The liberal President of the United States recently invited the conservative Prime Minister of Italy to the White House to discuss matters of mutual concern including the war in Ukraine. Such pairings are not exactly new or uncommon, but MSNBC’s Friday edition of The Last Word used the opportunity to compare Giorgia Meloni to Joseph Stalin for her social conservatism.
Addressing Prof. Ruth Ben Ghiat, who wrote a book entitled Strongmen: Mussolini to the Present, guest host Ali Velshi began by portraying President Joe Biden as some sort of master alliance manager, “Ruth, let's talk about the people that Joe Biden has brought together. This is a world in which we weren't sure five years ago whether NATO was really a functional organization under Donald Trump's leadership. Now we've got NATO. But we have these issues, right? We've got Meloni, we've got Poland which really wasn't on the side of much since the war began, but they have been solidly and staunchly in favor of Ukraine.”
If Velshi thinks internal NATO disagreements began with Trump, he shouldn’t be talking about foreign policy and his shot at Poland was as gratuitous as it was wrong. Velshi also threw in the non-NATO example of India’s Narendra Modi, whose close relationship with the U.S. predates Biden, before asking Ben-Ghiat to “Tell me about the alliances we have to form to fight Russia there would otherwise be considered unsavory.”
Of all the individuals and countries Velshi mentioned, Ben-Ghiat chose to single out one, “Yeah, this is very tricky and, I mean, we have a blueprint: World War II allying with us, you know, thinking of Stalin from his Great Patriot phase. You know, what’s, from the point of view of democracy, what is tough is take Meloni, who's kind of playing a double game.”
Meloni hasn’t killed her political opponents or had them deported to the gulag. She hasn’t committed genocide in Ukraine and she hasn’t invaded the Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Finland, or Poland. It is an absurd analogy, but Ben-Ghiat proceeded to try to tie conservatism to Stalin more specifically:
She's been—she’s no fool. She's very able. She knows that it's not in her interests to alienate NATO and EU and they depend on funds. And so she has been a big partner, and Biden and others are very relieved to hear that she’s speaking, saying what they want to hear. At home, totally different story. Pursuing intolerant, you know, homophobic, anti-immigrant, authoritarian policies, now going after the public broadcaster, installing a puppet, you know, as the head of it.
Ben-Ghiat wrapped up her thoughts by declaring “So, this is the problem. And to what extent you could make a pragmatic evaluation and say well, we are going to be taking this alliance as long as this war lasts, and then we'll see, which I imagine is what many leaders are doing.”
Presumably by “homophobic,” Ben-Ghiat means that in Italian birth certificates will no longer be allowed to include two mothers or two fathers and the push to outlaw surrogacy. Not exactly Stalinism. Meanwhile, the ruling-parliament exercising influence over the Italian state broadcasting company is not new.
This segment was sponsored by E-Trade.
Here is a segment for the July 28 show:
MSNBC The Last Word with Lawrence O’Donnell
7/28/2023
10:39 PM ET
ALI VELSHI: Ruth, let's talk about the people that Joe Biden has brought together. This is a world in which we weren't sure five years ago whether NATO was really a functional organization under Donald Trump's leadership. Now we've got NATO. But we have these issues, right? We've got Meloni, we've got Poland which really wasn't on the side of much since the war began, but they have been solidly and staunchly in favor of Ukraine. We've got Hungary, which is always a question mark. Outside of NATO we need the support of places like India, Modi got the, you know, the red carpet at the White House but not a particularly democratic place these days. Tell me about the alliances we have to form to fight Russia there would otherwise be considered unsavory.
RUTH BEN-GHIAT: Yeah, this is very tricky and, I mean, we have a blueprint: World War II allying with us, you know, thinking of Stalin from his Great Patriot phase. You know, what’s, from the point of view of democracy, what is tough is take Meloni, who's kind of playing a double game. She's been—she’s no fool. She's very able. She knows that it's not in her interests to alienate NATO and EU and they depend on funds.
And so she has been a big partner, and Biden and others are very relieved to hear that she’s speaking, saying what they want to hear. At home, totally different story. Pursuing intolerant, you know, homophobic, anti-immigrant, authoritarian policies, now going after the public broadcaster, installing a puppet, you know, as the head of it. So, this is the problem. And to what extent you could make a pragmatic evaluation and say well, we are going to be taking this alliance as long as this war lasts, and then we'll see, which I imagine is what many leaders are doing.
