As the world awaits the final outcome of Sunday's parliamentary elections in Italy, the likely rightward shift of the nation's leadership is something that has the European Union's progressive leadership in a panic.
According to Fox News, opinion polling conducted ahead of the election suggested that right-wing party leader Giorgia Meloni was indeed poised to become the country's first woman prime minister, a development that would pull the nation in an indisputably more conservative direction.
Meloni's Brothers of Italy party is known for its populist themes, including a promised crackdown on illegal immigration, lower taxes, and an emphasis on traditional, Christian family values, priorities that have led critics to brand supporters as "neo-fascist."
Unsurprisingly, Meloni's political ascent has sparked a near panic among liberal elites in her own country and across Europe, with the candidate herself stating, "Italy is better than the left-wing governments it has had in recent years. The left is there to blather that everyone is afraid, but the only ones who are afraid are them because they have understood that their system of power is about to end," as Breitbart noted.
"We are ready, until the last vote, to restore freedom and pride to this nation. They say the markets, Europe, TikTok singers, actors, and influencers are worried about a center-right victory. We don't care what they say. We care what the Italians think," Meloni added.
However, it is not only pop culture and mainstream media voices in Italy who have expressed serious alarm about Meloni's seemingly inevitable election, as European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen also chimed in last week with a rather more ominous set of remarks on the matter, as Politico reported.
Speaking at Princeton University, von der Leyen was given an opportunity to opine on the Italian election, during which she stated, "If things go in a difficult direction...we have the tools," suggesting that the Commission could always utilize the power of the EU purse strings to rein in disfavored national governments.
In response to those remarks, Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki of Poland – a nation that has also run afoul of EU leadership in the past – declared, "Von der Leyen's statement was scandalous. She said Brussels had the tools to discipline Italy if it created a government that would not be in favor of Brussels."
Morawiecki continued, "Is this the Europe we want? … That Eurocrats in Brussels dictate what the government should be? This is not the rule of law," aptly calling out the rank hypocrisy of left-wing elites who believe any challenge to their unbroken authority is by definition an existential threat to democracy.
