On this day in 1922 Luigi Facta, Prime Minister of Italy, and his ministers turned in their resignations to King Victor Emmanuel III.
Facta had wanted to declare martial law, which declared the King's signature. Victor Emmanuel refused, having sent Facta a secret note as to his decision. Facta never revealed the contents. He and his cabinet resigned in protest.
Facta would die in 1930 with the public believing that he'd been to weak to encounter Mussolini, when in fact the opposite had been his desire.
U.S. Navy Lt. Commander Godfrey Chevalier became the first person to land an airplane on an American aircraft carrier. He'd die the following month in an airplane crash at age 33.
Probably unusually for a pilot at the time, he wore glasses.
Juli Lynne Charlot, singer and designer of the poodle skirt, was born in New York. She's still living.
Mussolini made a speech to a crowed of 60,000 diehard Fascist supporters, Blackshirts, declaring that the party would either govern by consent or seize power by marching on Rome. Just a few days later, they'd do just that, leading Italy into tragedy.
His speech stated:
Fascists and citizens! It may be, or rather it is almost certain, that my eloquence will disappoint you, accustomed as you are to the impetuosity and rich imagery of your own orators. But since I realize my incapacity for rhetoric, I have decided to limit myself, when speaking, plain to necessity. We have gathered together here at Naples from every part of Italy to perform an act of brotherhood and love. We have with us our brothers from the borderland of betrayed Dalmatia, men who do not intend to yield. (Applause, and cries of "Long live Italian Dalmatia!") There are also the Fascists from Trieste, Istria and Venezia Tridentina, Fascists from all parts of Northern Italy, even from the islands, from Sicily and Sardinia, all come together to affirm quietly and positively the indestructibility of our united faith, which means to oppose strongly every more or less tasked attempt at autonomy or separatism.
Four years ago the Italian infantry, made great through twenty years of work and hardship, the Italian infantry in which the sons of your country were so largely represented, burst from the Piave and, having defeated the Austrians, surged on towards the Isonzo, and only the foolish democratic conception of the war prevented our victorious battalions from marching through the streets of Vienna and the highways of Budapest.
From Rome to Naples. A year ago at Rome, at one time, we found ourselves surrounded by a secret hostility, which had its origin in the misunderstandings and infamies characteristic of the uncertain political world of the capital. We have not forgotten all this.
Today we are happy that all Naples—this city which I call the big safety-reserve of the nation—welcomes us with a sincere and frank enthusiasm, which does our hearts good, both as men and Italians. For this reason I request that not the smallest incident of any kind shall disturb this meeting, for that would be a mistake, and a foolish one. I demand also, as soon as the meeting is over, that every Fascist not belonging to Naples shall leave the town immediately.
All Italy is watching this meeting, because—and let me say this without false modesty—there is not a post-war phenomenon of greater interest and originality in Europe or the world than Italian Fascism.
You certainly cannot expect from me what is usually called a big speech. I made one at Udine, another at Cremona, a third at Milan, and I am almost ashamed to speak again. But in view of the extremely grave situation in which we find ourselves today, I consider this an appropriate opportunity to establish the different points of the problem in order that individual responsibilities may be settled. The moment has arrived, in fact, when the arrow must leave the bow, or the cord, too far stretched, will break.
The Solving of the Problem. You remember that my friend Lupi and I placed before the Chamber the alternatives of this dilemma, which is not only Fascist but also national; that is to say, legality or illegality; Parliamentary conquest or revolution. By which means is Fascism to become the State? For we wish to become the State! Well! By October 3rd I had already settled the question.
When I ask for the elections, when I ask that they shall take place soon, and be regulated by a reformed electoral law, it is clear to everyone that I have chosen my path. The very urgency of my request shows that the tension of my spirit has arrived at breaking point. To have, or not to have, understood this means to hold, or not to hold, the key to the solution of the whole Italian political crisis.
The request came from me; but it also came from a party consisting of a formidably organised mass, which includes the rising generations in Italy and all the best, physically and morally, of the youth of the country; and from a party, too, which had a tremendous following among the vague and unstable public.
But, gentlemen, there is more. This request was made upon the morrow of the incidents of Bolzano and Trento, which had made plain to all eyes the complete paralysis of the Italian State, and revealed, at the same time, the no less complete efficiency of the Fascist State.
Well! In spite of all this, the inadequate Government at Rome puts the question on the footing of public safety and public order!
What we have asked the Government. The whole question has been approached in a fatally mistaken manner. Politicians ask what we want. We are not people who beat about the bush. We speak clearly. We do good to those who do good to us, and evil to those who do evil. What do we want, Fascists? We have answered quite simply: the dissolution of the present Chamber, electoral reform, and elections within a short time from now. We have demanded that the State shall abandon the ridiculous neutral position that it occupies between the national and the anti-national forces. We have asked for severe financial measures and the postponement of the evacuation of the third Dalmatic zone; we have asked for five portfolios as well as for the Commission of Aviation. We have, in fact, asked for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the War Office, the Admiralty, the Ministries of Labour and of Public Works. I am sure none of you will find our requests excessive. But to complete the picture, I will add that I shall not take part with the Government in this legal solution of the problem, and the reason is obvious when you remember that to keep Fascism still under my control I must of necessity have an unrestricted sphere of action both for journalistic and polemic purposes.
A Ridiculous Answer. And what has been the Government's reply? Nothing! No; worse than that, it has given a ridiculous answer. In spite of everything, not one of the politicians has known how to pass the threshold of Montecitrio in order to look the problem of the country in the face. A miserable calculation of our strength has been made; there has been talk of Ministers without portfolios, as if this, after the more or less miserable experiences of the war, was not the culmination of human and political absurdity. There has been talk of sub-portfolios, too; but that is simply laughable! We Fascists do not intend to arrive at government by the window; we do not intend to give up this magnificent spiritual birthright for a miserable mess of ministerial pottage. Because we have what might be called the historical vision of the question as opposed to the merely political and Parliamentary view.
It is not a question of patching together a Government with a certain amount of life, but of including in the Liberal State—which has accomplished a considerable task which we shall not forget—all the forces of the rising generation of Italians which issued victorious from the war. This is essential to the welfare of the State, and not of the State only, but to the history of the nation. And then...?
A Question of Strength. Then, gentlemen, the question, not being understood within its historical limits, asserts itself and becomes a question of strength. As a matter of fact, at turning-points of history force always decides when it is a question of opposing interests and ideas. This is why we have gathered, firmly organised and strongly disciplined our legions, because thus, if the question must be settled by a recourse to force, we shall win. We are worthy of it. It is the right and duty of the Italian people to liberate their political and spiritual life from the parasitic incrustation of the past, which cannot be prolonged indefinitely in the present, as it would mean the death of the future.
It is then quite natural that the Government at Rome should try to divert and counteract the movement; that it should try to break up the Fascist organisation, and to surround us with problems.
These problems have the names of the Monarchy, the Army and Pacification.
The Acceptance of the Monarchy. I have already said that the discussion, abstract or concrete, of the good and evil of the monarchy as an institution is perfectly absurd. Every people in every epoch of history, given the time, place and conditions necessary, has had its regime. There is no doubt that the unity of Italy is soundly based upon the House of Savoy. (Loud applause.) There is equally no doubt that the Italian Monarchy, both by reason of its origin, development and history, cannot put itself in opposition to the new national forces. It did not manifest any opposition upon the occasion of the concession of the Charter, nor when the Italian people—who, even if they were a minority, were a determined and intelligent minority—asked and obtained their country's participation in the war. Would it then have reason to be in opposition today, when Fascism does not intend to attack the regime, but rather to free it from all those superstructures that overshadow its historical position and limit the expansion of our national spirit? Our enemies in vain try to keep this alleged misunderstanding alive.
Fascism and Democracy. The Parliament, gentlemen, and all the paraphernalia of Democracy have nothing in common with the monarchy. Not only this, but neither do we want to take away the people's toy—the Parliament. We say "toy" because a great part of the people seem to think of it in this way. Can you tell me else why, out of eleven million voters, six million do not trouble themselves to vote? It might be, however, that if tomorrow you took their "toy" away from them, they would be aggrieved. But we will not take it away. After all, it is our mentality and our methods that distinguish us from Democracy. Democracy thinks that principles are unchangeable when they can be applied at any time or in any place and situation.
We do not believe that history repeats itself, that it follows a given path; that after Democracy must come super-Democracy. If Democracy had its uses and served the nation in the nineteenth century, it may be that some other political form would be best for the welfare of the nation in the twentieth. So that not even fear of our anti-Democratic policy can influence the decision in favour of that continuity of which I spoke just now.
The Army. As regards the other institution in which the regime is personified—the army—the army knows that when the Ministry advised the officers to go about in civilian clothes to escape attack, we, then a mere handful of bold spirits, forbade it. We have created our ideal. It is faith and ardent love. It is not necessary for it to be brought into the sphere of reality. It is reality in so far as it is a stimulus for faith, hope and courage. Our ideal is the nation. Our ideal is the greatness of the nation, and we subordinate all the rest to this.
For us the nation has a soul and does not consist only in territory. There are nations that have had immense possessions and have left no traces in the history of humanity in spite of them. It is not only size that counts, because, on the other hand, there have been tiny, microscopic States that have left indelible marks in the history of art and philosophy. The greatness of a nation lies in the aggregation of all these virtues and all these conditions. A nation is great when its spiritual force is transferred into reality. Rome was great when, from her small rural democracy, little by little, her influence spread over the whole of Italy. Then she met the warriors of Carthage and fought them. It was one of the first wars in history. Then, bit by bit, she extended the dominion of the Eagle to the furthermost boundaries of the known world, but still, as ever, the Roman Empire is a creation of the spirit, as it was the spirit which first inspired the Roman legions to fight.
Our Syndicalism. What we want now is the greatness of the nation, both materially and spiritually. That is why we have become syndicalist, and not because we think that the masses by reason of their number can create in history something which will last. These myths of the lower kind of Socialist literature we reject. But the working people form a part of the nation; and they are a great part of the nation, necessary to its existence both in peace and in war. They neither can nor ought to be repulsed. They can and must be educated and their legitimate interests protected. We ask them: "Do you wish this state of civil war to continue to disturb the country?" No! For we are the first to suffer from the ceaseless Sunday wrangling with its list of dead and wounded. I was the first to try to bridge over the gap which exists between us and what is called the Italian Bolshevist world.
How Peace can be obtained. To prove this, I have just recently signed an agreement most gladly; in the first place because it was Gabriele d'Annunzio who asked me to, and in the second place because it was, as I thought, another step towards a national peace.
But we are no hysterical women who continually worry themselves by thinking of what might happen. We have not the catastrophic, apocalyptic view of history. The financial problem which is so much talked about is a question of will-power. Millions and millions would be saved if there were men in the Government who had the courage to say "No" to the different requests. But until the financial question is brought on to a political basis it will not be solved. We are all for pacification, and we should like to see all Italians find the common ground upon which it is possible for them to live together in a civilized way. But, on the other hand, we cannot give up our rights and the interests and the future of the nation for the sake of measures of pacification that we propose with loyalty but which are not accepted in the same spirit by the other side. We are at peace with those who ask for peace, but for those who ensnare us and, above all, ensnare the nation, there can be no peace until after victory.
A Hymn to the Queen of the Mediterranean. And now, Fascists and citizens of Naples, I thank you for the attention with which you have listened to me.
Naples gives a fine display of strength, discipline and austerity. It was a happy idea that led to our coming here from all parts of Italy, that has allowed us to see you as you are, to see your people who face the struggle for life like Romans, and who, with the desire to rebuild their lives and to gain wealth through hard work, carry ever in their hearts the love of this their wonderful town, which is destined to a great future, especially if Fascism does not deviate from its path.
Nor must the Democrats say that there is no need for Fascism here, as there has been no Bolshevism, for here there are other political movements no less dangerous than Bolshevism and no less likely to hinder the development of the public conscience.
I already see the Naples of the future endowed with an even greater splendour as the metropolis of the Mediterranean; and I see it together with Bari (which in 1805 had sixteen thousand inhabitants and now has one hundred and fifty thousand) and Palermo forming a powerful triangle. And I see Fascism concentrating all these energies, purifying certain circles, and removing certain members of society, gathering others under its standards.
And now, members of the Fascio of all Italy, lift up your flags and salute Naples, the capital of Southern Italy and the Queen of the Mediterranean!
Today, without a shot being fired, we captured the vibrant soul of Naples, the soul of all Southern Italy. The demonstration is an end in itself and can not turn into a battle, but I say to you with all the solemnity that the moment requires: either we will be given the government or else we must take it by marching on Rome. It is necessary for action to be simultaneous in every part of Italy.
And so, with a speech, Mussolini launched a march that would help take large portions of Europe into fascism, and from there, all of Europe and ultimately the world into war.
The German Reichstag voted 310 to 77 to postpone the 1924 elections into 1925 due to political unrest. It also voted to extend the term of President Ebert into 1925.
On the same day, former German Chancellor Bernhard von Bulow gave an interview in which he indicated there was no chance for a return of the German monarchy as the republican forces were stronger than the "nationalist" ones. He also predicated that Communism would not take hold of the country.
Closer to home, a tragedy, well actually a series of tragedies, appeared on the front page of the newspaper.
For reasons I'm unsure of now, I've mentioned Dr. Norwood, DDS's, death here before. He came to Casper and homesteaded west of town at what is referred to here as "Six Mile Lakes". There are some wet spots out in that general area, so presumably that's what's being referred to here. He wasn't married and apparently desired to be a rancher while also practicing dentistry. He rode a horse into town to his office every day.
Horse use, of course, was still very common, and a second tragedy, the automobile/team collision in a snow storm also gives us a glimpse of one of the dangers of the era.
NOTE: These seemed familiar as I'd run them before. That's a 1920 newspaper, not a 1922 newspaper.
Somewhere on the East Coast, a "conduit" was being built.
Construction at the time still involved a lot of horse power in the literal sense, something that was rapidly changing.
And with that change would come to an end one more daily association of men with animals, making us the poorer for it.
The Convention of Madanya began with representatives of the Allied Powers meeting with Turkish representatives in order to negotiate an end to the Chanak Crisis. The Allied Powers were frankly impaired, as the British government was not willing to fight over the issues the crisis presented without the support of the Dominions, and they didn't have it. The French were not willing to fight either, and the Greek government had collapsed.
On the same day, Metropolitan Gregory of Kydonies, age 58, together with other priests, were executed by the Turks.
The Irish Free State offered an amnesty to its armed opponents who voluntarily surrendered their arms before October 15.
Following that date, the Irish Free State, something that had come about due to civilian use of arms, unless a person buys the claim that those civilians were under arms from a legitimate, if unrecognized, government, would arrest in large numbers Irish Republicans caught with "illegal" arms. Ever since that time, the Irish government has been hostile to civilian's owning arms, something which is truly ironic in context.
Italian Fascists took over the city of Bolzana and deposed the Mayor, who had been in power since 1895, at which time the city had been in Austria.
Giorgia Meloni not sounding like Donald Trump. In a sort of "make Italy great again" speech she calls for uniting the country, governing for all Italians, and doesn't sound like some sort of cheap badly done rendition of Goodfellas. Indeed, her articulate nature comes across, even if you don't grasp Italian, in comparison to Trump's nearly complete lack of it.1Her victory message is certainly different, but the proof, of course, is in the cannolis, not in the menu presentation.
Does the election of Giorgia Meloni tell us something about what's going on in the US right now?
I think it does, or at least did, and therefore explains in part how we got to where we now are.
More than that, does it tell us what isn't going on, and what Trump's backer's might get, or rather the country, if we keep going down this road?
It probably does.
First, we'll note, her victory has already been heralded in parts of the English-speaking world as a non-fascist victory for true conservatism.
At the same time, the American usual suspects, probably none of which actually would be comfortable with Meloni's actual world view, rolled into congratulate her:
Boebert, Marjorie Taylor Greene and Ted Cruz under fire for celebrating Italian far-right victory
Italian politician Giorgia Meloni’s party traces its roots to the Second World War-era fascist movement founded by Benito Mussolini
All of this tells us a few things.
The first is that the FdI's rebranding of itself as a non-neo fascist party is taking root successfully, but it remains challenged. The party certainly had its roots there, and its symbol is made up of flames from Mussolini's grave, after all. But maybe it has reengineered itself as a right wing populist party that's no longer an anti-democratic fascist one.
Secondly, the English-speaking right is switching its attention from Viktor Mihály Orbán to Meloni, and maybe that's a good thing, if the FdI is no longer fascist and is democratic.
Of course, at the same time, the populist American right remains basically captive to a large degree to Donald Trump and his acolytes.
Finally, it really shows us what the populist Trumpite wing of the GOP, which anymore we might as well just call the GOP, is, and isn't.
So, what is Meloni's platform?
Well, I'm not Italian and I hadn't heard of the FdI until just the other day, or if I had, I hadn't paid all that much attention to it. Italy has had more than one neo Fascist party over the years. But it's easy to find videos of her giving really fiery speeches. A lot of those have been condensed into snippets, but if the full speech is listed to, they go in directions that you don't really expect. As far as I can tell, and I may be way off, the FdI, under Meloni, is hugely and unapologetically traditionalist and right wing populist, by it retains some syndicalist economic views. It also has dabbled, to some surprising extent, in social legislation which would be regarded as left wing in the United States, as trying to pass a bill regarding child care for working mothers.
So what caused more Italians to vote for it than any other party?
Probably that traditionalism, which is grounded in a sort of philosophy of nature, or new essentialism, or even a combination of classical Western thought and evolutionary biology. It appears, at least in its Italian form, to be of deeper thought than that of the normal American version. Indeed, American conservative intellectualism is of a much different type, and really hasn't evolved in any concrete form since Buckley's day.
What it might simply boil down to is what we've already mentioned. The FdI and Meloni are enormously anti-Woke and aren't apologetic about it in the least. They are also very nationalist in the "Italy for Italians" sense of things. And all that instinctively appeals, all around the globe, to people who aren't keen on being as multicultural as progressives assure them they should be and who, deep down, don't believe that a species that is male and female and has had marriage as its central fundamental societal element needs to now change that view.
It's a huge reaction to 1968 and the things 1968 foisted upon Western Society.
It's also, we might note, a reaction to the 1970s and the Greed is Good ethos that a triumphant capitalism brought in everywhere in the 1980s and 1990s. That part of Meloni's public platform seems missed. Meloni, however, has attacked modern globalism, and therefore that part of capitalism, pretty openly as well.
These themes all appeared in the far right before. Mussolini's original fascism was actually extremely radical in a left wing sense, reflecting a radicalism he'd grown up with, and his original membership in the Socialist Party. The Italian Fascist, however, combined some really left wing concepts with some extreme right wing ones, which was common to early fascist movements in many, but not all, places that it took root, that being one of the things that has made fascism so difficult to define. Because it did that, however, it also appealed to societal voters in the countries where it took root, who would adopt some of its views while blinding their eyes to others, and indeed blinding their eyes to the most radical elements of it.
Indeed, that's what made and still makes fascism really dangerous. We can see it in this example, maybe, and we can now see it in the U.S.
Indeed, we'll turn to the U.S. here, with this entry by some conservative journalist:
Republican voters face a clear choice in the 2024 presidential cycle. Those who think the conservative movement has the solutions to the nation’s crises should vote for a conventional GOP candidate. But those who believe the conservative movement is part of the problem should support Donald Trump.
Only Trump defied the deep state empowered by his Republican predecessors. Only Trump has broken from the disastrous foreign policy championed by the conservative movement. Only Trump has taken on the mania for free trade and outsourcing. No other figure of the right has shown the same willingness to break with his own side’s orthodoxies.
We've noted it here before, but we'll start with this and add in the Meloni element.
What's causing this hard right turn?
Well, in the U.S. and in Italy it's a feeling by rank and file, working people, that their politicians have completely abandoned them and their concerns combined with a reaction to modifying millennia old, and DNA rooted, institutions. That's pretty much it. The FdI promises to do something about that. American Conservatives have promised to do something about that since at least 1976, if not earlier, failed to do so, and even basically lied, in some instances, about their devotion to really doing so. They've started to do something, and ironically it's really Mitch McConnell, through his Supreme Court appointments, whose really started to change the social aspect of this around, in part.
The part where this isn't true had to do with unchecked illegal immigration. Trump, once again, did do something about that. Progressives and many others hated what he did, but he did do something, and that made him the first President since Teddy Kennedy's immigration reforms altered what had been in place to do so.
Economically, Trump had a good three-year run until COVID-19 came by plane, most likely, and ran through the country killing people and destroying the economy. Trump never acted like an economic conservative, however, and the GOP was pretty comfortable spending money like sailors on a three-day shore leave. As, by and large, people are happy with a good economy, it didn't really matter.
A person is free to view this anyway they wish, but Trump's far right policies, which appealed to many rank and file Republicans of the far right, and appealed to rust belt Democrats who came into the GOP, were nativist, traditional WASPish, and very socially conservative. To a very large degree, if they had been advanced by a more conventional politician, that individual would have been regarded as a huge success.
They were not advanced, however, by a conventional politician, but by Trump. It can be doubted, quite frankly, the extent to which Trump believed in any of the things he advocated for, or believes in anything at all other than himself, whom he appears to believe in obsessively. Trump is not an admirable man.
Trump may simply have picked up, as a salesman, on what his demographic wanted to buy. If he had done nothing more than that, he could not be criticized for it. Indeed, politicians of all stripes do that and in a democratic system, they must. There's no reason to believe, for example, that Harriet Hageman really thinks the election was stolen. Her base believes that, and so she must. It's an irony of the democratic system that really effective advocates of certain positions, truly believed by a politician's base, might find no real sympathy with the politician themselves. Indeed, that's why we find advocates of traditional family values caught up in sex scandals of all sorts, or advocates of law and order involved in crime.
Selling to your base, we note, is probably also why we find Kyrsten Sinema a Democrat looking out for monied interests. For that matter, it also may very well explain why politicians in certain regions seem to take positions that are contrary to their educations and backgrounds. They likely don't believe what they're saying, they believe they need to say it.
All of that is how democracy actually works, in part, but only in part.
Trump departed with that, however, in a truly fascistic sense. Appearing to believe principally in himself, he created a personality cult, some of which adopted the worst beliefs and inclinations of his supporters. And he became his movement, which is what Mussolini became, for example, to Italian fascism. His supporters still believe in him, but he believes in himself more. He essentially advances the concept that he, and only he, can save the nation against forces which are illegitimate.
And that is the core of fascism. FWIW, it's the core of Communism, too.
We said there may be lessons here. If so, what would they be?
The principal ones are the ones that Trump learned before he ever took office, and what Mitch McConnell, for all his differences with Trump, also knows. 1968 is over and much of what it brought has been ruinous. People look back instinctively to core societal traditional values and do not want change forced on them from above, or at all.
But what is also there is that there's a major society wide rejection of the consumerist economic revolution. People everywhere are wealthier than they used to be, but they are also more tied to their occupations than ever, and they don't want to be.
And people look at their countries and communities differently than capitalist do, and they don't want to look at them differently. They don't really want ever expanding this and that, and they often would just as soon have things be as they once were, rather than where they seem to be going.
All of those things can be advanced democratically. Meloni claims that she will now do that.
We'll see.
But this raises another question, particularly for American populists. Are you really wishing to buy the entire package?
Footnotes:
1. Meloni has a very direct and highly pithy form of delivery. In contempoary American politics it would be nearly impossible to find an analogy, in part because she very clearly means what she says. An interesting contrast would be to Trumpite Harriet Hageman, who is articulate enough, but who lacks the element of sincreity that Meloni obivously has. Perhaps only Liz Cheney, whose delivery is different, is comparable.
Trump's style nearly defies description, but it's odd and sort of oddly childish, as if he's delivering a rambling address to himself, or to a group in a children's club. That he's gained a wide following is surprsing in part for that fact, as people generally don't like being talked down to. He doesn't come across as consdesencing, but as not too bright. Interestingly one realy diehard fan of his that I spoke to some time ago, who couldn't imagine anyone not admiring him, related that "he speaks like us". Of note, that person was of a highly blue collar background from the East, which gives some creedance to the theory that New York politicians of recent years have learned their speaking style from dealing with East Coast mobsters.
Meloni says she's not a fascist, and compares her party to the British Tories, the Israeli Likud, and the GOP. The American GOP aside, which is in turmoil and which we'll discuss a little in round two of this fascinating series, the FdI, whatever it is, definitely isn't the British Conservative Party or the Israeli Likud.
Truths turn into dogmas the instant that they are disputed. Thus every man who utters a doubt defines a religion. And the scepticism of our time does not really destroy the beliefs, rather it creates them; gives them their limits and their plain and defiant shape. We who are Liberals once held Liberalism lightly as a truism. Now it has been disputed, and we hold it fiercely as a faith. We who believe in patriotism once thought patriotism to be reasonable, and thought little more about it. Now we know it to be unreasonable, and know it to be right. We who are Christians never knew the great philosophic common sense which inheres in that mystery until the anti-Christian writers pointed it out to us. The great march of mental destruction will go on. Everything will be denied. Everything will become a creed. It is a reasonable position to deny the stones in the street; it will be a religious dogma to assert them. It is a rational thesis that we are all in a dream; it will be a mystical sanity to say that we are all awake. Fires will be kindled to testify that two and two make four. Swords will be drawn to prove that leaves are green in summer. We shall be left defending, not only the incredible virtues and sanities of human life, but something more incredible still, this huge impossible universe which stares us in the face. We shall fight for visible prodigies as if they were invisible. We shall look on the impossible grass and the skies with a strange courage. We shall be of those who have seen and yet have believed.
G.K. Chesterton, in Heretics
This quote, but not in its full length, is getting a lot of traction right now as it shows up, in Italian, being quoted by Giorgina Meloni, in a truncated form, which takes from the following:
Fires will be kindled to testify that two and two make four. Swords will be drawn to prove that leaves are green in summer.
I was surprised to find Meloni quote Chesterton, as I don't think of Chesterton as being a fan of, or useful to, fascists. But perhaps this puts us on the uncomfortable slope where Falangist slide into a certain type of conservatism and trying to define the difficult differences between the Mediterranean post World War Two far right, and Hungarian one, and the American one.
Italian and Spanish fascists were corporatists or syndicalists, which is a hard concept to explain to Americans. They didn't eliminate free enterprise but rather controlled it, with a concept that everything was subordinated to the good of the state which was supposed to work for the good of the people. By the people, it usually meant only the nation in the ethnic sense. In other words, Italian fascists might make common cause with, let's say, Spanish fascists, but that didn't mean that they thought of themselves as the same by any means. The Italian fascists worried principally about ethnic Italians only, which of course ultimately lead to an attempt to expand the Italian empire at the expense of non Italians. Spain's Franco era (Franco was not a fascist, or a Carlist) pretty much started off that way right from the onset, i.e,. Spain's empire was for the Spanish, not for Moroccans.
Falangist are a subset of fascist, with some distinct beliefs. Their basic core tenants were set out in the Twenty Six Points they issued, which stated the following:
NATION - UNITY - EMPIRE
1. We believe in the supreme reality of Spain. The strengthening, elevating, and magnifying of this reality is the urgent collective goal of all Spaniards. Individual, group, and class interests must inexorably give way in order to achieve this goal.
2. Spain has a single destiny in the world. Every conspiracy against this common unity is repulsive. Any kind of separatism is a crime which we shall not pardon. The existing Constitution, to the degree that it encourages disintegration, weakens this common destiny of Spain. Therefore we demand its annulment in a thundering voice.
3. We have the determination to build an Empire. We affirm that Spain's historic fulfilment lies in Empire. We claim for Spain a pre-eminent position in Europe. We can tolerate neither international isolation nor foreign interference. As regards the countries of Hispanic America, we favour unification of their culture, economic interests and power. Spain will continue to act as the spiritual axis of the Hispanic world as a sign of her pre-eminence in worldwide enterprises.
4. Our armed forces- on land, sea, and in the air- must be kept trained and sufficiently large to assure to Spain at all times its complete independence and a status in the world that befits it. We shall bestow upon our Armed Forces of land, sea, and air all the dignity they merit, and we shall cause their military conception of life to infuse every aspect of Spanish life.
5. Spain shall once more seek her glory and her wealth on the sea lanes. Spain must aspire to become a great maritime power, for reasons of both defence and commerce. We demand for the fatherland equal status with others in maritime power and aerial routes.
STATE - INDIVIDUAL - LIBERTY
6. Our State will be a totalitarian instrument to defend the integrity of the fatherland. All Spaniards will participate in this through their various family, municipal, and syndical roles. There shall be no participation in it by political parties. We shall implacably abolish the system of political parties and all of their consequences- inorganic suffrage, representation of clashing groups, and a Parliament of the type that is all too well known.
7. Human dignity, integrity, and freedom are eternal, intangible values. But one is not really free unless he is a part of a strong and free nation. No one will be permitted to use his freedom against the nation, which is the bulwark of the fatherland's freedom. Rigorous discipline will prevent any attempt to envenom and disunite the Spanish people or to incite them against the destiny of the fatherland.
8. The National-Syndicalist State will permit all kinds of private initiative that are compatible with the collective interest, and it will also protect and encourage the profitable ones.
ECONOMY - LABOUR - CLASS STRUGGLE
9. Our conception of Spain in the economic realm is that of a gigantic syndicate of producers. We shall organise Spanish society corporatively through a system of vertical syndicates for the various field of production, all working toward national economic unity.
10. We repudiate the capitalistic system which shows no understanding of the needs of the people, dehumanises private property, and causes workers to be lumped together in a shapeless, miserable mass of people who are filled with desperation. Our spiritual and national conception of life also repudiates Marxism. We shall redirect the impetuousness of those working classes who today are led astray by Marxism, and we shall seek to bring them into direct participation in fulfilling the great task of the national state.
11. The National-Syndicalist State will not cruelly stand apart from man's economic struggles, nor watch impassively while the strongest class dominates the weakest. Our regime will eliminate the very roots of class struggle, because all who work together in production shall comprise one single organic entity. We reject and we shall prevent at all costs selfish interests from abusing others, and we shall halt anarchy in the field of labour relations.
12. The first duty of wealth- and our State shall so affirm- is to better the conditions of the people. It is intolerable that enormous masses of people should live wretchedly while a small number enjoy all kinds of luxuries.
13. The State will recognise private property as a legitimate means for achieving individual, family, and social goals, and will protect it against the abuses of large-scale finance capital, speculators, and money lenders.
14. We shall support the trend toward nationalisation of banking services and, through a system of Corporations, the great public utilities.
15. All Spaniards have the right to work. Public agencies must of necessity provide support for those who find themselves in desperate straits. As we proceed toward a totally new structure, we shall maintain and strengthen all the advantages that existing social legislation gives to workers.
16. Unless they are disabled, all Spaniards have the duty to work. The National-Syndicalist State will not give the slightest consideration to those who fail to perform some useful function and who try to live as drones at the expense of the labour of the majority of people.
LAND
17. We must, at all costs, raise the standard of living in the countryside, which is Spain's permanent source of food. To this end, we demand agreement that will bring to culmination without further delay the economic and social reforms of the agricultural sector.
18. Our program of economic reforms will enrich agricultural production by means of the following:
By assuring a minimum remuneration to all agricultural producers.
By demanding that there be restored to the countryside, in order to provide it with an adequate endowment, a portion of that which the rural population is paying to the cities for intellectual and commercial services.
By organising a truly national system of agricultural credit which will lend money to farmers at low interest against the guarantee of their property and crops, and redeem them from usury and local tyrants.
By spreading education with respect to better methods of farming and sheep raising.
By ordering the rational utilisation of lands in accordance with their suitability and with marketing possibilities.
By adjusting tariff policy in such a way as to protect agriculture and the livestock industry.
By accelerating reclamation projects. By rationalising the units of cultivation, so as to eliminate wasted latifundia and uneconomic, miniscule plots.
19. Our program of social reforms in the field of agriculture will be achieved:
By redistributing arable land in such a way as to revive family farms and give energetic encouragement to the syndicalisation of farm labourers.
By redeeming from misery those masses of people who presently are barely eking out a living on sterile land, and by transferring such people to new and arable lands.
20. We shall undertake a relentless campaign of reforestation and livestock breeding, and we shall punish severely those who resist it. We shall support the compulsory, temporary mobilisation of all Spanish youth for this historic goal of rebuilding the national commonwealth.
21. The State may expropriate without indemnity lands of those owners who either acquired them or exploited them illegally.
22. It will be the primary goal of the National-Syndicalist State to rebuild the communal patrimonies of the towns.
NATIONAL EDUCATION - RELIGION
23. It shall be the essential mission of the State to attain by means of rigorous disciplining of education a strong, united national spirit, and to instil in the souls of future generations a sense of rejoicing and pride in the fatherland.
All men shall receive pre-military training to prepare them for the honour of being enlisted in the National and Popular Army of Spain.
24. Cultural life shall be organised so that no talent will be undeveloped because of insufficient economic means. All who merit it shall be assured ready access to a higher education.
25. Our Movement incorporates the Catholic meaning- of glorious tradition, and especially in Spain- of national reconstruction. The Church and the State will co-ordinate their respective powers so as to permit no interference or activity that may impair the dignity of the State or national integrity.
NATIONAL REVOLUTION
26. The Falange Espanola Tradicionalista y de las JONS demands a new order, as set forth in the foregoing principles. In the face of the resistance from the present order, it calls for a revolution to implant this new order. Its method of procedure will be direct, bold, and combative. Life signifies the art and science of warfare (milicia) and must be lived with a spirit that is purified by service and sacrifice.
As can be seen, in the Spanish example, religion was mentioned, but suppressed as subordinate to the overall goals of the state.
Italian fascism did not even go that far, but regarded, oddly enough, the Church as a sometimes intellectual ally in that Italian fascism, while radical in many ways, argued for a return to cultural traditionalism, even though it did not regard that as supporting a religious state. Essentially, to a relatively small degree, Italian fascism regarded some of the Church's emphasis as traveling on a somewhat intersecting road.
That's not the point of this article here, however, but it serves to point out that while something is going on in the entire Western World right now, it's not really the same every place it pops up. Consider again the clip we had of Meloni from the other day.
That's one of the most Un-American speeches you can imagine, although a lot of Americans wouldn't realize it. Not that Meloni would deliver an American speech, she's Italian, but she's not only complaining of the post 1968 liberal changes to the accepted culture, which she is, she's blaming it principally on consumerism.
This view isn't completely unheard of in the United States. People will take shots at consumerism, but it's usually people on the left that do it, and they don't link it to feminism and the LBGQT movement like Meloni is. Not usually. About the closest I've ever heard of that is the essay that somebody wrote some time ago, I've forgotten who, that homosexuals were regarded as the prefect citizens by liberal elites, as they consumed, but didn't reproduce, and lacked the messy personal nature that the 98% of those with normal inclination have. That approaches this statement, but it doesn't go anywhere near as far as Meloni did.
Meloni is definitely tapping into something here, however, in that what she's espousing is the concept that post 68 liberalism is at war with human nature, and she's not wholly incorrect in that either. That's also what partially, but only partially, given rise to populism in the United States. The part of her speech here that doesn't deal with economics would find a sympathetic ear in some parts of the far right.
Indeed, it finds a sympathetic, if surprised, ear from some who are in the Chestertonian camp, or more appropriately at his stammtisch. One twitter commentator, for example, noted upon hearing this that in his view he wasn't saying anything that was fascistic, but rather a string of things in line with Catholic social teaching, with which he approved. This definitely isn't the case for the American Trumpist wing of the GOP.
Is she therefore not a fascist, but rather somebody who would be more comfortable with Chesteron and Belloc?
Frankly, we really don't know. She hasn't been in power, yet, and her party hasn't been, either. What may distinguish it is its willingness to act democratically. That, in the end, has tended to be the defining matter distinguishing very far right political parties from fascist ones, even if the former does not really meet the overall fascist definition. The Falangist and Italian fascist were hostile to democracy, there's no two ways about it. Is the modern FdI? We don't know yet.
For the same reason, we can't say if the FdI is in favor of Illiberal democracy. Progressives could look at this and immediately say that of course it is, but it's really not that simple at all The FdI may be very far right, without being favoring Illiberal democracy. Favoring political progressivism and having a liberal democracy are not the same thing, even though progressives seem to feel it is.
At the end of the day, Meloni may end up being a flash in the pan. As Italy is a parliamentary democracy, her party, while gathering the most votes, only has about 25% of them. The center left party has nearly as many. The remaining 25%, more or less, of votes she needs from other Italian right wing parties do not all come, by any means, from ones that have the same outlook.
But this will prove interesting.
All over Europe, this trend has been occurring. Just last week, the Sweden Democrats, which have neo-Nazi roots, became the second-largest governing partner in the Swedish government. It's a very hard right nationalistic party. We've already discussed Viktor Orban's Hungarian government and it's espousing of Illiberal Democracy. Poland's largest party is the Law and Justice Party, which is a right wing populist party. Slovakia's largest party is the right wing populist Ordinary People and Independents Party. And France, of course, has the National Rally Party which threatened to take office during the last French election and which is the second-largest party in the government, only slightly behind that of the largest party.
Then we have the current GOP.
Perhaps the real distinguishing thing about the current Trump wing of the GOP, which is the dominant branch right now, is that these other parties, which are not all the same, are at least pretty open about their views, which they can be as they're in a parliamentary system. In the case of the Trumpist, the views remain partially camouflaged. And the other major factor right now is that these European parties save for one, Orban's, all seem to be comfortable with full democracy, although I'd certainly hold the question open for the Sweden Democrats on that query as its history would suggest that it wouldn't be, if it were in power.
So, once again, what's that tell us?
It's hard to say, but as noted earlier on this blog, it seems to be an upset with the results of the post 1968 liberalization of the Western World. People feel it's taken from them and forced them into things they don't agree with and don't want to be. And to at least some extent, they feel that it's brought about a culture that's at war with natural culture.
In short, people feel what Meloni expressed:
Fires will be kindled to testify that two and two make four. Swords will be drawn to prove that leaves are green in summer.
All of that were things that conservative parties already held, however. They weren't, however, very successful at doing anything about their views in a massive way. All of these groups promise to.
And maybe they actually would. . . but in the American case, what does that actually mean and do people really know what they're suggesting? We'll look at that next.
Fratelli d'Italia, the "Brothers of Italy", have won the Italian election.
Not outright, but with 26% of the vote. Enough of a command that, together with another right wing party and a center right party, Giorgia Meloni's neo-fascist party will govern.12 The party, in second position, is the Italian center left Democratic Party, but it can't put together a ruling coalition.
This gives Italy, when in the 1945 to early 1970s period teetered on the edge of falling into Communism, its most right wing government since Mussolini was strung up.
The Fratelli d'Italia is nativist, anti-immigrant, anti-European Union, and traditionalist. It's leader, Giorgia Meloni has said of herself; "I am Giorgia. I'm a woman, I'm a mother, I'm Italian, I’m Christian". The slogan is sufficiently popular that it's been set to techno pop with her saying those things, in Italian, and it's pretty effective. You can also find clips of her saying, but to members of the Spanish Vox party, in Italian;
Yes to the natural family, no to the LGBT lobby, yes to sexual identity, no to gender ideology... no to Islamist violence, yes to secure borders, no to mass migration... no to big international finance... no to the bureaucrats of Brussels!"
So where is she basically coming from: Well, here:
It's impossible at this point not to see that something is going on in the Western World. It's not just Orban, or Trump.
Its the entire Western World.
Indeed, if anything, Trump's version of this is the most decayed and perverted. Meloni's may be the most open and honest.
So how did we get here?
This might be the reaction, long delayed, to 1968, and all it brought about.
Indeed, it almost certainly is. The question is what form that takes, and where that form takes shape. In Italy, Meloni, running from the hard populist right, will form a coalition government in a parliament in which, perhaps ironically, nobody is claiming a minority government reflects corruption in the vote, whereas in our country, with a Federal democracy that's designed to work slow and defeat "coalitions", or parties, one side is. Therefore, ironically, Italy, which has a history of fascism but never endured de-fascism, democracy may actually be less imperiled.
At any rate, we noted here earlier that in post Boomer generations, liberalism was waning and conservatism building. What we missed is that it's waning quicker than we anticipated, and the reaction to 1968 seems to be very widespread, and increasingly strong.
Footnotes
1. "Meloni" means just what it sounds like.
Indeed, Meloni in a short video clip, can be seen holding two cantaloupes chest high making a joke about it. Something that's somewhat unique to Italian politics, which remains occasionally ribald.
2. The FdI denies that it's neo-fascist, and while we've referred to them here that way, this wants again raises the topic of "what is a fascist". It's not as easy to answer as it might at first seem.
The FdI may have a point here, although I frankly don't know. At the end of the day, fascism implies an element of totalitarianism. The Italian fascists of the 1920s through 1940s made no bones about not approving of democracy. The Spanish fascist were of the same mind set. By and large, neo-fascist have also been anti-democratic.
This contrasts with the Illiberal Democrats, who tolerate a degree of democracy, but within a preset framework. They're okay with the vote, up to a point, and that point is the point at which a society is supposed to have a cultural set of concepts upon which it operates. That's not up for a vote. That concept has a lot of sympathy, it seems, all over the Western World right now.
The term fascism or fascist is rally making a comeback, but what is fascism really?
It's surprisingly difficult to define.
Let's look at Merriam-Webster again. It states:
Definition of fascism
1often capitalized: a political philosophy, movement, or regime (such as that of the Fascisti) that exalts nation and often race above the individual and that stands for a centralized autocratic government headed by a dictatorial leader, severe economic and social regimentation, and forcible suppression of opposition
2: a tendency toward or actual exercise of strong autocratic or dictatorial controlearly instances of army fascism and brutality
The first definition there is a pretty good one.
If we take examples of fascist movements of the 20th Century, such as the Italian fascist, or the Spanish fascist, that's exactly what they stood for. The nation defined by race, basically, and held above the individual with a central autocratic government. In both of those instances, they further featured a corporatism economic system, which doesn't mean what it sounds like, but rather which is independent of the government and yet controlled by it. The same is true for labor unions. They were normally allowed to exist, but subservient to the government and often consolidated.
Were the Nazis fascists?
This has been debated, and it can be maintained that they were sui generis, and uniquely horrible. Their economic concepts were also unique, although they tended not to be fully implemented, so they lacked that element of fascism. On the other hand, they obviously had no regard for the rights of the individual, defined the nation and the "volk" as one, and were not democratic in any fashion. Given that, it would seem that they were fascists.
Some like to claim that they were left wing socialist, but unless you look at the very early Nazi Party, which was still horrific, the claim for that isn't great. Under Strasser, prior to Hitler, they did start out that way, but under Hitler they abandoned that pretty quickly.
An important thing to keep in mind here is that all the elements for fascism have to be there to really make a political movement fascistic. Even at that, unless a party outright claims the title, which is pretty rare post World War Two, it can be difficult to define. I.e, not all autocratic regimes are fascist in nature. For example, it wouldn't be proper to regard Porfirio Diaz as a fascist. He was an autocrat, however.
A Communist member of Italy's Chamber of Deputies declared that a recent general strike had failed as the proletariat was not sufficiently armed. This provoked a Fascists reaction during which fascist Francesco Giunta, who was armed, pulled out a revolver. The session was suspended.
Umberto "the Ghost" Valenti, age 30, originally from Sicily, was shot and killed in a New York café under orders of the Genovese crime family. Valenti, who was a hit man for the D'Aquila crime family, had killed a member of the Morello crime family removing the Camorra as a contender for the illegal liquor trade, but also meaning that competing Mafia crime families were now vying for that role.
Giuseppe Morello. Probably completely unrelated, but while I was at the University of Wyoming, I twice had calculus classes taught by a graduate student with the last name Morello. He was an excellent teacher.
This was part of a mob war with interesting aspects. The Genovese family was part of the legendary "five families" of the New York mafia, but the Morello family was part of the Camorra. Guiseepe Morello, the unfortunate victim of Valenti, was only recently out of prison at the time of his mob execution and the war turned to control of the former Comorrista's liquor business. Valenti's murder, ordered by Giuseppe "Joe" Masseria, who had personally lured Valenti into the place of execution, settled the matter with the Genovese's coming out the victors.
Giuseppe "Joe" Masseria. Masseria died in a hit ordered by Lucky Luciano in 1931.
The Irish army, having made seaborne landings the day prior, took Cork, although the withdrawing IRA set it on fire first. The city had been burned during the Anglo-Irish War two years prior.
One of my great-grandmother's was from Cork, although she would have left the city, at age three, well before this time period.
On the same day, IRA men Joseph O'Sullivan and Reginald Dunne were executed in London for the June 22 assassination of Sir Henry Wilson.
The Sammarinese Fascist Party was founded by Giuliano Gozi. It would rule San Marino for twenty years, falling during the end of the Second World War, during which San Marino was a neutral tiny power.
Louis Armstrong made his first appearance with a major act, playing with King Oliver and his Creole Jazz Band in Chicago.
In Italy, Mussolini ordered Fascist Blackshirts to demobilize after recent strife.
Mussolini with the Blackshirts in October, 1922.
Irish Republicans raided the Western Union station at Valentia Island and severed the four remaining cables that linked the US and Ireland, although how that helped their cause or was intended to escapes me.
The HMS Raleigh ran aground on the Labrador coast and was lost, but without loss of life.
The vessel was almost new at the time.
A monarchist group in Vladivostok declared Grand Duke Nicholas Nikolaevich of Russia to be the heir to murdered Czar Nicholas. The rebel organization that convened the process to do so was headed by Gen. Mikhail Diterikhs. The Grand Duke was already living in exile and the fortunes of the remaining Whites were desperately poor.
Shogakukan, a Japanese magazine and comic publisher that is still in business, was founded.
Pierre Laval, the Prime Minister of (Vichy) France, stated in a radio address;
I wish for a German victory, because, without it, Bolshevism tomorrow would settle everywhere.
He was in his third period of being the Prime Minister, with the second and third both being during the Vichy period.
The statement came as a shock to many of his countrymen, who assumed that Vichy France was playing a waiting game until an Allied liberation would come. Laval, however, had come to heavily sympathize with the Nazis.
Laval had been Prime Minister in 1931-32. He originally had been a pacifist Socialist politician and a lawyer who championed working men, but by the 1940s he'd migrated towards fascism. He was executed following a trial after the war.
Casper is the biggest city in central Wyoming. Given that, it's the focus for a lot of stuff. In the summer, it can be crowded with events.
It's also possible to forget how many events there are, and ones that come and go are soon forgotten. Only a couple of weeks ago, of course, there was the big Trump rally, oops Hageman rally. . . no Trump rally, which saw something like 9,000 Trump loyalist show up in, as the press likes to call it, Deep Red Wyoming.
What about this weekend?
Well this weekend, downtown, there was a big "Pride" event at the city's own David Street Station which apparently was really well attended locally. Not very "deep red", as of course by "pride" it refers to LBGTQ "pride".
The College National Finals Rodeo, a car show, and the annual art show, are also up and running this week. And it's craft beer week statewide.
I still think the use of the word pride in regard to an inclination is grammatically weird. That's a different topic from the LBGTQ subject in and of itself, which I'm not going to address here at all. Anyhow, it seems to have turned out a lot of people.
I read that in one of the online journals, which is prominently featuring it as its local news. Makes sense, it's local news.
In the same journal Chuck Gray's hand-picked intended successor, who does have primary opposition, is running an article about herself. I.e, it's an add disguised as an article, an old advertising trick.
In that, the candidate informs the readers that she's a "refugee from "fascist Illinois".
Eh?
The candidate needs to get her hyperbole fixed, if nothing else. She's complaining about "fascist Illinois" because she's an extreme right wing candidate and is upset that Illinois is left of center. If she wants to slander Illinois, she should accuse it of being communist or socialist. Those claims wouldn't be true either, but get the right left thing right for goodness’ sake.
The candidate informs us that the line in the sand for Illinois was as follows:
The straw that broke the camel’s back for our family was when one of our high-school daughters was threatened with out-of-school suspension for not wearing a mask. We were DONE with Illinois.
Well, we had those here and that would have been a possibility here as well. Chances are the daughter would have been suspended here.
I guess you can't get after somebody who arrives late to the party for not knowing that the main course was served, but you probably ought not to slam people for serving salmon before you know what the meal was.
Ward has a list of her various platforms, or I guess principal beliefs.
Pro Freedom: Taxation is theft.
Pro-Wyoming FIRST: Wyoming’s land and energy below (sic) to Wyoming
Pro-Medical Freedom. Mask and vaccine mandates were NEVER lawful.
Unabashedly Pro-Life. Life begins at conception
Pro-Family. Marriage is between a man and a woman.
Pro-2nd Amendment. WY has constitutional carry. Let’s keep it that way.
I'm going to deal with some of these first, and then the others.
Pro Freedom: Taxation is theft.
No, it isn't. The government can't work without taxes, and we've always had taxes. Since the dawn of government, it's had the taxing authority. This statement is extreme, and frankly unthinking. Like your paved road? How do you think it got there?
"Freedom" isn't free, people like to say, usually referring to military sacrifice. Well, it isn't fiscally free either.
Pro-Wyoming FIRST: Wyoming’s land and energy below (sic) to Wyoming
This is a policy that would turn Wyoming into Texas in about 3.5 seconds. Wyomingites like their public lands and the right wing extremist running right now never saw any public land that they didn't want to sell to the richest out of stater they could find.
It's also completely contrary to the valid legal bargain we made when we became a state.
This, by the way, is a real red flag to locals. By and large, this position is detested by people who are actually from here.
Pro-Medical Freedom. Mask and vaccine mandates were NEVER lawful.
Like it or not, they were always lawful. That doesn't mean you have to like them, but to suggest they were unlawful is simply wrong.
They too actually have a legal history in Wyoming, FWIW, and you can find similar things having occurred during the 1919 Flu Pandemic herein the state.
Pro-2nd Amendment. WY has constitutional carry. Let’s keep it that way.
Wyoming does not have "constitutional carry". This topic isn't in our state constitution at all. You have a right to keep and bear arms, but the state constitution doesn't address carry. You probably have a right to carry, should that ever get to the Supreme Court, but whether you'd have the right to conceal. . . probably not.
We have statutory authorization for restricted general carry. You can carry, but not everywhere. And you can carry concealed by statutory authorization, but not everywhere.
This, also, is under no sort of threat. Everybody who is running for anything is going to say that they're "pro Second Amendment". Indeed, without commenting on the obviously highly right wing candidate in question, I've often thought that imported politicians from cities who claim to be "pro gun", had they stayed in their bergs, probably would have been all about gun control had they run there.
All of the above topics would suggest that the candidate needs a basic course on the law. It'd do no good, however, I'm sure, as there seem to be a lot of people now who believe in a sort of secret constitution that doesn't reflect the printed one. That leaves two topics.
Unabashedly Pro-Life. Life begins at conception
Pro-Family. Marriage is between a man and a woman.
I agree with those, but here's something the current extreme right seems to be missing. By linking in their extremist views, like taking away public lands and the like, with long held social conservatism, they're dooming both. I.e, if you have to be in the "the election was stolen" crowed, which I'd guess this candidate likely is (although I don't know), in order to oppose abortion, at the end of the day a lot of social conservatives are going to go into the voting booth and choose democracy over other issues.
This kind of thing puts them there.
My guess is, in other words, if Harriet Hageman is this year's candidate for House. . . Lynette Gray Bull is going to get a surprising number of GOP votes.
Back to the Pride event.
That's actually more traditionally Wyoming than the probably horrified imported Illinois candidate may imagine. Wyoming's traditional political culture was "I don't care what the crap you do as long as you leave me alone".
Heck, for that matter, serve beer at something pretty left wing and chances are you'd get a lot of really right wing people showing up.
And that view definitely doesn't square with what the imported heavily right wing candidates think, or what the current leadership of the state's GOP think.
Again, I'm not commenting on the Pride event itself, or the even topic that surrounds it. What I'm talking about instead is people who truly don't seem to know where they are.
Indeed, I wonder what the candidate thinks in learning that the city she's relocated in is having a Pride event, at the city's big gathering spot, and people don't seem up in arms about it, unlike in neighboring Idaho. Indeed, as she's a recent arrival, she likely doesn't know that such contrasts with Idaho are long-standing here. Idaho has been a lot more receptive to the extreme right than Wyoming, at least up until now, and that probably says something about where Wyoming is at right now.
Trump one weekend, with car shows, Pride events a couple of weeks later, with car shows. Probably doesn't surprise anyone whose from here.
Probably a little confusing for those who thought they were moving into a prior century.
And it's craft beer week.
This weekend also features the College National Finals Rodeo, something that celebrates education and a major part of the regional culture, and the industry that created it.
