alt-Jedi. But any community that gets its laughs by pretending to be idiots will eventually be flooded by actual idiots who mistakenly believe they are in good company, and a lot of people started driking the Kool-Aid.
Milo's movement somehow made Breitbart the predominate media pole American conservatives orient around. Soon thereafyer 4chan /pol/ succeeded in electing their meme -- covpepe the frog -- POTUS. Next thing we know, Nazis were mobilizing tiki-torch brigades, liberal democracies started falling in the face of domestic authoritarians aided by foreign aggressors. Fascists win a similar plurality Mussolini secured, but in modern Rome, and we're left wondering how the world time-warped to Berlin and 1933... It all escalated so quickly. How did Western civilization decline so fast?
Well, that's US. How're y'all enjoying the existential terror caused by demagogues and this (dis)Information Age?
2
I have long since stopped counting on Roger Cohen for anything but hypocrisy and vacuous gibberish, but you know Roger and his "progressive" whingers have nothing more to say when they start the name-calling as in Salvini being "anti-immigrant bigot". Anyone who has lived in Italy the past 5 years--at least south of Rome can not help but be disturbed to see hundreds of illegal migrants, mostly Africans and including women and children, living in abandoned factories, buildings, etc. wherever they feel like squatting. And seeing hundreds of Africans living under bridges and roadways on the border to France. They refuse to register in Italy (not enough welfare) and plan to continue on to France or England. Salvini and most Italians are sick of this, and the hordes of illegal salesmen (Pakis, Africans) who swarm over every tourist destination. They see that the government has done NOTHING to stop or at least control this and they are sick of it. How is that "anti-immigrant" Roger Cohen? Or do you just need a cheap, easy lie for your empty advocacy journalism? I am sure that, when in Rome, you see only the nicest tourist areas and don't see the places outside of Rome where the Italian working class has to live with (every year) more and more illegal migrants and watch as their schools and public services disintegrate under the weight. Italy does not need ANOTHER reason for young people to leave--but why stay around and watch another ghetto being built?
12
The 'chaos' doesn't come from 'illiberalism' but the opposite.
Wars, subjugation, genocide, civil strife, coups, regime changes, colour revolutions all took place under the aegis of 'liberalism'.
4
We won't have to wait long to learn that Russia's trolls and bots won the election in Italy for V. Putin.
4
Excellent analysis. As a personal corollary I might add that I really start to be worried about what is coming next. Liberal democracies are collapsing. It is a global phenomenon and the results of the mobs giving power to the Salvinis, Trumps, Orbans are not going to be pretty.
1
At least you qualified your comment, and didn't say the "democracies" are collapsing. While exercising the right to elect the worst president in history is no great badge of accomplishment, it mainly means that a lot of people will be disappointed that silly promises lead to poor results. That can be an educational experience. I don't recommend it, but that is not the point.
I guess the world isn't laughing at the USA anymore?
1
Cohen is not usually given to ranting, but today's column is a temper tantrum, written by an elitist watching in horror as his fellow elites are booted out by those pesky voters. Cohen also seems to be going in for comedy this morning, as evidenced by the laugh line "Franco-German liberal democratic core". What exactly is he referring to? Chancellor Merkel checked with exactly no one, including her constituents, when she decided to let in a million refugees from the Middle East, perhaps the most unpopular move by a Chancellor in the last 60 years. Both France and Germany have outsourced policy making to Brussels, thereby further disenfranchising voters. Said voters, observing "liberal democracy" slowly eroding in favor of an unelected Royal Court (oh, sorry, meant unelected Brussels technocracy...silly me!) are not surprisingly turning to populist groups to save themselves. And while a Trump slur is mandatory for all NYT columnists now, last time I checked it was the Trump Administration that was actually arming the Ukrainians and asking for more European defense. How that is anti-Europe I am not sure, but it must excite the Editorial Board to read it. Populism has yet to prove itself as a governing force, but when elites like Angela Merkel show nothing but contempt to the citizenry, what more are voters to do?
9
Bravo, Achilles, you show more understanding of what's going in Europe in this short commentary than Cohen has in his last half-dozen columns!
1
You think the centre left has survived in Britain? The Labour party is in an electoral alliance with the Communist Party; the Labour leader’s office is run by the hard left; the Labour leader is an avowed admirer of Fidel Castro. This is centrist?
1
What “European tragedy” are we supposed to be concerned with? Can’t Europe take care of itself?
1
In between its good analysis this piece, like much in the Times, is flawed by myopic "it's all about me" American journalism, American exceptionalism, and American/Times obsession with your president.
As an "alien," as you call all us non-Americans, it beats me how smart Roger Cohen can turn the first three paragraphs of a piece about Italy into being about America - without once noting America's role in the destabilization of the countries bleeding the migrants now destabilizing Europe, the US contribution to environmental destruction that exacerbates mass migration, and the US development and ownership of the toxic internet platforms that give free rein to the bitterest angels of human nature.
If you're going to insist that everything is all about you, America, please at least be honest about who you are.
2
I agree with some of your points, particularly that Americans need to get over the idea we're exceptional. We just happened to dominate in the 20th century, like Britain did before us, and France before them. If we can just accept our utter lack of exceptionalism, then maybe we can move towards mitigating some of the serious problems of this country.
1
So the Elite in Europe are as blind to the needs of the lower classes
as they are in America and of course blame anyone but themselves.
7
It’s frustrating when intriguing links lead to external paywalls. I’d like to have known about this “mezzogiorno” region the writer alludes to.
As an Italian who voted for the right coalition, I do appreciate many of the readers’ comments about Italy’s election results. They seem to grasp the reason why the 5S Movement received nearly 50% in Southern Italy.
No, Mr. Cohen, Southern Italians are not deplorable. We have more education than most NYT writers, yet cannot find work and are forced to live abroad. Meanwhile, Italy hosts 600k, mostly military-age foreign men, who will never be functional in a western society.
All Italians, northern and southern, value our operas; our way of life; our wines; we value being Italians. We would like to keep those values.
68
Is there a greater irony than an immigrant against immigrants?
6
Mike, you are absolutely right! It is ironic that young people with PhDs are leaving Italy for lack of jobs, while thousand of immigrants are being supported at government expenses. Crazy, isn’t it?
1
Based on all these comments it looks like the commenters think the Australian approach is the right one: All boats containing illegal immigrants are stopped before they reach land and the people aboard them are held in 'camps' outside Australia until the people agree to return home. Is this what the Italians should do?
3
All those (including Roger Cohen) who have labeled the Lega Party (The League) xenophobic, racist, bigoted, and anti-immigrant, need to take note that the very first BLACK man elected to the Italian Senate, Tony Iwobi, age 62, a Nigerian who first came to Italy with a student visa 25 years ago, and who started work as a garbage collector and now owns a local software company in the Province of Bergamo (near Milan), is part of the leadership team of the LEGA PARTY!!!
As the person responsible for immigration policies for the LEGA, he says that his party is in favor of controlled, regular immigration, and against illegal and irregular immigration. He is married to an Italian woman, has two children, and is Catholic.
While some will inevitably cite his case as one of "tokenism" and shrewd political media manipulation, it should be noted that the LEGA is generally supportive of controlled, legal immigration for skilled workers from third world countries who are willing to integrate into Italian society, learn the language, and contribute to economic growth (instead of adding to the already excessive social welfare burden).
6
Europe and the West are disintegrating. Democracies are disappearing.
Communists and other forms of dictators are taking control of major countries. One has to wonder how this happened; certainly, social media is a major factor in this current rapid descent of the world into chaos. Politically weak but hungry people in all countries (not just Putin's Russia) feed falsehoods to the ignorant masses all over the world in order to build anger and resentment in the uneducated poor, as has happened many times in the past. It will be only a matter of time before a new demagogue transmutes this anger into violence. Someone needs to intervene and stop this progression before it is too late...
Its almost as if the liberalism praised by the author has failed the overwhelming majority of people, consolidating money and power in the hands of the very few at the expense of the very many.
6
"The momentum is with the nativist insurgency, in part because the United States under Donald Trump has vanished as any sort of counterweight to European intolerance."
Hmm.
A tad self centered; somewhat laughably so; ask the people who are still fighting for integration - who did not immigrate from Africa, but were born here.
Moreover, disunity, authoritarianism, distrust, corruption, peasant-landlord divide, insulation in Italy predate us.
The testosterone is erupting everywhere.
Democrats are pretty sure that our intolerant government with a despot in charge will all be set right by the legal system. But the tea leaves say otherwise. Our intolerance is now resplendent, unapologetic, and likely to take charge. If high school kids in America, and some teachers, are the voice of reason; and our politicians are not, then something is deeply wrong, and we are pretty ripe for a complete take over by our own local fascists.
Trump is not losing popularity; he would be re-elected today, if we had a vote. He will carry all the states he did in 2016 - no trouble at all. Most people expressing chagrin today at Trump will not vote (Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania). At worst - if indicted - he will become a martyr a with a million times more potency than the Ruby Ridge, and further unite half of America into a growling, snarling mass that hates everyone.
Our only hope: more women running for election, and more women coming out to vote. Godspeed ladies.
Kalidan
1
I'm italian. I want to say this:
The "populists" rising in Italy have deep different origins, as they have different ideas and alse different kinds of anger
"5 Stars" were despised and ignored by media for years, and still happens. They say: "wow, so many people voted again 5 Stars", and voters says ""yeah, genius, AGAIN, wake up, it's 10 years now"
The media refuses to understand their success wich is mainly due by a rebellion against corruption inside italian politic itself. Peoble sees "5 Stars" as the voice never heard by old-style politics.
The "League" has completely different spirit and origin, based on "north first", watching the south as a stack of idlers, and watching the immigrants as invaders, not refugees.
Elections sais once more that ITALY IS A BROKEN COUNTRY (League won at north, 5 Stars rules at south)
The Left just shouts "we are the moderate status-quo keepers". Renzi starts a self-destruction changing rules about the job market (pushed by EU), and EU keeps to ignore immigration problem, leaving Italy alone (since years).
And Renzi, year after year, make himself as a "left-clone" of Berlusconi (more arrogant, wich is unbelievable), so, as italians were tired of the old original Berlusconi (as shown by the vote), they decided to not following the newbie clone Renzi, especially after his clumsy attempt to mess up with Italian Constitution last year.
4
Once again, judgement from the ivory throne in Manhattan fails to capture the true issues trying nations’ souls in the West:
1. A feeling that governments and representatives care more for themselves and their small band of wealthy constituents.
2. A reality that the pro-EU politicians tacitly supported Angela Merkel’s insane open migration offer, essentially made on behalf of every country one must cross to reach Germany.
Tell me, those among us who write off the Italian voters as a band of racists controlled by anger and fear: if the government in your country said we are letting anyone in who wants to come, with no functional controls, and we’re doing so because we know best who should be in Italy, despite your high unemployment.
Then, your small town’s population doubles overnight with economic migrants, coming from cultures centuries more primitive (check into how women are treated in Africa and the Middle East and tell me that’s the wrong word), whom you must now make payments to so they can avoid the suffering of having no job and no money.
It’s quite easy to deride Italians as racists when you’re comfortable thousands of miles away, surrounded by the downy soft bubble of the NYC groupthink.
8
My son is studying abroad this semester in Florence Italy. He was recently mugged, severely beaten and hospitalized in Florence. By three "Africans". For his iPhone X.
As odious as these politics are and turning worse, I suddenly have an uncomfortable understanding of what is driving this turn.
8
Cohen's anti-Trump sentiment is absurdly misplaced in the case of the Italian vote. Italians did not vote the way they did because of anything Trump did or did not do. Italians are fed up with illegal immigration; the government's and the EU's failure to address that issue and to share the illegal immigrants with France and other EU countries, and (mainly) for failing to grow the economy. The old political parties have not performed up to snuff and got booted out. It is not hard to understand and it certainly wasn't TRump's fault.
5
The elections in Europe in recent years will tell the confused reader all she or he needs to know about the coastal media and especially the NY Times. All Brexit supporters and the new winners in Italy are monsters or demagogues while the loser socialists who have betrayed the trust placed in them by voters are Cool and Awesome hereabouts.
I'm not saying the European media are the gold standard of fairness, but the name-calling here makes the American media the laughing stock of Europe. They don't even ridicule Hollywood as easily as they shake their heads at the famous American newspapers and cable outlets.
4
I believe the essence of bigotry is intolerance towards those holding different opinions. Look in the mirror, Mr. Cohen, before you so flippantly accuse others and disparage millions of people.
10
Whether a politburo or elite bureaucrats in Brussels dictating population movement and economics, "kulaks" will resist. Be prepared to either listen to them or starve them out of existence.
2
At some point the pundits will simply have to acknowledge the reality that the common man rejects the unchecked immigration that is flooding Europe.
It really doesn't matter whether you view the commoner as nationalistic or bigoted.
It really doesn't matter if you ridicule his beliefs or call him ignorant.
He may / not be all of those things.
But fundamentally, he is angry, frustrated, has no confidence in the politicians who have ruled during the cultural dislocations brought about by the immigrants from Africa and the Middle East.
And he votes.
9
Of course, Italy is the birthplace of fascism. Ironically, the rise of Trump -- authoritarian wannabe -- has normalized and encouraged fascist and dictatorial moves around the world.
Cohen writes: "The United States as a European power has been essential to European stability. not least in Italy. That's going, or gone. Amnesiac Europeans seem ready to play with fire." And the indoctrination is apparently complete, or perhaps it's just the amnesiac Americans here who conveniently forget how the U.S. brought Cohen's comforting "stability" to Italy: Covert operations authorized by the newly formed NSC in 1947 to disrupt democratic elections in Italy for fear that the Left in Italy—i.e., the fascist resistance, popular labor unions—was going to win a democratic election. And this sabotaging of democracy in Italy continued with U.S. covert operations and its support of reinstating the Fascist police, support of Propaganda Due, and its undermining of Italy's labor unions.
So yeah, this U.S. method of bringing "stability" to Italy (and elsewhere) has been so sufficiently washed from Cohen's mind that he now pitches it to us here as "essential." It's hardly surprising then that he would propose bringing in "the wise" Mario Draghi to restore a form of "stability" in Italy long preferred by the U.S. (democracy notwithstanding).
31
Anyone who trusts the supposed "populist" leaders are probably fell or would have fallen for the mafia godfather's promise of "protection".
They will bleed the world dry, destroy everything and everyone who stands in their way and die - leaving the world a horrid place.
WE THE PEOPLE - average people around the world - must stop them NOW.
Unchecked and unprovided-for immigration is the immediate trigger for Italy's populist revolt, but there's a much deeper-seated problem that Italy, in particular, has long and impotently faced: namely, its constitution. Italy has an unmanageable number of political parties, virtually all out for their own corrupt interests, and its government is therefore largely unable to act effectively and efficiently. Until the Italians set up a workable form of government, nothing will succeed.
1
Those of us who are mourning the set backs of neo-liberal economics and the European Union, I would suggest that it is time for us to get a new narrative. The warming planet, species die-off, and limited resources are all signs that our story no longer makes sense .Its unclear to me (and apparently a lot of other people) how the story of economic integration, open borders and "free trade" helps us address resources wars and a collapsing eco-system.
1
Another news article that shows modernism in the Western world is dead.
All this author does (like almost all others on this site), is bemoan the past. In essence, he argues it is the end of the world! Nothing positive will ever exist anymore....
It would be really nice to read an article from an elitist writer, that delves into a future that has not been written about in any serious way. For instance, the 5 Star Movements use of a digital platform is absolutely revolutionary in how politics are now practiced Italy. This digital platform is a postmodern invention that brings deliberative direct democracy one more step closer to legitimacy, bring with it the end of representational democracy.
Perhaps if the author of this article could stop crying in his wine glass for a moment, he might see that the future is still an undiscovered country with promise and prosperity.
5
Very good analysis of my country. I would correct only one thing: I wouldn't say that 5SM as a movement is "sympathetic to Vladimir Putin", even if many of its voters are. They are sympathetic to any leader who looks against mainstream, on opposite sides, from Orban to Maduro
Let's take Bernie, the person, out of the equation for a moment. And at the same time accept that the disenfranchised and discontent voters have not been heard and have a legitimate gripe. Neither party has paid them adequate, substantive, attention. Isn't it reasonable to think they might want a legitimate right to higher education for their children? Are they wrong to think that none of the medical plans have so far dealt with the elephant in the room i.e. a practical universal national health plan? Don't most people think that SS and medicare should be funded adequately. Yet all these programs have one thing in common. NONE of the major parties have made serious efforts to implement them because it would require massively higher taxes on the wealthy. And it is the axis of the wealthy and politicians that have undermined our faith in the ability of democracy to work. Maybe it is time to face these facts if we want the majority to have a genuine faith in the democratic process. Nothing makes it impossible. Vote!
1
Actually, the populist gain in Italy is a good thing for liberal democracy (as long as 'trias politca' is not endangered and it's not). It's a matter of creative destruction: the present Italian government & predecessors were not able to deliver a solution for the economic standstill so something new now emerges.
Since Italy is not Greece we can expect a tremendous collision with Northern Europe. Which has it's problems with populist movements but is not at all in disarray by the way.
1
Europe is less split than the US. Italy has had Berlusconi for 20 years. It having a regular centre-based government is an exception rather than the rule. The Anglosphere seems very keen to announce the EU's demise at every opportunity.
This Cohen-piece is quite incredible.It mourns the electoral losses of those parties in Italy that proved they could only maintain a corrupt political system. The 5 star movement is not the solution for Italy, but its incredible win may provoke a goodbye to the neo liberal policies that the EU considers vital for its elites. Change is painful and open to many mistakes. The Brexit drama shows how painful.But it is the only way forward.
7
Elections are increasingly being decided along the populist-technocratic axis more so than on the left-right one, as this election shows.. It's pretty understandable that an angry population mired in perpetual economic stagnation would choose populists, given that the technocrats throughout Europe consistently deliver nothing but miserable austerity for ordinary people, and Italian politicians are infamously corrupt as well.
It's unlikely that most of their voters were even imagining that Five Star and the League would be competent or non-corrupt themselves. But when a population is given a choice between some sort of unpredictable actual change versus an intolerable status quo, they will often choose change - even change that could make things worse.
The establishment institutions of the developed world have been totally unwilling to adapt themselves to the new reality. If the EU didn't want a wave of Euroskeptic populism, they could have created a series of "surplus recycling" programs to invest in the south (Varoufakis has many ideas, nobody listened). They could have been honest about the fact that the European bailouts were fundamentally bank bailouts for Deutsche Bank et al., or at least taken steps to minimize the amount of austerity-related suffering. They could have listened to popular opinion about migration.
But no, they did none of that. This reminds me of the line from Pink Floyd's "Dogs"
"And when you lose control,
You'll reap the harvest you have sown"
2
"The almost three decades since the fall of the Berlin Wall have been a long strange trip to the politics of the mob."
Actually, what these decades have shown is that the vacation from history European nationalism took from 1945 to the early 90's is over. The challenge now is who to deal with it.
2
I think what Roger Cohen really wants to say ( rather than "Europe is split between its Franco-German liberal democratic core, led by Emmanuel Macron and Angela Merkel....") is that Europe, like the U.S., is split between neo-liberal supply-side economics on the one hand and unsavory parties exploiting well warranted popular discontent on the other. There is no third choice: big money and prevailing institutions, including corporate media, have seen to that.
Of course, there is one abiding difference between them and us: class consciousness, and social supports to match.
1
It's not "immigration" when tens of thousands of people fleeing a war zone illegally enter your country. This is called an invasion. What government or citizenry in their right mind would view this favorably? I don't understand the mechanics of this mass exodus of refugees from predominantly Muslim nations, but the end result is essentially an invasion - by people who are not interested in assimilating into your society, but rather, doing things according to their own customs and beliefs in their isolated enclaves - all the while claiming the same rights bestowed upon citizens and LEGAL immigrants.
11
It's not impossible to believe the shift to the hard right in Washington has encouraged nationalist parties around the world. Neither is it hard to believe the Russians were not involved in Italy's politics.
We presume the autocrats of the world would defend their country against foreign influence. But why?
If Donald welcomed Russian help to win an election, why can't other extremist leaders? After all, Russia has paid no price for interference.
14
It's not that the Russians are totally uninvolved, it's that their involvement is minor compared to domestic political forces. In this election, the Italian people voted overwhelmingly for populists - no other single party came close to 5 Star's result, and the League did better on its own than its allies in Berlusconi's party, who look reasonable by comparison.
No amount of Russian propaganda can explain the general pattern of results in Italy. And, as in every other recent election, most of the "fake news" was sourced domestically. If this had been a presidential election decided by a fraction of a percentage point, there might be some room to make the case that Russia may have influenced it enough to change the outcome. But not in a parliamentary system like this.
It seems that the social and political order that emerged in post-war Europe, and the constraints placed on demagoguery by the shattered societies who did not want to repeat the cataclysm, was actually a hiatus. With the survivors of that period now safely in their 90s, their grand-children once again feel free to indulge their baser instincts. The demagogue is back.
Perhaps demagoguery and angry propaganda is what is 'normal' for modern nation-states ruled by public opinion. Perhaps the problem is simply modernity exacerbated by unmediated discourse and mass elections.
Cohen writes: "The center-left, as elsewhere in Europe apart from Britain, collapsed." Wrong. The centre-left in Britain collapsed -- the Blairites and 'New Labour' were beaten when Corbyn took over the Labour Party and pushed it well to the left. If he had not triumphed, Labour would have been clobbered in the last election. As a consequence, electoral support for UKIP on the populist right collapsed as working class voters returned to Labour.
This pervasive populist anger with the established parties will manifest itself on both the right and the left as it has in France, and now Italy. The 5 Star movement in Italy is on the left and its base is mainly in the south; the anti-immigrant League on the right is strong in the north. So we see regional differentiation in the populist thrust, similar to what has occurred in France and the US.
In the US, the populist insurgency on the right was reflected in Trump's takeover of the Republican Party while Sanders narrowly lost in his bid to move the Dems well to the left -- a party whom he had never been a member.
Across the Western world, the established political parties are either collapsing, or being taken and transformed into very different forces. Where this goes from here is anyone's guess.
1
So many of these problems in the US and all over the world are due to the many decades trends of tax-cuts for the rich, austerity for the poor, concentration of wealth, termination of peaceful foreign aid, military interventionism, etc., that the conservative and neo-liberal rulers and elite just expect the masses with their declining standards of living to react "rationally" to. It is not just hateful Trump types but the Clintonite moves to triangulate ("end welfare as we know it"; declare an "end to the era of big government", etc.). It is time for the elite to recognize that with so many billions of people in the world and such great challenges to peace, security and sustainability that we need to go back to taxing the rich, big government welfare state, social democrat politics. We need to support family planning around the world, slow population growth (get to population declines) and technologically move forward to a better society. It is not just the environmentalist cries about despoiling the planet; there is simply no room (psychological space) for all of us and the elite want laissez faire government of around 10 billion poor people and a few hundred thousand rich: the only options are redistributive social democracy, totalitarianism, or chaos.
1
You have a problem with democracy, Mr. Cohen?
After all, it is the Italians that govern Italy, not the refugees from Syria and Northern Africa.
That is what the electorate is saying about being the governing voice of their own country. That is what the electorate of Germany was trying to say, and that is exactly what the British said with the Brexit vote.
And if you think about it, that is what Americans were saying in November 2016 when they continued to turn on the liberal ideology in the governance of this nation.
5
It seems that Mr. Cohen has never met an unelected technocrat he didn't like. And only likes elected politicians that do what the technocrats tell them. Some democracy you got there, Mr. Cohen . . .
5
It's sad to see Five Star voters described as a 'ragtag band of disaffected voters'. Ragtag band? These were 33% of the voters-the largest # of votes received by any party. Reminds one of Clinton's description of Trump voters as 'deplorable'. Such charged comments generate only heat and shed no light. Mostly they reveal the authors gross arrogance and lack of real understanding of these votes and their concerns. Offended by the populism they offer and yearning for a return to 'normal' (continued economic inequality, 17 years and counting in Afghanistan etc.), they ignore the fact that it is precisely a continuation of the supposed 'normal' that is giving rise to this populism (of both the left and right). Another article in today's NYT ('Why are Democrats Helping Trump Dismantle Dodd-Frank' by Mike Ronczal) reminds us of why Sanders had so much support and why many of them will continue to look for and support alternatives to 'Republican Light' economic issue Democrats even if they are described as 'populists' by some pundits.
2
One could blame the split on the "Franco-German liberal democratic core" which has continued to attempt to enforce open immigration on a continent which is increasingly against the idea just as easily and perhaps more correctly. Democracy is supposed to be the rule of the people, and the people are speaking loudly and clearly that they see this idea as deeply flawed.
It is an autocratic minority which is valiantly attempting to pull a Canute on the rising tide of reaction against a system that rewards those who successfully break the immigration laws. Meanwhile, the supposedly liberal French regime is doing a wonderful job of keeping the immigrants in Italy by sealing their borders against them.
Vox populi vox Dei.
3
Interesting that health insurance isn't among the five rights highlighted by the 5 Star party. Oh, wait--Italy already has universal access.
Let's not judge them too harshly. In some ways Italy, with all its mishegas, is light-years ahead of us.
2
Italians forget that it used to cost 1600 to 1700 lira to buy a dollar. That entry into the euro zone lifted the standard of living along with an awesome train system. Italian frustration over immigration is understandable as they've absorbed 200,000 African migrants last year alone, and the promised EU help never materialized. The EU must help Italy with the migrant problem. There aren't enough jobs for Italians. Italian governments come and go. This, too, shall pass.
11
One of the issues with the EU helping Italy with the migrant problem is that 70% do not qualify for asylum. As I understand it relocation schemes require that standard for approval. The 70% that do not qualify, generally, go under the radar and many do not seek asylum in Italy rather favoring Northern Europe. What every migrant crossing from Libya knows that once they step onto European soil it is very unlikely they will be sent back. The European population now also realizes that repatriation of migrants is virtually impossible for a number of reasons I won't list here. What needs to be done? Revisit the 1951 Refugee Convention and update it for the modern age - the age of the smartphone (which all migrants have), the Internet, and jet travel.
World events are chilling and mirror the run-up to Hitler's attempt to take over the world for the Robber Barons of that day.
Social media - fully owned by the Robber Barons - and Robber Baron engineered supposed "terrorist" attacks have played a decisive role in making people around the world fearful, angry and hateful as have fox so-called news and other Murdoch holdings and hate radio (Romney) and social media (Bannon).
It is very difficult to wrap one's head around the fact that a few people in the world would destroy civilization for their demented, insatiably greedy, socially unconscious personal power wars. But they will.
They want WW3. It's profitable for them.
WE THE PEOPLE are the only ones who can/will stop them.
NOW is the time. There may never be another time.
3
Voting for a Democrat wont help either. FYI.
2
It is difficult to read here about Southern Italy's problems through so much reductionism. I have a dual identity as both an American and Neapolitan, and have lived in Napoli for many years of my adult life.
Our problems are far more complex than represented here, and importantly involve a large amount of complicity by industrial and political forces from Lombardia and the Veneto. Industrialists actively collude with Camorristi to dispose of toxic waste in our provincial countryside, enriching the gangsters and protecting their profit margins. They in turn collude with politicians at both in the local and national level to ensure the South receives insufficient investment to address our issues.
Cohen is right to identify the reasons why the South largely embraced the Five Star Movement, but needs to include the deeply complicit forces in the North that create or at least perpetuate our problems.
4
It is curious that the NYT editorial board and its columnists champion the people and democracy only so long as the people exercise their democratic will in conformity with the NYT's values. The successes of these nativist movements throughout the democratic west are too consistent to be blamed simplistically on Russian meddling, Steve Bannon, or other outside forces. The people are trying to tell their leaders that they oppose continued open-borders policies that are profoundly changing their great European cultures. In Italy, for example, 100,000 illegal migrants are landing in Sicily every year from N. Africa and the Sahara. They are now so emboldened as to demand the "restitution" of their old religious places, like the Norman Cathedral of Palermo, built in 1185 on the site of the old mosque. Yet mainstream political leaders -- like the NYT editorial board -- superciliously dismiss the people's concerns as prejudice and know-nothingism. Unless and until the political leaders and opinion-makers change their attitude and listen to the democratically expressed voices, the people will continue to favor the more extreme parties with their extreme solutions.
110
True. however the liga Nord had been talking about southern Italians and especially Sicilians in very derogatory terms for a long time. They suppressed it (barely) just for this election.
five star is a different issue. They are actually trying to reform. Their mayor in Rome is trying hard but she is being stymied the entrenched unions and legacy interests.
Western Europe has had a shortage of (native born) workers. Like Trump, I suspect they want said labor to come from Norway and other intensely white countries, and make them whiter, more christian, without disrupting their ways of life (in which leisure is an institution). Italy is particularly vulnerable; given its physical isolation below the Po valley. As a frequent visitor, I see evidence that there is some dedication among the people to make life difficult for each other. Corruption, scandal, crime rival those of lawless countries. In Turin, a dude from southern Italy can trigger derisive smirks. As a colonial power, Italy contributed mostly to the comic relief of historians. Now with African immigrants, I guess they are about ready to burst and looking around for the next El Duce. Looks like they found one, or two.
But none of this is tragic, nor particularly noteworthy. Italians are not unfamiliar with unemployment, class distinctions, and lives of quite desperation. What is noteworthy, and will eventually mutate into a fairly significant mess, is how Europe - Italy included - deals with Islamic immigrants who want Europe too submit, and become Eurabia ruled by imams No honest discussion of this is possible, and certainly not in NY Times. And when discourse cannot occur, anger comes out in a lot of ways.
Kalidan
2
Well and Roger points out it's not only a problem of "open borders". How about the culture of perpetual government handouts, crony politics and corruption ? But I guess it's just easier to blame the dark-skinned people.
The absolutely crazy Obama-Clinton invasion of Libya and Syria and their encouragement of refugees has utterly destabilized Europe and brought fascists close to power even in the good times like 1927 and 1928.
Now when Trump is cooperating with Russia to end 16 years of war and killing of Muslims, as well as stop the flow of refugees, the once-great newspaper opposes him totally. And when he tries to limit immigration to prevent America from going this way, the NYT is hysterical. It is, of course, Trump' s fault.
Someone in the NYT needs to read what happened in the 1930s in Europe when the prosperity of the 1920s ended. Perhaps it should ask if it should follow a different policy and get fresh columnists.
18
The destabilization of the Middle East obviously began with the Bush-Cheney-GOP invasion of Iraq and the removal of Saddam Hussein. They were motivated by domestic politics and oil money. That stupid blunder immediately empowered Iran as the regional superpower with no one in Iraq to oppose them. The entire region quickly followed Iraq's descent into chaos and turned millions of men, women and children into desperate refugees, most of them heading for Europe. Republicans can't rewrite that history, but I'm sure they will try.
1
The NYT is in too deep with their fake ideology. You know NIMBY? They want others to change but not in their backyard (Coop or Westchester or wherever they live).
3
Your neat summary has holes. The military effort in Libya was European led. We participated. The Arab Spring was ragging for a variety of reasons - most of them internal. Do some homework.
2
"trying to govern and would thereby fuel rage against democracies that refuse to heed what voters say"
Those governments HAVE refused to heed voters. They imposed austerity designed to serve interests that had damaged themselves in the chaos of greed that ended in 2008. They deserve the anger they brought on themselves.
That does not mean that whatever alternative is on offer at the moment is a good one. They are not.
But offers of bad alternatives do not excuse all that has gone on since 2008 to make voters carry the burden of elite excesses, while elites profit from the repair of what they brought down on all.
The solution must involve listening. Who is doing that? Not the so-called centrist interests that are not center at all -- they are bought and paid for servants of wealth and privilege who have brought ruin to a majority.
So are the wild guys listening either? Sort of, with that half attention that hears what they want to hear, that feeds their wildest imaginings. But again, that does not defend or justify what brought us to this point, nor suggest more of the same.
What is needed is not yet on the scene. We can describe it, because we've seen it before, as with FDR. A New Deal, or in European terms the socialist ideas that swept the Continent and Britain to rebuild the ruins left by WW2. I don't mean a simple return to that. It was a thing of its time, and post-War is now past.
We await the next giants of unity and freedom. We don't see them yet.
16
"The digital world was supposed to bring people together. In fact, social media has hurled them apart, less bridge-builder than disintegrator."
That is a real insight, for Italy, here, and everywhere.
It is the nature of the beast, enabling any content from great to nutty, AND enabling viewers to limit their review to only what they already know they like.
That can't be blamed on 5-Star or Putin or any one American political candidate or operative either. They may ride the wave, but they did not create the wave. They are surfer, and the wave is the ocean.
14
Every new technology, in it time, was billed as a tool to bring people closer. This included airplanes, radio, movies, TV and now the internet. The reality is that these technologies were/are tools, capable of being used for bad as well as good.
1
Illegal immigration is a problem for all Western countries and much more so in Europe than in the US. The lack of solidarity between EU countries and of a common policy towards migrants has led to the rise of demagogues using migrants as scapegoats for the bad fiscal policies enacted after the 2009 economic crisis. For all the hue and cry in the US, generally speaking immigrants (legal and illegal) manage to function better in the US without straining social services and are for the most part a positive contribution to the economy. No country can afford unlimited numbers of people escaping persecution and poverty but the solution cannot be callous inhumane treatment of those that went through harrowing ordeals to get to a better place.
13
Will my "harrowing ordeal" as a U.S. citizen get me in as a citizen of Japan?
2
yes. This might have contributed to Five Star movement's success.
However the Northern League is a secessionist party at its core and really believes southern Italians (esp Sicilians) to be inferior.
The “three decade long strange trip to the politics of the mob” since the fall of the Berlin Wall, is the result of everything that ordinary people value being traded away by the elites in pursuit of profit in the name ‘human rights’, ‘multiculturalism’. Concerning immigration Mr. Cohen, would you be so accepting of these immigrants if they planted themselves in your fancy part of town? For thee but not me? Is it Ok for Israel to exclude Arabs and Africans to ‘preserve’ its ‘character’, but not Europe? The elites blithe disregard of and contempt for people’s desire to preserve their culture is the insult on top of the very real economic injury caused by capitalist globalization. The popular backlash now occurring across Europe is its inevevitable result.
52
Walkman...Your post was better than this essay. Run for office in California. You have my vote!
2
It is truly amazing that these elites fools are still so blind... and blaming Putin like the contemptible Powers and others are doing. How pathetic.
3
One thing I've found interesting about Italian politics (and that of other European countries) is the willingness of elected leaders to quit when they find they are no longer supported by those that elected them.
In my opinion, a cynic would say (and perhaps my initial incliniation) that they are bolting when times got tough. But what it really tells me is that these people remember that they whom they work for. And they aren't interested in being career politicians.
I think our country politicians could be a bit more like that. Though I think it's great that we can benefit from people that have many decades of experience, there is too much careerism in US politics. Those folks can help push dialogue from outside of official power.
8
Most European governments have parliamentary systems whereby a leader who loses the confidence of his coalition has to return to the electorate for a new mandate or try to govern without the votes needed to get things done.
Their political institutions are very different from ours, and the consequences of losing the benches are very, very different.
8
It is dispiriting to realize that no one who works, or writes for, the New York Times thinks opposition to illegal immigrstion is anything but xenophobia and racism.
Do you understand that this limits your ability to understand political movements? Or that it turns entire countries into places full of backward yahoos who you believe should be ignored?
I am not asking for agreement on one side or the other, but consideration of both sides. That is what journalism is supposed to do. And it appears to be something you have abandoned.
108
All of the people in question directly profit from the globalist trends causing the migration and their continuation. They will never speak against it unless a more lucrative prospect supplants it.
3
Do you, Mr. Talbot, understand that the government you have elected has, in the past year and a half alone, ended net neutrality, gutted the EPA, denied global warming, refuses to enact sensible gun legislation in the face of numerous domestic terror attacks, rolled back voter rights, has cut funding to public schools while funneling tax revenues into questionable private institutions, rolled back healthcare subsidies, made it harder for women to access contraceptive care, pushed forth massive tax breaks for corporations, is looking now to end Dodd-Frank, has engaged in wholesale corruption in nearly every department, and is now imposing, at your behest, these ruinous tariffs that are likely to kill more jobs than create? It's not simply a matter of immigration for us; this administration's policies are eroding are democracy and harming Americans.
1
You do realize you are reading an opinion piece?
Even with her politics in disarray, the Italians quality of life is far superior than ours here in the richest, greatest country in the history of civilization. Forza Italia!!
22
Italy's politics are always in disarray, and they always know how to live. Some things never change.
How did you ever come to that conclusion? Apparently you only stay at the Ritz Carlton when you travel.
1
...if only things were so simple. Matteo Salvini enjoyed evenings at the Leoncavallo Social Center in his youth and started the Comunisti Padani. The northern league is just the League now and it is not a separatist party anymore. Luigi Di Maio was very involved in the italian student union while attending university and he is being viewed in italy as a time machined first republic Christian Democratic(famous DC). Politicians by trade.
1
I watched social democracy make three crucial mistakes in the 1960's, and the rest has been an un-raveling as the logic of these mistakes played out, and the common theme is the failure to require good behavior.
1) Democracy requires a highly self-disciplined and deeply knowledgeable electorate. However, schools abandoned necessary behavioral standards and necessary rigor in education (which must include memorization of foundational facts). Too many lazy and stupid people now populate the electorate.
2) Unions must support disciplined and productive work among their members, while protecting incomes and job security. In the end, microeconomics does matter, and unions need to keep workers productive, and then capture a fair share of that productivity.
3) Finally, there is "moral hazard" in a welfare state (at the top, as well as at the bottom, of course, but the bottom matters). A "lazy left" came to dominate too many social democrats (or "Democrats" in America), who wanted to withdraw from the enforcement of behavioral standards as a basis for state support.
In the end, the right-wing was able to use these real failings of the social democrats into a cudgel to beat the New Deal/Social Democrat state to death. Now, the masses are miserable and turning to fascists, and we are heading back to the very crisis for which social democracy was the post WWII cure. It is hard to be optimistic that a new FDR will emerge to generate a humane solution that Europe can again copy.
29
All true. What should be done about it if you're an individual citizen?
I was in England in 1968 and I can confirm what you say about the "lacy Left." At that point, the Left was just profiteering -- looting society for the low-hanging fruit. The railway union demanded and got an annual raise of 30% per year in return for what? Not shutting down the country. Morally bankrupt, and even working people could see it.
The responsibility of any government first and foremost is to ITS OWN CITIZENS, and not illegal migrants.
50
The Italian voters are not buying into the "one Europe" mentality that socialists try to peddle. and they also don't appreciate their unique culture being undermined by masses of illegal immigrants from Africa and the Middle East. Good for them. Fighting for your own cultural identity is never a bad decision.
45
My genetics are deeply rooted in the Italian peninsula - my father traced our family back to the 14th Century and we haven't moved much over that time. Same with my mother's family. It's all southern Italy, all the time. But, what is this "cultural identity" that you speak about? Is it the Carthaginians, Byzantine Greeks, Saracen Arabs from Egypt and Persia, or is it the Normans, Goths, Aragonese or Spaniards, each of whom moved in at some point over the past thousand years to infuse the culture of Sicily and Calabria where my genes evolved? Many of the dialects in Sicily are closer to Catalan than to what we know as Italian. Italy has been the quintessential melting pot for all peoples Mediterranean and North African for millennia, with a good smattering of several Middle Eastern Muslim cultures mixed in, too. I followed the current rage and had my genetic ancestry analyzed, only to find out that I, of course, have traces of all of these peoples in me. Sicily’s capital of Palermo is largely built as a replica of Baghdad, and flourished as center of Muslim culture for more than 300 years. There are muslim graves in my father's little village, right next to the Christian and Jewish ones. So, please explain to me what exactly is this cultural identify that I am supposed to be fighting for?
Socialists tried to peddle? The EU concept was based on free trade. The plutocratic-capitalists dream come true.
America, over the years alowed many immigrants - mostly rom europe until 1965. Even then, an influx of Irish, Itlaians and Jews at certain times die create dis=resonance in many areas. Blacks did not come as immigrants but were brought in as slaves and were never welcomed to assimilate as the fissures stll exist. Latin Americans have been coming for years but the older racist immigration laws kept them from becoming legal until that Liberal icon Reagan legalized their status. People from non-european countries started coming i 65 and gradually were assimilated. A burst of arrivals of Latin Americans created a strong backlash by many white Americans as well as many non-European Americans who came i legally. Now Europe is experiencing a similar bust of immigrants with"alien" cultures - religgion and race has created a backlash in many EU countries. Welcome to the normal world that is usually hostile to people with alien values and looks. Include Japan and China among them.
8
In fact, the law of 1924 sharply reduced immigration, including from Europe. Perhaps that is a cause of the stability in the 1930s in the US and then 20 years of the greatest rise in prosperity, we have have had.
To say immigration is good is not to say unlimited immigration is good. The chief New Democrat economist of the Wash Post, Robert Samuelson, says we need a million a year and we have 1.6 million. I don't know the right figure, but it is wrong, even evil, to have Obama-Citigroup's policy of tripling the markets while having wages fall for the bottom 90% according to the SF Fed.
Minorities are generally in the bottom 90%, but Citigroup sacrificed them to profits and the NYT is all for the unlimited immigration to keep wages down. It is a very short-sighted policy.
5
Open immigration to the US stopped with the 1921 immigration act when quotas were first introduced. When they did not prove sufficient at severely limiting undesirable immigration, they were tightened in 1924. The targets were Italians and Jews from Eastern Europe. Non-whites had been largely banned by 1921. (e.g. the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1880).
Um...ok?
Delusional.
First he blames everything on Trump, before admitting that the tide of anger has been building for years before Trump even announced his candidacy.
The Trump obsession is getting really, really creepy.
And the mockery of Bannon seems born of frustration that Bannon's political instincts overall are far superior to Cohen's, the NYT Editorial Board's, its columnists, and reporters. He's absolutely right about the global middle class revolution, in fact it is already under way.
And this newspaper is so thoroughly detached from reality, even after the shock of Trump's election and its promise to "do better", that its credibility is waning by the day.
There's a reason why Europe is imploding, Trump is President, Putin is happy, and Xi is thrilled. It is the utter failure of people like Cohen and the policies they've been advocating since the fall of the Berlin Wall, which recklessly squandered the historic opportunity provided by the collapse of the Soviet Union.
He and his fellow Boomers have destroyed the West, delegitimized capitalism, and undermined Western liberal democracy, and we're just beginning to reckon with the consequences of their irresponsibility.
His anger is increasingly palpable. But it should be directed towards the person he sees in the mirror, not what he calls the poor, corrupt welfare queens of Southern Italy and the wealthy racist bigots of Northern Italy.
History will judge Draghi to be nothing more than a puppet of the elites.
40
Wow! And people think MY opinions are intemperate!
TB...You, my friend, are going to see your post copy-pasted all over the internet. From your opening point until your last, I applaud you.
We have had our own "puppets of the elite." They are still desperately trying to cling to power. On both sides!
The natives are restless. Across the globe.
1
Great comment. Cohen's anger or frustration certainly is boiling over the surface. The elites are too arrogant to, even still, comprehend what the 'infidel' Steven Bannon has already noticed. Instead they jump the shark and start categorizing poor Italians as morally deficient. Incredible.
1
As much as I despise Trump and the no-nothing. racist, anti-immigrant fanatics who are winning in large parts of Europe, I can't help thinking that their victories are understandable. Youth unemployment is around 40% in Italy; in France, which narrowly escaped the clutches of the National Front, it's about 25%. Who wouldn't be in the streets screaming about this?
The endemic corruption in Italy that has been a global jok for decades e has finally brought people to the breaking point. If the so-called establishment parties can't respond to the real needs of people and cater instead to the plutocracy, what do they expect? We're seeing a small version of that dynamic here, where Trump's corruption and hypocrisy and his fealty to Russia and the richest of the rich are behind Democratic victories in unlikely states like Alabama. Now multiply Trump in all his awfulness, extend his rule over decades, and then explain why you can't understand the revolts taking place in Europe. Unfortunately, the establishment parties, in their obtuseness, have allowed the rise of extremist parties with odious policies and simplistic solutions; I don't justify that. But it doesn't take a genius to see where they've come from.
20
no-nothing, racist, anti-immigrant fanatics who are winning in large parts of Europe Maybe they are winning in large parts of Europe because they are people who are sick of listening to know-it-all vapid progressives like you tell them they really SHOULD embrace every illegal migrant that wants to barge into their country, and love all the muslims who despise them and their society, but still want to move in. You are missing the boat, sailor. These European voters have more in common with Trump than they do with your flaccid democratic blather. And they are winning in Europe and they are not fanatics, they are called tax-paying citizens.
1
Perhaps, sir, the real odious policies are the ones that those with the "Eurovision" have been imposing upon those who do not wish them to be implemented?
And yes, we all need to consider seriously the whack-a-mole warfare that has been exacerbated by the "regime change" and appeasement policies of the United States under the Obama regime as they have contributed significantly to the destabilization of an already deeply unstable part of our worl.
And yes, it does not take a genius to see where this movement comes from, although, it would appear, that there are any number of non-geniuses in the political world to day that have trouble seeing such obvious things.
Interesting to note, sir, that President Trump's odious policies and simplistic solutions have managed greatly to reduce the threat of ISIS in the deserts of Syria and Iraq and have seemingly brought North Korea to the conclusion that talking is better than the option of being obliterated as they surely would in any military engagement with the United States and South Korea.
1
Sorry Mr. Cohen, you can’t blame this one on the lazy working class “deplorables”, Italian Style, nope the blame for this one lands squarely on the shoulders of the U.S.A., our starting and continuing a war of choice with Iraq(B.T.W. for the young readers none of the 9/11 attackers were from Iraq but from Osama bin Laden down most had Saudi connections) in The Middle East to support Israel and The Royal Saudis has created a nightmare in Europe who has been given the job, due to geography, of cleaning up the mess from our decision to invade Iraq based on lies generated at home and in Britain. The whack a mole war of Bush/Cheney/Blair fifteen years later shows no sign of abating and Italy’s working class much like the working class of the rest of Europe and America are suffering the fallout. Your hero Mario Draghi much like his counterparts Geithner, Bernanke and Yellen in America have demoralized then finally enraged the middle class with their program of austerity for the masses as they bail out the bankers, fund the wars, and ignore the effects of globalization and fiscal policy on the rank and file. The day of reckoning seems to be approaching Roger, people will only listen to lies for so long then they react, fortunately for Italy it’s only with voting now, but if the exit of the rich Italians along with the wealthy elite from around the world seeking shelter in Palm Beach, New York or other bolt holes is any indication the worst is yet to come.
24
Of course it's our fault that the Italians have been pretty much incapable of self-government for the last, oh, 1500 years or so.
U forgot to mention Obama's ingenious idea to invade Libya and "free" the Libyan people of their dictator. The US of course pulled out quickly, leaving behind a failed state through which now half young and male Africa is trying to reach European shores. Many never make it. They get robbed, killed, enslaved by their fellow Africans or simply drown. But the US intervention has created another area of utter chaos with a people far worse off than before, and gangs/terrorists/warlords/people smuggler thriving in the chaos left in its wake.
As you correctly pointed out, Europe (at least the civilized parts of it) are footing the bill and trying to treat the hordes of refugees with as much dignity and humanity as possible. I suggest the huge costs for this effort be counted as part of the war and defence spending of these European nations. Trump keeps claiming they re not spending enough on wars, weapons and armies. But the refugee costs can be directly attributed to the U.S.'s failed war games and therefore are war costs.
1
Beyond: Excellent suggestion, the costs should definitely count towards war and defense spending, as a matter of fact if history is a judge giving people a helping hand as we did with a Germany and Japan had a much more positive effect than did the bombs, had we thought of that post WWI perhaps there would have been no WWII.
1
frankly,
i like beppe grillo, and his movement, the 5Star is no friend of multinationals...and thus the condescending (at best) or derisive treatment they receive at the hands of the cognoscenti at the NYT. the status quo was untenable, and if the italian people want to try a party of outsiders, so be it...
15
I was trying to come up with an appropriate metaphor for what is going on with the world. The thing I came up with is a carnival, in particular, the midway and the arcade.
A carnival distracts, it is a womb of alternative facts. Facts like you might actually win that enormous stuffed bear if you just try this game of chance a few more times or that the nubile green skinned Venusian Queen is actually from Venus, or a queen.
The Venusian Queen and the stuffed bear are the bait. Oh sure, it's a crude lure, but it works. Smart people like to think they're above such temptation, but the sad truth is, they are not. Oh, they may not fall for the bear or the Queen, but they will fall the guy who says he can cure all our country's problems with stricter immigration policy or Health Care for all. Everyone has their weakness.
My mother used to caution me that the carnival was full of pickpockets. That coil of red tickets was like gold to me and I guarded them with great care. The truth of the matter was, there were no pickpockets. The people I imagined were after my money didn't exist. Turns out, the ones that really wanted it were up on the dais shouting down to me to "Step right up". The thing was, I was more than willing to give them my coin, just so long as I thought I could win.
Italy is in a mess, but so are most nation-states these days. Cheap solutions are easy to peddle and snatched up like kewpie dolls. But what sense is there in a dollar spent on a five cent prize?
5
Salvini said, in sum and substance, that if he becomes PM, George Soros will be arrested if he stepped foot in Italy.
Now there’s a leader.
15
The wise Mario Draghi completes his term as governor of the European Central Bank in October 2019......
Yep. That's what Europe is crying out for. A centrist technocrat who will parrot the concerns of the liberal and metropolitan elite......
8
Wear are witnessing a surge in the mass psychology of hysteria. There are antidotes. But democratic leaders follow the needle of mass psychology rather than lead it. Call a psychoanalyst.
6
Collapsing euro-liberal narrative is solely a result of inability of establishment to answer present challenges. So-called liberal forces or traditional forces or system parties or simpler to say Merkel-Junker-Macron syndicate, they are not only not able to solve problems and counter challenges they even not able to realize them. The problems has been mounting all over the continent for last decade. Refugees, growing crime, stagnating economy, terrific bureaucracy, falling birth rates, evaporating of middle class - you name it.
Elites still try to keep discourse over liberal values and danger from populists.
But vast majority of people simply don't care which set of values are at consensus - liberal, conservative or religious. They want better jobs, higher wages, security for their children and prospects for the future.
Liberalism is not able to deliver any of that. It's over.
23
Keep in mind that Renzi is NOT stepping down as head of the center-left DP, as has usually happened following an electoral defeat. He is staying on -- to make sure that the DP does not enter into a coalition government with the 5 Star party. Only AFTER no government can be formed, has he said he would step down. Why? Because Renzi still dreams of power, and is trying to sabotage the chance of any other potential DP leaders to actually do something positive in a coalition with 5 Star (Note that many 5 Star voters are disaffected DP members who switched because they despise the naked power-lust and incompetance of Renzi.) The NYT reporters seem to be missing this important point --- in Italian news this is being given its proper context.
4
Cohen, establishment mouthpiece, has the temerity to call a populist majority in a free election,"illiberal." Perhaps one day he will condescend to define "liberal." The vote was against the EU as much as against a coalition that has presided over economic stagnation, unconscionable youth unemployment and an immigration crisis, in large measure itself due to the EU.
It seems that whenever the establishment status quo is threatened, much less upturned, people like Cohen suffer acute anxiety. Imagine, the hoi polloi had the temerity to raise their voices and cast their votes against the hoi aristoi. OMG! Where will it happen next?
Cohen refers to the "Franco-German liberal democratic core." What nonsense! The EU consists mainly of an unelected group of bureaucrats, whose purpose consists largely of maintaining control over policy and process that define the opaque networks of power and privilege that is the reality of the EU. The EU is led by a group of appointed former national politicians.
It is instructive that the immigration crisis became a crisis only when Germany became saddled with immigrants Eastern Europe didn't want. Italy and Greece have had to accept arrivals without any assistance from the EU. Now "liberal" France and illiberal Austria have closed their borders to movement of immigrants in Italy.
The Greek debt crisis is an example of how the EU is dominated by the "liberal" Franco-German axis. Bail out Benelux, German and French banks: shaft Greece.
33
Very true - the NYT is becoming Orwellian. War is Peace and Liberal, Freedom is Slavery, Liberal is Illiberal.
1
Here's a phrase how Italians are looking at the big neighbor in the North, Germany. It must stem from the region around Naples, is very funny and was brought to Germany by Goethe at the end of the 18th Century:
Sempre neve, case di legno, gran ignoranza, ma denari assai ( Always snow, houses made of wood, great stupidity, but enough money).
This is so fantastic Italian, such an over-boarding humor that one has always be fond of the Italian people (despite their votings, despite their governments).
4
Once again a disaffected population votes out the ruling class and hands over power to unqualified xenophobes. The problem in the UK, US and now Italy is the gross inequality between rich and poor. It is ironic in the US that the anger lead to the election of someone who is exacerbating the problem. Let’s see how it turns out in Europe.
5
Might be different. Europeans tend to expect more from their governments, in terms of support, than US voters do.
Now the Trump-phobia and Putin-fever have even infected Roger Cohen, getting in the way of evidence-based analysis.
Read the accompanying article by Severgnini. Much more meat in the broth there.
9
If the forces of liberalism and the well-educated class are to win back the world from the know-nothings, the neofascists, the racists, and the stupids, they must do three things:
1. Make sure the rule of law applies to financial criminals. The great malefactors of the 2008 economic meltdown should have been rotting in prison for the rest of their lives, not living high on the hog in their gilded palaces. More broadly, this is the biggest type of crime today, not holdups by men in masks. Our 401k's, our health benefits, our right to sane work laws, are being stolen from under our noses, and we are told this is legal.
2. Stop supporting corrupt strongmen in former colonies. Stop selling them weapons. This goes not just for Latin America, but for Congo, the Middle East, and Pakistan and Afghanistan too. If you destroy their lives in their home countries, they will come to yours, and eventually destroy your lives. The immigrants flooding Europe come from cultures that are at least two hundred years behind, and their religious, sexual, and social mores are inexorably going to make Europe less progressive, to say nothing of the accompanying chaos and instability.
3. Focus like a hawk on items 1 and 2. If you dissipate your energies arguing about gender pronouns and whether teachers should use red pens to grade exams, the scoundrels with money are going to keep winning.
22
Can Steve Bannon in the middle of the Italian election, steering Italians this way or that, be compared to some Russian hackers? Foreigners have always put their two cents into big national elections all over the world. What exactly are the crimes we are talking about in the Mueller investigation? Would you be colluding with me to influence American democracy if you answer? I get the part about the crime of hacking against Hillary to get her emails, but I am not convinced that any of the Russian involvement is as big as the involvement of Steve Bannon in Italy.
3
This chaos is much improved over the end of WWII when Italy was on the verge of voting in a Communist government.
1
Attacking immigration as the primary problem faced by Italians will only result in the continuation of an anemic economy, a debased public sector and endemic corruption.
1
But it will be Italian....
People in Italy are angry. Angry at the established corrupt to the core system of government. Angry at high taxes and overwhelmed with a wave of immigrants
they cannot handle and support properly. How do you house, educate integrate tens of thousands of people with little or no skills and cannot speak the native language. Effectively the Italians simply want to clean house and had no where else to go but the 5 star people.
25
You know - we are living in a world of drama queens now - as if the Italians would ever vote for anyone other than a buffoon or a clown (or ever did) - they have always been absurdists and the only thing more absurd than Italian politics is taking any notice of them.
The real lesson to be learned from this week is that the center can hold - as when the formerly German left agrees to its own extinction by agreeing to be subsumed entirely into the formerly German right - simply to create a center in opposition to these various fringes. This was real news -and an amazing act of self-denial in the name of the center holding.
So - why is anyone taking any notice of the comedians in Italy when there is real news out there? Why has the focus become the absurdists rather than the centrists?
As a double national, European and American, I take offense with the general line of the New York Times regarding this issue, which is pro European Establishment and Brussels and against the interest of the people of Europe who feel rightfully shafted by recent developments and power grabs from Brussels and Germany. I don't see an ounce of respect and compassion for bona fide Europeans.
The NYT forgets that Europe is not the United States, Europe does not want to become the United States, a melting pot of the world's downtrodden, and upon signing the adherence to the EU project, none of these EU countries signed for a loss of sovereignty when it comes to immigration -- the constitution of many E U countries specifically prohibits immigration. The power grab happened later....
The NYT Editorials calls the populists demagogues, aka the bad guys, where the good guys are the ones who turn Europe into a copy of the US against the will of its citizens. I call these "Demagogues" Patriots, and I would appreciate if the NYT editorial team would understand they are patriots who represent people's wishes and best interests.
21
As a European and American double national, I disagree with you. These people may consider themselves patriots, but they are also demagogues.
The NYT editorial team has no obligations to call them what you call them.
All of this trouble coincides neatly with the ascendance of Neo-Liberalism and it's fundamentalist economic principles. Just sayin'.
5
With mass immigration, the liberal elite overplayed their mandate. All Europe is paying the price. Just as in America, the lesson to the Left is plain: do not give away what is not yours to give. On both continents, working people cling to nationality. With the failure of religion, nationality is all they have. The liberals gave it away with globalization and mass immigration. The liberals made a historic mistake, which we are all paying for now. You cannot give away what is not yours to give.
24
Italy's 65 governments since 1946 have largely been a joke, and this one looks to be no different. One doesn't have to read much below "vapid inexperience." Trump would be right at home there.
2
"The Five Star Movement has stepped into a void with its inarticulate ire and its very southern opacity"
This is may well be true. Il movimento 5 stelle is a joke, comparable to Mr. Trump's election to the USA presidency. Horrible. The founder, Mr. Grillo, is as demented and lunatic as Mr. Trump in his statements.
However, the initial sentence is true. Italy has had a civilization and therefore governance since well before the founding of what would become the Roman Empire sometime in the millenium or two before the common era. Thus for many millennia, occupants of Italy have seen and experienced it all, many times over.
The blather from Mr. Bannon is to be expected. He should be completed ignored. He has no clue what he is blathering about of course.
2
Well, mob rule was practically invented in Italy. The Romans had a thing or two to say about government by the hoi polloi. The film Gladiator is beginning to look fearsomely prophetic.
1
Right. The common people should not be allowed to govern themselves. So says Roger.
1
"The United States as a European power has been essential to European stability"
Pas du tout, M. Cohen
The wave of immigrants from Afghanistan, Syria, Iraq, Libya, Yemen, that weakened Ms. Merkel, shored up populist in Eastern Europe, and now causes turmoil politics of Italy was created by the incomprehensible inept foreign policy in the Mid East.
It is the consequences of imbecile actions of the US that now destabilizes Europe.
17
If Europe suffers so much amnesia that it forgets its own bitter history of the first half of the 20th Century, then there is little or nothing that the US, which is mindlessly ignoring its own political foundation, can do to remind it of the bloody carnage.
It appears the greedy venality periodically drives the collective human psyche toward self-destruction. Maybe we can stand the stable prosperity borne of good common political sense, but not for long. Today we are giving reign to our worst human instincts.
1
The root of populist anger is the pressure of large numbers of illegal immigrants and refugees. A bit of fennel adds flavor to cioppino, too much and it's no longer cioppino.
When kids can no longer use the school gymnasium because it's a home to refugees, even temporarily (temporary as in Palestinian camps???), reasonable, fair and even liberal minds wonder, how far will this go?
People in (Holocaust-denying-but-nonetheless-participating) Poland saw what was happening in Germany and worried. People in crossing zones like Hungary and landing zones like Italy became fed up. Here in America, people in cities like Minneapolis saw drastic changes in a short period of time. Average people, the populi who give power to demagogues who claim to be vox, want to stem the tide.
Reducing the inflow of desperate people is ugly. It puts unfairness front and center. I, born on this soil, get a comfortable life. You, born on that soil, do not. When decent people are forced to look at that reality they want to do something about it... until becomes too much.
Oceans and the cost of air travel once made it hard for people from poor places to move to rich ones. Absence of Internet and cell phones once kept poor people in the dark about how much the haves really have. No more.
The pressure will continue until poor people become richer at home. Meanwhile, to keep our democracies out of the hands of demagogues, moderates need to embrace strict border controls and fewer refugees.
16
Yes.
Great news. Looks like Europe is finally waking up.
12
Wake up to what?
Not helping the people that have been displaced by the wars the US has waged?
We started the Iraq war and destabilized the region, and now we don't help, and
we don't want to help. But sure, let's be happy that Europe has difficulty with our mess.
Let's be clear. There is a real and highly justifiable backlash to the arrogance failure and crony capitalism displayed by the EU towards many countries in the South of Europe. Have we all simply forgotten Greece? The rape by the banking cartels wreaked such havoc that one should not be surprised that people fear the status quo. The same global elitists that got us here in the first place are not the anointed ones. Many countries ( if they are indeed one country at all), the U.S. included, have an underlying assumption that the "greater good" is some kind of heaven sent answer to our prayers. That is a fairy tale. Past is prologue. The Germans have simply found new ways to dominate their neighbors. But, the neighbors still won't stand for it. Apparently many Germans themselves are disgusted.
10
The U.S. can barely govern itself, much less lead in Europe. And Donald is certainly the poster-child of that situation (tantrums and all). But that did not happen by accident. The Democrats, or liberals, or however you want to categorize them got out of step with the mainstream in America a long time ago. A country that imagines that the Constitution require homosexual marriage, when no one had noticed that for over 200 years, or that illegal immigration should be the norm in order to protect the rights of immigrants, is not likely to remain stable indefinitely.
For its part, Italy has always been a bell-weather in Europe. Not only did Fascism start there, but so did the Revolutions of 1848 and too much else to mention, going back to the Renaissance and the Roman Empire. They always end up on the winning side, and like to point out that they are the only country to start out on the losing side in WW II while still gaining territory. So they will definitely survive. The survival skills of the U.S. have never really been tested, and I don't think Americans quite know what they are heading into.
6
The American Civil War was a grievous test. We’ll let you know when it’s over.
While internationalist pundits like Roger Cohen see no downsides to immigration, and hurl epithets like "nativist," "bigot," and sometimes "racist" at anyone who opposes unlimited immigration, it is clear that the people who actually live in places overrun by immigrants are not happy.
It seems facile and condescending to say that Italians are simply finding scapegoats. Perhaps it is true that Italians love their own culture, and are upset when too many foreigners come to town, speaking their different languages, eating their different foods, practicing their different religions and rituals. The immigrants can be intolerant themselves, taking offense when liberal-minded Italians show too much skin or drink alcohol. A little immigration is charming; too much is too much, and I can't say I blame the Italians for saying enough is enough.
26
Draghi’s term ends in October 2019, not later this year!
While I often read your columns with a degree of sympathy, I just feel that current events have shown you to be very much out of the times. People have every reason to be angry in the here and now - wages have stagnated throughout the West and the average worker is worse off that in the early seventies, at least in the US. In places like Italy the benchmark Years may be a couple decades later, but wages are still down and unemployment sky high. Governments throughout the West have have essentially failed in their primary responsibilities - improving the lives of their citizens. This failure, combined with relatively generous policies regarding refugees/immigrants is a toxic recipe for revolt.
The elite in Italy, and Europe in general, is getting what it deserves. The question is whether the EU and clueless individuals like Wolfgang Schaube can ever understand what it means to run a federated state. Hopefully they will come to their sense before it’s too late.
40
Until the primary causes of the increasing desperation of those in the largely Muslim world is addressed pleas for inclusiveness and integration are going to lead to more and more right wing reaction. The prognosis in Africa and the Mid East is poor and it is hard to see any meaningful effort by the west to improve the situation. Perhaps a guaranteed annual income for all Muslims in the near east and south Asia and Africa handed out not to the men or the government but to the individual females combined with some sort of birth control would help. Not allowing immigration would help because it would take away the release valve the corrupt governments have to get rid of the malcontents. Perhaps only allow immigration for women. Then with masses of young men with no future the governments might be forced to take action or endure violent revolution. Now the masses of young men in South Asia, the mid east and Africa see their future in Europe, not in building their own lands.
9
It appears that the wheel of history is turning against the liberal values that sputtered to life in the Renaissance and burst into flame with the Enlightenment. That golden age that beckoned western civilization after the fall of the Soviet Union has collapsed into ruin with the wars of empire and the rise of "rapacious capitalism". Money, greed and power have won, as it seems they always do, ultimately. The center has not held and the bills are coming due.
3
Voters in country after country are saying loud and clear that they don’t want these migrants. Why can’t you take no for an answer? Deportation of those in a country illegally is a legitimate political position.
If Italians want to deport African migrants that’s up to them. If the people of the u.s. wants to deport Mexican and Central American migrants, as I do, that’s fine too. Many of us respect the law and don’t appreciate the cultural and electoral consequences of rampant immigration.
34
"Italians, angered, have been looking for scapegoats."
This human inclination seems to be a growing trend. In the United States, Donald Trump won the presidency because many Americans were willing to vote for condemnation disguised as calls for change. Italy's anti-immigrant League rests on Italians doing the same thing.
thank you for the green bay-florence axis comment. it made me roar with laughter.
1
There is adequate blame on both sides of this issue. Trump, Bannon, et al. irresponsibly stoking the flames of a justified angry electorate with a nihilist approach (I don't know what we're going to do but we're going to do something). As for Europe (which effectively means Germany and France) one commentator phrased it perfectly,"migration did not become a crises until it negatively affected Germany" Combine that with the irresponsible actions of nations such as Italy and Greece in sustaining a party today, pay tomorrow attitude and you see the problem. Elites on both sides of the pond, over the last 40-50 years, have sold out the middle and working classes to their financial benefit. Don't be shocked when the wind you have sown produces the expected whirlwind.
2
Two paragraphs in, and Cohen finds a way to blame Trump. Italy's politics have been a mess long before Trump came to office, so let's have some perspective. The One Trick Pony approach is getting old..
14
Not much to like about the Italian elections, is there Mr. Cohen? After decades of not solving poverty and institutional unemployment, where the main industries for the recent and simply past have been tourism and the laissez-faire attitudes of the old money and the bourgeoisie, everybody enjoying the good life as portrayed to the outside world has been not much solution to those without some strongarm to hold things together.
We thought that our periods of good times followed by the gutting of Democratic progress toward social justice and new ideas being implemented for advancements in education and standards of living were dealt a crushing blow by the two-headed dog of exploitative and dirty capitalism (underwater mortgages and the refusal of large companies to maintain a foundation for production in our homeland) and the stingy small-minded politicians wanting
to hold onto their bottom-land and letting the bulldozers into the wide open spaces that used to be a place for small entrepreneurs to take a shot.
Really, I'm not much of a critic, but it seems to me that too many of those talking ought to open up their ears and let the stale air out, not that there aren't enough crazy ideas to beware. Even with seemingly low unemployment (really, low employment opportunities) the gnawing reality is low incomes that don't rise with effort overwhelm the vulgar greed among
the moneyed riche and nouveau-riche.
4
It is high time that Europe,nay the World,learns a lesson that neo-liberal,market driven economy is a dismal failure.The neo-liberal economic order embraced by the World leaders since Reagan-Thatcher days have granted Corporates free hand,unregulated and unhindered, to accumulate wealth and concentrate it in a tiny a few centre.
Consequently,the austerity 'mantra' that the European Union so proudly professes ,serves as a template for high unemployment,in particular among youth,corruption rife and anti-immigrant rhetoric. This is a fodder for neo-fascist tendencies coupled with populism.It is difficult to fight populism.Because it is not an ideology,it has no principles which can be refuted rationally.
The electoral success of the ' Five Star Party' in recently held Italian election is no surprise to those who have even a slight insight into the evil of neo-liberal economic disaster.
Most unfortunately,Macron and Merkel are also pursuing the beaten track of neo-liberal economy in their respective country and the rise of neo-fascist tendencies in France as well as in Germany is on the horizon.
The only solution rests with pro-poor ,free education and free health care programme with restriction on the corporate power and a state control of means of production.This amounts to the due share of labour in industrial or agricultural production system.This is a way forward for an equitable distribution of wealth and antidote to ' wealth for the wealthy' neoliberal doctrine.
5
Mr. Cohen's envisioned "Franco-German liberal core" has been significantly eroded. While the international press celebrated Macron's victory, the right-wing is Le Pen vote is large and dynamic. As for Germany, Merkel could barely cobble a coalition government together and the far-right AfD now equals or even exceeds in some polls the Social Democratic party. The European Center is not holding.
As for the "wandering Africans" mentioned, it may be impolitic but nonetheless necessary to point out that many of them come from oil superpowers (Nigeria, for example). And they are drowning in the Med to reach a Europe with soaring youth unemployment and a strained social welfare system. While NY Times policy in its editorials and news coverages appears to disregard the need for any control and limits on any sort of migration, it is still worthwhile asking African elites in control of resource-rich areas why their nations don't look like other oil powers in the Mideast and elsewhere. And no, stale rhetoric about the "legacies of colonialism" is not a satisfactory answer as many other countries that have been colonized in the past (those with and without resources) are not in the business of the organized export of their impoverished citizens.
17
The Italian elites have done such a great job governing for the past few decades it is difficult to believe that the average citizen might want to throw them out of office. The youth unemployment rate, after all, is down to only 31.5 percent (that's among people who are actually in the workforce; roughly 20 percent of Italians are neither in school nor seeking work). For comparison, the U.S. youth unemployment rate is just under 10 percent.
8
Accurate the writer's points may be, I find it hard to credit his mention of Mario Draghi, given the failure of Mario Monti to turn Italy around during his (short) term. What was it about being ahistorical?
1
In addition to its structural problems, Italy is being slowly destroyed by the toxic simultaneous intersection of three geostrategic forces which are extremely difficult to control:
1. Economic globalization, forcing governments to "compete" by constricting wages and expanding outsourcing;
2. The massive burden of financial debt (Italy having the highest debt load after Greece), which is unsustainable without either a debt restructuring (i.e. partial debt forgiveness), patrimonial tax, or a monetary devaluation (impossible with the single currency). The coming rise in interest rates will only exacerbate this problem, as the debt servicing burden will increase;
3. Uncontrolled migration of destitute, unskilled peoples from Africa, the Middle East and elsewhere, many of whom do not integrate easily into Italian society, are unemployable, and all of whom significantly add to the already enormous burden of providing housing, health care and employment to Italian natives. Anger and frustration of locals increases as they are forced to "compete" for scarce government resources with undocumented migrants, and the fact that a small number of such migrants commit serious crimes is used to great political advantage by the right-wing anti-immigrant Italian League Party which gained many votes in Sunday's Italian elections. The recent murder and dismemberment of Pamela Mastropietro by Nigerian thugs was the tipping point which caused fear and anger to produce electoral results.
17
The sole litmus test for applying the “illiberal” label appears to be a western country’s approach to illegal immigration. As is typical, illegal immigration is conflated with a legal process of bringing people into a country and non-western countries are excluded from consideration. There are no expectations that countries in the east admit illegal immigrants and we haven’t seen any condemnation on the policies of countries like South Korea and Japan. In addition, little has been written about Israel’s current policy of expelling African asylum seekers, giving them little more than the cost of a plane ticket out of the country.
13
Astonishingly, Berlusconi did not succeed to deceive his rank-and-file Mediaset TV viewers, prone to buy anything he throws at them, with his constant, obsessive, hysterical presence almost everywhere at almost anytime campaigning either on his own TV channels and on state TV RAI. He's a spent force and it shows. He tried to use a more populist card shifting to the far-right with racist and xenophobic statements promising to "repatriate" 600,000 migrants, accomplishing very little and not giving any clear explanation as of how he'll do it. He's probably eating his hat after endorsing the Bossi-Fini bill during one of his governments years ago, still in place - a law that stated a migrant has the right to stay on Italian soil provided coming equipped with a decent job - an absurdity of course, seen that hundred of thousands of migrants would flee from poverty and war-torn countries. Along with Putin and Trump who's likely happy are human trafficking kingpins that made vile and unspeakable pacts with Salvini making so Italy's political sentiment would tilt to the far-right playing with demagoguery and hysterics. Basically, slavery has returned big time: European extreme right envoys would make deals with human traffickers horribly "buying" so many migrants to send on rickety rubber dinghies by sea in order to exasperate the EU and lashing out heavily against them afterward. It worked. Salvini managed to outflank even Berlusconi on a racist and xenophobia political platform.
1
"The momentum is with the nativist insurgency, in part because the United States under Donald Trump has vanished as any sort of counterweight to European intolerance."
The USA has lost its authority, moral and military, under Trump. The man who claimed to be the best negotiator is nothing more than a barking dog that barks and barks and hopes that somebody will notice. And, if perchance a bone is thrown towards the dog, it'll claim to be the result of its barking.
This is a man who has no notion of soft power, how to garner and wield it. Little wonder he likes authoritarian heads of state.
1
Yes, because Trump is not like Obama, a vote for cheap labor.
Without dwelling overmuch on the traditional insanity of Italian politics we need to figure out a way to deal with crisis migration. We call it immigration but that word doesn’t do justice to what is really happening here. You don’t have to be a bigot to be alarmed by the ineffective response of governments and the societies they represent to crisis migration. These are people fleeing from man made disasters, under similar conditions we all would do the same. The problem lies in our inability to anticipate and act before a crisis like Syria metastasis into a nightmare for all involved. This is only going to get worse as climate changes cause more resource driven crisis migration and the conflict it promotes. This is a species impacting series of events and requires a species response. Because in the end we are animals and will react like animals to exterior stimuli, only our intelligence and reason can allow us to adapt and change the outcome. We are running out of time!
6
Democracies like juries do not always produce the right verdict. Jurors and voters rely on the accuracy of the information they receive. When voters depend on publications and journalists that rely on facts, justice stands a chance of gaining power. When ill-informed voters rely on their own intuition and prejudices justice does not stand a chance.
Reliable publications and journalists once dominated the information marketplace. With the internet offering anything and everything that passes for news and popular newscasts becoming a source of infotainment sandwiched between slick commercials justice is the loser and demagogues win.
Cohen never answers the most obvious question. Why are center-left politicians & parties suddenly losing elections. It has nothing to do with Trump...that's absurd. I wish pundits would stop bringing his name up every time progressives lose a vote. We reached a tipping point decades before he entered the public arena. We are where we are today because the mainstream parties are intellectually bankrupt...this goes double for center left parties. They purport to represent the worker's will on earth but what have they accomplished? Not much. It is beyond irresponsible to think that globalism & unrestricted immigration are good policies. Survey after survey shows that blue-collar voters are likely to have felt competition from immigrants legal & illegal. Even though many of these voters agree with the left on traditional economic issues their primary concern now is to protect their livelihoods. The left needs to ask themselves some very hard questions. Can they acknowledge that the large number of immigrants in a country illegally, many of whom are relatively unskilled, gives rise to economic competition that harms job & wage prospects for voters who live there? Can they admit that one can have concerns about Europe's recent mass inflow of migrants without being prejudiced or racist? That there may be some rational reason for one to be wary of a lax or overly trusting approach to immigration? If the left can't address these questions honestly & quickly then they are doomed.
18
I'm certainly no expert on Italian politics, but do I discern a number of similarities between their situation and ours? The Mezzogiorno (their version of the "red states") is poor and is seeking to blame all of its problems on immigrants and others who are NOT LIKE THEM. They decry the elites while passively expecting rescue from those same elites. They cast their lot with an odious crew of political neophytes who know exactly which buttons to press but who have no aptitude for actually governing. Sound familiar?
No, it's because of austerity imposed by a broken Eurozone system and a flood of refugees from US meddling in the middle east and Libya.
6
All the sympathy and enthusiasm cosmopolitans like Roger Cohen have expressed over the years for THE PEOPLE have vanished without a trace now that THOSE people are trying to articulate their own needs instead of obediently lining up to vote as their betters tell them to do. Youth unemployment is already over 50% in Calabria, Sardegna, and Sicilia. Why would you expect anyone from similarly afflicted regions to not be angry that the EU is burdening Italy with another 200,000 immigrants every year?
The 5 Star Movement, "formed less than a decade ago by a comedian, and now led by a 31-year-old college dropout," as the Times's editorial board put it this morning, "a hodgepodge of resentments" according to Mr. Cohen, is apparently that one thing the gentry are unable to tolerate: a sign of independent thinking from the little people who pay the taxes.
16
My daughter attended a semester of university as an exchange student working in a top drawer Hotel in Bellaggio (Lake Como) as part of her Business major.
People then -2005- hated the EUro replacing the lira and devastating their savings and doubling prices everywhere.
Then come the needless aliens on the top of the economic malaise and , gee, why are the peasants revolting? (quoting the King in The Wizard of Id)
Traveling through Europe last summer, I spoke with Italians who complained about their situation - African migrants loitering and camping around the center of Florence, ruining that once gorgeous city, the high unemployment, and other issues. There was a sense of helplessness and dread regarding the EU's directives pushed on them-- the E.U. establishment has turned into Big Brother none can fight or escape. This was supposed to be a "voluntary" marriage, for as long as it is good and happy for all the parties involved.
15
Borrowing from ChristineMcM's standard format, I open with a quote borrowed from the last line of her citation:
"Trump, being ahistorical, cares nothing for European tragedy, only about European tariffs."
Not only does Trump care nothing for European tragedy, he cares even less for American tragedy.
And yes, here in this northern outpost with snow falling silently, peacefully, brushing over any small flaws, it feels as if I am on another planet looking down on the end of the earth as I thought I knew it.
Only-NeverInSweden.blogspot.com
Dual citizen US SE
3
Another article that depicts Italy as a brutally dysfunctional county. As many before me and better than me have said, the center left lost the elections for a lethal combination of failed policies, top-down government, inability to recognise mistakes and eventually the selfish and out of touch act of blaming the people for their lack of political education. Yesterday Renzi was abysmal at his press conference: he rambled and rambled, giving the eerie impression to be putting down the ignorant electorate who preferred fake promises to progressive and intellectually complex reforms.
And this has been the standard reaction of the Democratic Party. It is always someone's else blame and responsibility.
So people voted for a different agenda, simple as that, reacting to the weakness of Pd's platform. As an Italian, M5S and Lega are clearly an earthquake, a recipe for,maybe, a disaster. But at least, they proposed bold ideas and even more courageous measures. What people wanted to listen to.
11
Roger Cohen writes: "The party swept the poor Mezzogiorno, or southern Italy, where a culture of dependency on state handouts is deeply ingrained; unemployment is high; and corruption is rife."
Substitute "Chicago" for "Messogiorno", and Cohen sounds like a Donald Trump-style racist.
And he makes no mention about the fact that our regime-change wars in the Middle East have created the refugee crisis and its inevitable backlash.
I was hoping to learn more about the political ideas underpinning the Northern League party, but all I learned reading this column was that the United States is the indispensable nation and without us Europe will revert to the hopeless mess they were before we came along and saved them.
8
The same three conditions that have affected this election are the same ones that are plaguing the US and Europe. They are:
A huge influx of immigrants who look differently, speak differently and with different cultures.
A large disenfranchised and forgotten native population.
The rise of the fake news internet and abandonment of real traditional TV and print journalism.
Add them all together and we get mob rule. This is like societal alchemy. Mix these three components together in a bowel and an ignorant angry mob appears.
The angry part is easy to justify. But what about the ignorant part? Doesn't that sound terribly elitist and part of the problem?
The reason I use the term ignorant is because the three conditions mentioned are real and true grievances. The ignorant part is because the mob is choosing the wrong people with all the wrong solutions to solve their problems.
The newly put in power don't have clue what to do. They don't have the necessary experience, ideas or policies. They just tell the mob what it wants to hear. Then legitimate media and news is trashed and called fake so there is no way to interject real solutions into the process.
This is Trump, Italian style. It's happening there just as it happened here. So long as fake news like Fox and Limbaugh and their Italian counterparts hold sway, the ignorant mob will stay that way. The mob will never select good leaders if it is fed a diet of lies and hate. Then you get Trump.
45
A huge influx of immigrants who look differently, but our brothers and sisters. When I was in Greece on the island of Lesbos last October I saw a huge red graffiti "Immigrants are welcome here". It seems Greeks have lost their money but not their humanity.
3
sorry, but where is the huge influx of immigrants in the US? Thought that happened 1890s-1920s.
4
Your synopsis is largely spot on. But you ignore the other half of the equation. When the alternative is "more of the same" (Hillary Clinton), that the mob is rejecting, by voting or by staying at home, Trump is the inevitable result.
Jennifer Rubin correctly called it a "primal scream." I did not vote for Trump, but like so many others, I will be heard. One way or another this corrupt plutocracy is coming to an end.
Enough of us---around the world---have had enough!
The success of the Five Star Movement and the League is attributable primarily to Germany for two reasons:
First, Germany’s dominance in developing EU monetary policies that has resulted in extraordinarily high unemployment rates for the Mediterranean countries of Southern Europe.
Second, Angela Merkel’s open invitation to migrants-followed by backpedaling putting more of the immigration burden onto Southern Europe.
The solution to the problem will only come if the Northern European countries are willing to adopt monetary policies that favor economic growth in the Southern European countries, and combined it with a unified immigration policy that does not leave the burden of immigration on Southern European nations.
Absent these changes, the disintegration of the EU is inevitable.
27
Was not the entire point of the establishment of the Italian nation like every nation to direct its own course? If Bonn is in control of event in Italy, then they are no longer a sovereign nation. Perhaps they want to be so again.
5
This is what happens when a migration situation gets out of control, when a government fails its basic responsibility to its citizens.
The responsibility of any government first and foremost is to its own citizens and not illegal migrants.
And it is the responsibility of the leaders in the immigrant-exporting countries to protect and offer opportunities to their citizens; Western countries can certainly help in this regard by financial aid, but NOT by taking in any more of their citizens.
Italy has now joined Austria (since Oct 2017), Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic, and Slovakia by electing a conservative government.
Merkel, with her chaotic mass migration invitation in 2015, is ironically partly responsible for this right turn in Europe. She was reelected but just barely, and she will not have a mandate, and the conservative AfD is now her main opposition and is ascendant.
Europeans are exercising their democratic right, and want their leaders to focus on them, their citizens, and not migrants from continents away.
92
The concepts of “nation” and “citizenship” in the West are deeply rooted in race and racism. To many anything rooted in race is ipso facto illegitimate and immoral, therefore the complete deinnervation of the will to defend either. I think they are wrong. Real life is not a morality play. They are rooted in racism but put a fence around it. Good fences make good neighbors.
1
As italian, I can say that election results is PARTIALLY due by migration situation. Sure, politicians used immigrants to trigger the debate, but in Italy is happening something more, since 10 years.
It's about the juncture of
the failure of old-style parties, brimful of corruption
economic crisis, wich hardly hit italian economy since 2009
Italians are poorest now, job market was hardly worn by the crisis.
Old parties shown their corruption in the last 15 years, and their inability to contain the economic crisis.
Italians knows african immigration since ever, but this huge immigration (due to MANY situations) comes to a weakest Italy, and poorer and tired people.
Nobody sais that that most immigrants in last 20 years are from Romania, Ukraina, China.
As an italian, i can say that immigration is a SECONDARY trouble after:
economic and job crisis
corruption and mafia
italian public debt
You got the point about "people wants their leader focus on their citizens". The problem are leaders who try to make immigration the first problem (and angry-blinded-stupid people believe them)
If tomorrow morning every single immigrant returned to their own contry, italian debt won't be paied, mafia won't disappear, corruption won't be healed, tax evasion won't stop, and business owners won't stop to leave Italy to produce in Turkey, Czech Republic, Romania or any cheaper job-taxed countries.
I kind of thought the focus of the liberals was on everyone without regard for who they are and the focus of the neo-nazis (not conservatives by any stretch) is 100% on the "undeserving" others.
Roger Cohen makes an interesting remark: the possibility of Mario Draghi being Italy's potential white knight. "Super Mario" is known for being "wise" and highly respectable. Although he "completes his term as governor of the European Central Bank in October," it remains to be seen whether he has appetite for taking his country out of the political mess, which has been its hallmark for decades. He would only be inspired by the challenge of writing Italy's history.
Cohen is right that Draghi may be "the best answer to Italy’s problems" and the seven months that Italians have to wait are worth the while. Besides if any government be formed, it would soon collapse, prompting calls for a snap election.
2
Draghi has already made his "White knight" part in EU Bank, italians have only to thank him.
The problem is that italian government didn't take advantage of this time to heal economy. So when Mario will leave the position, it would be a new season of fights between Italy and EU.
Yet, I don't think that the solution of problems could came from "bank men".
Italy have structural problems and inequalities due by DECADES of bad administration, waste of public money and corruption.
Untill it won't be a cultural revolution about corruption and tax evasion, our problems won't be solved, not even by Mario Draghi.
People voted "5 Stars" 'cause are hoping that they could represent a start to that revolution, but it's really hard to think that solutions are behind the corner.
1
This electoral result could easily lead to a new Euro- crisis.
It's most unlikely that the populist winners are willing to adress the huge Italian deficit (!31% GDP) by austerity measures.
The northern European countries however, such as Sweden, Finland, Holland etc., are adamant on compliance with the Euro-rules such as a maximum deficit of 60 %. Interesting times are ahead, indeed.
2
One should hesitate to opine on Italy. It's so riddled with corruption and malfeasance. It will take months to form a government and then Five Star if it's part of the government will actually have to make the trains run on time which is a lot more difficult than talking about it. Their candidate got elected mayor of Rome and it turned into a disaster. We should also beware of taking too seriously all the bluster about the Euro and EU. Like the Greeks some Italians might think leaving the Euro until someone points out they will be facing a 35% devaluation. Remember the Lampedusan formulation. In Italy things must change to stay as they are.
4
"The Five Star Movement, a web-based party representing a ragtag band of disaffected voters". So, a third of Italy's voters are ragtag band? To which the Lega adds another 17 %. Thus, half of Italy's voters are deploarbles in Hillary Clinton's vocabulary.
"The wise Mario Draghi completes his term as governor of the European Central Bank in October. He’s the best answer to Italy’s problems I can see."
I don't think that most Italian voters see Draghi's background at Goldman Sachs as a political merit.
The "politics of the mob" are gaining ground in Europe. Why? Because more and more people realize that the political elites are more concerned with their own wellbeing than that of their voters.
63
The problem with these populist movements is that we have: anger, without an articulated strategy; claimed reforms that are compounding the claimed evils; leaders who are, in fact, without principle. That becomes more apparent every day in all of those places that are ruled (or fumbled) by the so-called populist reformers. Of course we needed lots of rational, effective reform. That is not what these people are providing.
3
"The problem with these populist movements is that we have: anger, without an articulated strategy; claimed reforms that are compounding the claimed evils; leaders who are, in fact, without principle."
Wrong. The folks who are genuinely "without principle" are the bought-and-paid-for political establishment, who lazily allow the countries they are entrusted to lead disintegrate into economic and social chaos (see: unlimited immigration with no regard to its consequences, massive unemployment and economic stagnation caused by putting bankers ahead of the public, and the abject refusal of officials to pay any attention to the needs of their constituents). These aren't "claimed evils" - they are quite real. How can you blame voters for kicking the bums out at election time? Wouldn't you do the same?
9
The problem with establishment elites across the globe is that they pledge allegiance to democracy as long as the outcome is what they consider "correct", i.e. the winner is one of the establishment parties or blocks, usually out of two, which periodically change places, status quo is preserved, and "all is well". As soon as people vote for someone who does not fit the establishment mode, there is a "grave threat to democracy". The establishment needs to be reminded that democracy means people's will, no matter how distasteful it might be to career politicians, pundits, think tanks, bureaucrats, mainstream media, special interests, etc.
69
I think few Americans realise the size of the problem Italy has with refugees.
In Tuscany ,for example, every town now has dozens of refugees who ,by law, may not work legally.
One sees them loitering in most town centers and train stations.
To earn pocket money they often become small time dealers or door to door "VU CUMPRAs" hawking cheap house hold goods .
Organised crime makes huge sums trafficking and employing these refugees.
I have met dozens .
Most speak little Italian,most are male....
Most are perfectly nice people in difficult situations.
But...they have nowhere to go on to.
The sad and scary reality is that the better they are treated the more likely the will continue to arrive.
JMHO There is no good,politically possible, humane answer.
48
I agree. Anywhere south of Rome is fast becoming a open-air ghetto. The Carabinieri don't have the manpower or resources to pitch 50 Africans out of a empty building they are squatting in. And trying to get these illegal migrants out will be almost impossible. They will refuse to leave. They know nothing about law and could care less that they are breaking it. And please drop the "refugees" sobriquet. These people are job and welfare hunters.
If they get a box of sunglasses to sell (even though 35 other people are doing the same, they will consider it their right to stay in Italy And this is all OVER Italy and has been going on for 20 years. And the government hasn't had the GUTS to stop it and start deporting these people--only gave them a 10-day pass, knowing they would head for GB, or France, or Germany and not stay in Italy. Those days are over, and now this mass is congealing in Italy. Italians know it.
1
It seems to me that the key here is defining what Cohen means by liberal. If by that he means classic 19th century Liberalism, yes, people moved away from that a while ago. If, on the other hand, Cohen means moving away from post WWII liberalism, UK, EU, FDR-era liberalism, then no, I think people would gladly embrace that kind of liberalism.
However, if Cohen means 21st Century, open the borders, PC culture wars, NEOLIBERALISM, run from Brussels, then yes, most emphatically Europe is moving away from that mess. Speedily. Wisely.
57
The anti-immigration position that brought victory to far-right Italian parties like Matteo Salvini’s League should not obscure the good so many Italians have been doing to help refugees, who are rescued at sea and given shelter at great taxpayer expense, with reluctant and insufficient help from other EU countries. Indicating a majority of Italians can’t abide this generosity any longer, the election makes human decency a second class citizen. Italians who voted for these demagogues will gloat, but when asked what has to be done when men, women and children are running from war, violence or poverty, all they do is stutter.
4
Instead of insulting the Italian, Hungarian, Polish, English voters (as well as a good share of the German and French) by calling them "illiberal" try to look at their demands:
The key is application of existing immigration law: Most of the migrants who cause the problem are illegal immigrants, who come under the disguise of being political or war refugees and are not (94% of all political asyl request in France are refused). Despite being clearly in breach of the law, they are not sent back.
If the "liberal" elites really want to stay in power, all they need to do is apply the law. Is this to much to ask?
67
Just because M5S and Lega, as well as Brexit and Trump, are problematic does not mean that their ascents to power are unfortunate or illegitimate outcomes of their respective elections. In each case, voters responded to real concerns. We have to let the democratic process function as it is designed to function. Evolution is not always easy, or pretty.
20
Syriza in Greece, Podemos in Spain, Sinn Fein in Ireland, Front national in France, 5Star…
Fantasizing about eliminating national debt, or painlessly dissolving the big bad euro, or magically shooing away globalization, there is a case to be made that when instant solutions are promised, they can produce magnificent, and just as instant, disappointments.
The more successful populist parties and governments have turned more mainstream, with the realities of a complex world catching up brutally (Greece) and the less successful have been booted out of office swiftly within a few months (Netherlands in the early 2000’s).
It turns out the populist may just fail like other traditional parties, but they are, as is the case in Italy, just more incompetent, and guilty of raising hopes of solving immense challenges with easy solutions, “in the name of the people”. The disruption may be costlier than anyone believes.
4
Mario Draghi? The President of the ECB (whose term lasts until November 2019? The 70-year old former MD of Goldman Sachs International? That Mario Draghi? He's going to be the answer to Italy's problems?
I'm confused. Mario Draghi would gain the support of competing "populist" anti-establishment, anti-Euro/anti-ECB Italian political parties to form a government while still President of the ECB? Or having resigned from that position to do so?
No. I'm just not getting it.
7
Mr. Cohen:
I wish I could share your optimistic hopes for the future of my Country of birth.
Alas! seven months of chaos and bitter divisions can take decades to mend. Besides, what makes you think that the very wise and dignified Mario Draghi would want to undertake such an impossible mission?
Do you remember what happened when Monti tried?
Meanwhile Putin celebrates.
"Divide et impera" has worked very well for over two thousand years as a strategy. It works even more efficiently when applied to societies that have become too comfortable and complacent.
Good bye, Dolce Vita.
5
Knowing nothing about the Italian election, I turned to this column.
Here, I learned that the victorious 5 Star Movement is a "ragtag band of disaffected voters"; a movement that is "tech-savvy, angry, sympathetic to Vladimir Putin -- a vehicle for a hodgepodge of resentments and “fake news.” and that " the party swept the poor Mezzogiorno, or southern Italy, where a culture of dependency on state handouts is deeply ingrained" (sounds like Trump's description of Haiti).
This seemed like an incomplete description, so I turned to other sources. Now I'm back on the comments page for follow-up observations.
What I learned bears little resemblance to Mr. Cohen's description. In fact, the victorious 5 Star party resembles a younger, hipper version of the Green Party with a social justice and environmental platform. They support a guaranteed minimum income. It's 5 stars refer to "public water access, sustainable transportation, sustainable development, a right to internet access, and environmentalism". They're mixed on immigration, but the 5 Star voters turned down an anti-immigration position. They are critical of the EU but their leadership supports staying in the EU while working to change the European Union fiscal policies.
Why would the NYT columnists and editorial board give us the strong impression that Italy's vote indicates that Europe is turning hard right, when in fact a soft left movement won the plurality of votes?
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Mr. Cohen, the so-called illiberal movements you mention are "illiberal" only regarding immigration policies, because these countries, Hungary, Poland, Italy and so forth, want to maintain the integrity of their culture and demographic composition. They are very liberal countries in other respects, in many instances more liberal than the US - less groupthink and PC uniformity than here, more freedom of action and thought than in today's increasingly Orwellian America.
40
A few years ago I have visited Pisa. Not far from the Piazza del Duomo, where the tower of Pisa stands, hundreds of African refugees were gathering together, improvising an African market, selling things as cheap jewelry, second hand clothes, some warm food.
It was sympathetic, but how in the world are these refugees ever
going to integrate in the Italian society? It seems impossible to me.
17
Answer, they are not going to. They could care less about integration. They think they can to wait until the situation is so bad that they will be given apartments and everything they need--even if Italians have to go without. That is the reality that Italians are dealing with. And the explains this result.
7
Wishful thanking about Mario Draghi, who is indeed a sensible man, but he has avoided entering the arena in the past. It seems he doesn't have the stomach for Italian politics, and most of the Italian leadership don't care much for him either. He has no natural constituency (he doesn't stand for anything other than government by technocrats), he has issued no proposals on the major issues of the day (immigration and corruption), and he is decidedly short on charisma. He looks a lot better to Americans than he does to Italians.
2
When did the UK cease to be a core liberal democracy? The rule of law is still far stronger here than elsewhere in Europe. If Cohen thinks that there are no powerful angry illiberal elements in France and Germany, he must be living in a parallel universe. Corbyn and his team, who now constitute the Labour Party, would be very alarmed, if not amused, to be descibed as "centre" socialists.
2
Neither Roger Cohen, nor the foreign press in general have understood the main reason behind the success of the five star movement. This party is the only one which credibly commits to fighting corruption; their representatives, to show their disgust for the lavish compensation and perks that mainstream politicians have bestowed on themselves, pay back part of their salary to the state; they also have a strict rule banning indicted candidates from running for office, unlike mainstream parties which are replete with felons. Their strong anti-corruption stance explains why Five Star have done so well in the south, where corruption is entrenched. Why is it that the foreign press bemoans it when Italy rebelles against corruption? And as for the backlash for wholly uncontrolled migration from Africa, in the last few years the leftist government has welcomed with open arms the equivalent (if Italy had the US population) of 30 million undocumented migrants from Africa, who, in a high unemployment country, live on welfare. How would Americans react to that?
86
Your comment makes clear that people easily believe in what web says.... as to the "pay back" of salary for exemple.... (their) web doesn't tell us that after having "paid back" they takes 3/4 times extra the amount of salary as "expense account".... never heard about? of course, not to be detailed....
4
Thanks for the reasonable explanation of the 5 Star popularity. We are seeing democracy in action, even if some results are very unpleasant at the moment.
2
It is frankly sad to see people singing the praises of "movements" lead by ignorant bullies like Beppe Grillo or Salvini.
I voted on Sunday without any hope for a different outocome. What bothers me are the winners' main promises: less taxes, less immigrants and a citizenship wage for everyone. I myself consider them almost impossible to fulfill, the first because we have a huuuuge public debt, the second beacuse we remain the Mediterranean gate to Europe, the third because there are no money. Cheers!
5
Italy is the last of the great western Europe countries to become a unified nation. Creating a single modern nation was extremely difficult because of geography, rugged topography and history.
The competing interests in the 19th century of France, Austria and the Papacy -- together with other groups demanding separate treatment, such as the Venetians -- resisted unification until the 1870s.
There has always been a tension between the “modern” and prosperous North and the poorer South of Italy. Holding the country together has been a task periodically left to authoritarian strongmen.
With the challenge of African migration, Italian feelings are raw, and the indifference of France and Germany to those feelings is causing the rise of reactionary politics in Italy.
American leadership on behalf of Italy is absent, and Donald Trump’s only sympathy – to the extent that he is even aware of the problem – is with the racially tinged politics in the North.
This may get worse before it gets better, and the wildcard in the deck is the Russian meddling via the internet. It would be naïve not to recognize Vladimir Putin’s involvement.
2
What exactly do you see, as 'American leadership' for Italy? A repeat of 1948, when the CIA literally bought the election?
The less anybody, be it America, Russia, China or the Martians get involved, the better.
Mario Draghi term at the ECB will end only at the end of 2019. So you can add 12 months to the final statement.
2
In the end, just as the structure of the global trading system failed American workers by allowing for persistent massive trade imbalances, the workings of the EU served to crush the possibilities for Italian growth. Through the single currency, Italy was forced to adopt a monetary policy suited for Germany with a very different economic structure, without any of the natural Federal fiscal stabilizers that would have allowed an offset. The euro was sold to a skeptical public as a mechanism for maintaining peace on the war-torn continent. Instead it has turned into the trigger for renewed conflict.
10
Italy was not forced into the EU.
Italians were extremely happy when they were allowed to join.
They may have been happy at the outset, but I think Rich888 is making the point that the structure of the EU / Euro were destined to fail based on the structural differences between Germany/France and Italy.
3
Rita, Italy was not “allowed” to join the EU. It was a founding member.
2
In 1990 I did a semester abroad in Rome, a year after the Berlin Wall fell. A Canadian friend observed at the time (presciently, it turns out) that the dolce vita we all were deeply envious of was running on fumes; that this would be the last Italian generation (only the second after WW2, mind you) that would live with such abandon. Their grandparents did the hard work of rebuilding, their parents reaped the rewards, and now already my Italian counterparts, age-wise, already didn’t see a future of possibilities and advancement for themselves.
What we outsiders couldn’t see at the time was the effects of the dissolution of the Soviet empire (with which Italy had a serious romance). Italy was very relevant to the West during the Cold War, when there was fear it could slip into the Soviet orbit. When that fear abated, it became less relevant. And now it is grappling with that.
I’m sad about the fact that my friend’s observation came true. 24 year-old me really thought Italians had found the perfect post-war balance between capitalism and community. 51 year-old me sees it was a house of cards.
24
and alot of this rot has been due to the many promise-everthing do-nothing governments of Berlusconi that augmented the fiscal crisis that now consumes the Italian state.
1
The aging mistress can’t live off the favors of men competing for her affections anymore. Time to get a job.
This mess and others like it are a large part of why I would never be in favor of a multiparty system in the US. Countries which have such a system spend too much time forming coalition governments which are unstable; small fringe parties gain outsized power to dissolve the government if their extreme demands are not met; and the government is always one extremist temper tamper tantrum against having to be disbanded and a new election called.
13
Sounds like our country.
2
An American, I've been sympathetic to the parliamentary system in recent years, but now I have to agree with you.
1
There IS a multi-party system in the US. What there isn't is an electoral system based on proportional representation, even partially. On the other hand, France's system has a reasonably good balance of representation and stability: all parties can present candidates in the first round (with some caveats) and if none receives a majority of the vote (also with a caveat), there is a second round between the top two vote getters. This system was flexible enough to allow a new party (Macron's) to emerge, AND to give that party a working majority of seats. Regardless of one's political lean, surely the possibility of such an outcome is to be welcomed when the top two traditional parties are shown to be corrupt, sclerotic or incompetent, as in France before the latest election.
2
One might reasonably ask how long the U.S. should be expected to serve as a counterweight to European illiberal faction. Is this a European UNION … or just what IS it? One might think that over 70 years really is enough.
I actually haven’t been following this as closely as I should have – the notion that Steve Bannon has again become relevant SOMEWHERE is a surprise. Perhaps the Mezzogiorno deserves him. But will they understand the Darth Vader cape?
The mess in Germany is disconcerting. But a mess in the governance of ITALY? Ho-hum.
3
The US as counterweight? Long gone. Dotard Trump encourages populist parties. All roads lead to Washington when it comes to erosion of democratic core values and norms.
2
The League voters, like the Catalan separatists, don't understand that their well-being is dependent upon that of the rest of the country, and in their desire to keep a couple of euros more for themselves, they put their own prosperity at risk. The 5Star Movement has no plan, no project except the crazy idea of partial or complete separation from EU. In cities where they have governed, they have failed miserably, so nothing can be expected from them. What makes the situation even worse is the fact that Italian bureaucracy cannot take up the slack by judicious management. Five or six years ago 5Star had a chance to form a coalition with the Democratic Party to undertake a clearing of the Italian swamp, but they refused on the concept that all parties are corrupt and they didn't want to cooperate with them. I don't think they have learned much since then. Expect a repeat election or a disastrous coalition of opposites.
35
You don't seem to be very up to date on Italian politics. First of all, you seem to think that Lega is still a separatist movement, while in reality its leader Salvini has completely stopped talking about secession and has instead tried to enlarge its base beyond the North, and indeed Lega now polled at 9% in Palermo (that's right: in Palermo!). Second, the 5 stars movement has completely let off the pedal with their anti EU rhetoric, because they were after the Italian mainstream electorate, which has very little interest in leaving the EU. As for the election of 5 years ago, while I did hope at the time that M5S would cooperate with the Democratic Party, Sunday's election shows that strategically they made the right choice.
1
Jack, do you think that their latest political propaganda really indicates a change of policy. The Lega is playing the anti-immigrant card to the much-affected South. The 5Star movement has no clear direction on what they want to do.
Until Italy gets some hold on fiscal evasion,political corruption and the unworkable justice system, things will continue their chaotic ways. The only thing that is saving the country is the hard work, inventiveness and talent of most Italians.
OK are the power that be ready to start paying attention yet? The US, Britain, kinda Germany, and now Italy all have either elected populist governments or taken major populist stands. I believe the message that the electorates are sending is that you cannot have programs label them as "Progressive" which only benefit a few. The people have finally had enough and are throwing out those governments who do not get the message.
If you want a liberal world order it must benefit the majority of people, not just those at the top. You must lift everyone up, the whole country must have a stake in the outcome. You cannot ship jobs overseas without making provisions for the displaced people. If you do that you will be thrown out of government. Is there anything about this you don't understand?
193
Britain has not elected a populist government. It followed its populist instinct on Brexit but if more young people had voted the result on that is likely to have been different. In the meantime the tories and the labor party remain the two powers in British politics. Italy itself has long been a political basket case, which just leaves you the US among the countries you have cited.
13
Populism is an emotional response, not a plan.
3
By the way, Britain and Germany both have conservative governments. Id hardly call Obama "progressive' - he has done only what every other civilised country did 70 years ago. Not sure about Italy. but your comment about "progressives" is baffling - its conservative governments that have failed to benefit the majority of people, and which continue to do so.
5
What you refer to as "the politics of the mob" is a direct and natural (if overdue) reaction to the "politics of wars, inequality and social injustice".
Italy needs to emerge from its image of a corrupt, serially underperforming nation high on pasta and fashion. The nation is an industrial powerhouse held back by decades of 'traditional politics'. The nation has been shaken down too long by corrupt politicians. The shake-up is long overdue. If "Luigi di Maio "stands for very little" then the previous parties stood for nothing other than maintenance of the status quo and of their obscene parliamentary perks.
71
Not to put TOO fine a point on it, but some would argue that perks could be due an Italian parliament that seeks to actually govern, whether they in fact do or don't. It's "parliaments" in nations governed by religious authorities that are truly entertaining, and quite properly should expect gruel as reward.
2
@Richsrd Luettgen, again you use a piece on Italy to have a dig at my country:
"It's 'Parliaments' in nations governed by religious authorities that are truly entertaining, ....."
For all my nation's corruption and other undeniable problems I can only imagine you were referring to the Jewish State, or to Saudi Wahhabi Arabia or maybe even to the Neocon-Zionist run U.S.A.: Remember George "God told me to invade Iraq" Bush? Well, Mike Pence is waiting in the wings to return your nation to democracy and religious secularism ;-)
2
"Italians, angered, have been looking for scapegoats."
I think it's more: Italians, angered, have been looking for solutions.
There's a French island in the Indian Ocean called Mayotte. Forty percent of its population is now illegal migrants. Does Mr. Cohen think that situation is untenable? What would he do about it? I'd recommend the NYT write an article about it, only I fear the result.
130
Why do the French have a Island in the Indian Ocean?
Maybe they are the illegals.
7
Because the inhabitants of the island, Mayotte, voted to remain French when the neighboring islands in the Comoros archipelago voted for independence.
5
Immigrants are the perfect scapegoats. Instead of looking at the mirror and trying to solve structural problems what is better than individuals with no possessions, no political power, and very often of a different skin color. The mob loves attacking the weak.
2
if Cohen thinks that Mario Draghi can save Italy he's dreaming. The German bankers won't let him anywhere near the reins of power in Italy, and even if he were to play a role in governing Italy, he would be just another neo-liberal at heart who believes in shrinking the state and freeing corporations to create wealth. Just like Renzi, he'd see no alternative but more austerity and would further cut the social safety net and job security. that's not what Italians want nor what they need to grow their economy. You can't expect voters to support liberal democracy when their quality of life deteriorates year after year.
89
What do you expect them to support? A quasi-Nazi cause they have more money in their pockets and more ‘status’?
3
Italy is one of the worst countries in the developed world for doing business. Takes a long time to incorporate a new company; extremely slow and corrupt bureaucracy; labor policies that are easily abused by workers to skip their shifts; high taxes. How can you expect the economy to grow without making it easier for businesses to create the wealth you mention?
1
Italy's quality of life is a mess and only the fascists and xenophobes can fix it. But will the trains run on time?
"The United States as a European power has been essential to European stability, not least in Italy. That’s going, or gone. Amnesiac Europeans seem ready to play with fire. Trump, being ahistorical, cares nothing for European tragedy, only about European tariffs."
What's Steve Bannon doing critiquing the Italian vote? Doesn't he have enough to do without exporting our looney tunes politics overseas?
I guess it's logical that Italy of all countries would fall prey to the odious appeal of bigotry, antiimmigrant forces, and stupidity.
I agree, Roger, the giants of the post-WWII order must be rolling in their graves. They are being betrayed by the very forces they fought so hard against, to wipe fascism from the map of Europe.
And here we are again, just shy of 75 years, right where we started in the 30s, and beyond.
It's been quite a year for Donald Trump, but an even greater one for Robert Mueller.
I just hope the American people eventually get to know everything that happened.
We are full of reasons why, but without the certainty of knowing exactly what happened and in what order.
Eventually truth will out, but when it does, will America be ready?
82
"What's Steve Bannon doing critiquing the Italian vote? Doesn't he have enough to do without exporting our looney tunes politics overseas?"
No, he doesn't have enough to do these days. Since his 15 minutes are thankfully over in the U.S., he's taking his show on the road. A conservative politician in Zurich has brought him to town. They had to change the venue to a larger hall. Not because the Swiss people have any respect for Bannon's positions; more like a crowd gathering to watch a house burn down.
2
At least one of those giants, FDR, would have been very comfortable with the attitudes of the Italian right towards illegal immigrants and probably most other issues as well.
4
When the truth comes out—and when will that be? Before the Second Coming? The real question is do Americans care? I don’t see a lot of solid evidence for that so far. I just see people already picking sides based on who and what they hate. And I think the word hate may be too weak.
Cohen says social media was supposed to bring us together. Who says? Is Twitter like talking to someone face-to-face for an hour at a party? I don’t think so. But then I don’t do social media. Coffee, drinks, a Lebanese lunch; yes. Junior high kids heavy into social media are literally killing themselves.
And the idea that Trump brought on a groundswell of right-wing voters in Italy because of an American vacuum of influence is preposterous. Can we please get over ourselves? What is the point of, at best, a neoliberal government if the economy continues to be stagnant? This was a throw-the-bums-out result.
But surely Merkel and Macron can fix this, right? I mean Merkel sure put poor Greece in its place, didn’t she? Oh yeah, I forgot, Merkel just finished cobbling together a weak coalition government out of what my late dad would have called pressed dog hair and ‘tater peelings passed off as Harris Tweed.
Neoliberalism and two dollars won’t buy a double-shot Americano or a loaf of bread.
5
Since post war Italy has averaged 9 months per government, surely it can survive another 7. However, the tide of alienation is so strong, I wouldn't place any bets on precedent.
Change is usually incremental, and Italy is not at the point of 1848.
14
During that time period, the governments were in fact the same people, but in differing roles. Italian politics and governance are well understood by well-read, intelligent Italians, but hard to understand for non-Italians.
19
It’s one thing when governments rise and fall the way they have done in Italy when employment is high, the standard of living is increasing and there is a general climate of optimism for the future. Most of that is absent now in Italy as well as in good portions of the developed world.
8
yep. moribund and it's only going to get worse