The case for a non-hyphenated democracy

Labelling all conservatives fascist is no tribute to democratic values

The victory of Giorgia Meloni and her allies in the recent Italian election has resulted in the usual hand-wringing and name-calling among the so-called liberals. She is being demonised for reportedly having admiration for Italian dictator Benito Mussolini sometime in her youth, and murmurs about Italy moving towards fascism and the far-right have begun in some circles.

 This is a problem peculiar to “liberals” whose faith in democracy gets shaken whenever people they dislike get elected. For the Ayatollahs of liberalism, every democracy, every electorate, must conform to their expectations about electoral outcomes, or else the winner is deemed to