
Populists win the italian elections - matteuan
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/mar/05/italys-voters-ditch-the-centre-and-ride-a-populist-wave
======
m_fayer
The 5-star movement is, to me, one of the biggest mysteries of contemporary
politics. I've read plenty about it, but I recognize nearly nothing. It's
Euro-sceptic, but also left-wing. Anti-nationalist and anti-migrant. Anti-
authoritarian, but has ties to Putin. It's internet-driven, but it's technical
infrastructure is old-school, centralized, and under one (mysterious) entity's
control. And it's really popular.

Maybe I'm just getting rigid with age and failing to see past an outdated
left/right divide. Anyone care to enlighten?

~~~
pabloski
Sorry but you should stop reading CNN and MSNBC. I did not vote for the M5S.

What I can say:

1\. they are not anti-european, they simply hate the current Bankurope 2\.
They have not ties to Putin (who the fuck is spreading this bullshit ??) 3\.
They aren't anti-migrant, they want to control the immigration flows. Do you
have the faintest idea what it means for a small country like Italy to be
forced to import 600.000 migrants in 5 years? Heck, you can build a formidable
army with such numbers 4\. yes, they are left-wing (hugely statalists) and
this is why I have not voted for them 5\. yes, the infrastructure is handled
by Casaleggio Associates. But AWS is controlled by Amazon. So what is the
point?

The real point here, is that the radical chic leftist media are purporting
them as the devil, while it is their masters who have worked hard for the past
6 years to literally destroy Italy.

We have hundreds of thousands of young people who leave Italy (high profile
people, people with PhDs). We have foreign companies who take State's
subsidies and then close up shop and go to Poland, Slovak, Romania, etc ...
Our middle class has been literally destroyed. The number of poors have
skyrocketed in the last 5 years. The unemployment is at a whopping 40+% among
young people. Corruption is out of chart, with politicians actively working
with ecomafias to illegally dump toxic wastes everywhere on our territory.

These are the real motives why the people have voted against the status quo.
And they have gone to vote in unusually high numbers ( 73%, never seen before!
).

~~~
majewsky
> Do you have the faintest idea what it means for a small country like Italy
> to be forced to import 600.000 migrants in 5 years?

I don't want to get into an argument about immigration politics, but it
strikes me as odd that you consider Italy "small". It has 60 million
inhabitants, making it forth most populous country in the EU, and is the
seventh largest country in the EU by area. [1]

For scale, Jordan has taken at least in 650,000 Syrian refugees [2], and it's
only a third of the size of Italy, and a sixth of the population.

Or take Lebanon. It is a 30th the size of Italy, with only 6 million
inhabitants (1/10 that of Italy), but has taken in nearly a million Syrian
refugees. [3]

I don't want to dismiss or diminish the trouble that Italy is going through
because of the tensions in the Middle East, but calling Italy "small"
indicates a lack of perspective.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Member_state_of_the_European_U...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Member_state_of_the_European_Union)

[2]
[http://data.unhcr.org/syrianrefugees/country.php?id=107](http://data.unhcr.org/syrianrefugees/country.php?id=107)

[3]
[http://data.unhcr.org/syrianrefugees/country.php?id=122](http://data.unhcr.org/syrianrefugees/country.php?id=122)

~~~
vixen99
Isn't it obvious that the critical issues here have very little to do with
Italy's size but much to do with the nature of the migrant (their lifestyle -
the way they want to live, for instance) and their population density in a
particular area? It's also a matter of the will of the Italians.

------
xchip
Sorry but, who in politics is not a populist?

~~~
majewsky
Depends on your definition of "populist". You could take it literally as "one
who talks to the people", or in other words: communicating complex policy to
the public in such a way that laypeople can make an informed decision. That's
what I would expect any politician to do.

However, most people seem to take "populist" to mean "someone who distorts
policy questions and advances their own agenda by pandering to people's
emotions". I would call such a person a "demagogue" instead.

~~~
restalis
For me a populist is rather "one who makes attractive but unrealistic
political promises" (needless to add "leaving out any related unattractive
foreseeable consequences"). In this regard I think there are noticeable
distinctions between political parties, where some are more open or
straightforward with their electorate about their road-map, and are counting
more on factual based political trust than on emotional induced one.

~~~
vixen99
Is this the same meaning as that attached to the word so frequently used as a
handy perjorative in Brussels (mostly by unelected officials) for folk
elsewhere who prefer to make their own decisions regarding their environment?

Your definition is fine but it's the application of the term to specific
instances that concerns me. It's mostly used as a surprisingly effective
emotive smear rarely accompanied by an argument + specifics that might
actually reveal the predilections of those that utter it.

