In Italy, Meloni has proposed a constitutional change that would automatically give the party with the largest number of votes (currently his Brothers of Italy) 55 percent of the seats in Parliament. She says she would make Italian governments more stable, but her opponents fear she could also create opportunities for a future autocrat.
Following Orban’s manual would face a strong constitutional setback in France, with its fierce attachment to freedom and human rights as embodied in the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen of 1789. But if the National Rally controlled the presidency and Parliament, all bets would be off.
“The normalization of the right does not necessarily make it less extreme,” said Tocci, the Italian political scientist. “If restrictions are loosened, perhaps with Trump’s return as president in November, Meloni will be more than happy to show her true colors. If Trump and Orban agree to force Ukraine to surrender, she won’t think twice.”
That said, the rise of the right is not universal, uniform, or assured. Poland, through a protest movement, led the liberation of Europe from the Soviet empire, culminating in the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989. Last year, in November elections, Poland ousted its nationalist ruling party, Ley and Justice, which had led an assault on the rule of law. The party also spread xenophobic hatred, presented the country as an eternal victim and distanced Poland from the European Union.
“The Poles said, ‘We have a more positive vision to replace a dark vision of human and national life,’” said Bagger, the German secretary of state. “They walked away from the abyss.”
Underestimating the ingenuity and resilience of democracies is always dangerous. But so is discarding the unimaginable. As Bardella’s beloved Victor Hugo wrote: “Nothing is more imminent than the impossible.”