PJW on la rivoluzione italiana

I've been cautiously skeptical about the possibility of a Europe-wide cascade of Brexits, but Italy now seems one significant step closer to a massive—if it happens—Italexit. Here's Paul Joseph Watson with his thoughts on the matter:


A few commentators have been crowing about the coming European wave for a while, now. The wave is powered by a reborn sense of nationalism coupled with a retrenched view of immigration, plus a good measure of euroskepticism. Keep in mind that these euroskeptics aren't anti-Europe in the sense that they want to somehow destroy the continent: they're simply anti-EU and anti-eurozone—two sentiments that I absolutely share with them. Talk about "masses yearning to breathe free": these skeptics look at the current situation and feel humiliated that their home countries don't enjoy absolute sovereignty because a cabal of unelected bureaucrat-legislators in Brussels, wielding the might of an EU Constitution that is as thick as a dictionary (and not a simple pamphlet like the US Constitution), can pass laws that emanate from Belgium and must be obeyed by all EU members. Italy seems on the verge of breaking away from this stifling, stultifying dynamic, and if the above-mentioned commentators are right, a slew of countries will soon gird their loins and follow suit. Styx, for one, has noted that France is edging ever closer to a Frexit: Emmanuel Macron won the presidency this time around, but his opponent Marine Le Pen made an impressive showing, pushing her party, the National Front, ever upward in the polls, in what appears to be an ongoing trend. It's not unimaginable that she might one day accede to the presidency... and if that happens, watch for a Frexit not long after she's installed in the Elysée Palace.

But let's aim for a little nuance. Watson says a few things, in the above video, that I both agree and disagree with. He talks about the Italian swing away from "monopoly capitalism," which is now increasingly seen as harmful to society; I can agree with that. Huge companies, by their ponderous, bureaucratic nature, lose their robustness and become factories for mediocrity. However, PJW's quoting of Minister for Families Lorenzo Fontana strikes me as off: Fontana apparently contends that things like abortion and gay marriage are part of "a globalist plot to erase our people." That's going too far, and it sounds both petty and paranoid. The solution to Italy's birth rate—boosting welfare for mothers and building more free child-care facilities—also smacks of an unappealing statism. All in all, Italy's near future looks to be something of a kaleidoscopic mess of policies that, when viewed through an American lens, look like a confused mishmash of right-think and left-think.

We'll see how it goes in Italy, I guess. Anything could happen. If there is, in fact, an Italexit within the next three years, then it could very well be that a massive cascade will follow. Après moi, le Déluge—though not in the originally intended sense.