This is a particularly inflammatory statement and I'm not surprised it is a copy from an Italian article which has been translated into English. The term Regime Change is a particularly nasty term for ousting dictators which has been flipped to try and scare people out of voting for "Populism".
The article begins with
Is Italy Europe’s new political laboratory – the country in which liberal democracy changes its hue and sinks below the horizon into populism?
Pretty inflammatory words in the middle of a conflagration. A bit like pouring petrol on a raging fire with the intent of putting it out.
So after years of hearing about Populism, I decided that this needs a bit of investigation because this first line states that the scourge of "populism" is destroying liberal democracy.
Populism is a political philosophy supporting the rights and power of the people in their struggle against a privileged elite
Supporting the rights and power of the people. Hmm dangerous stuff that.
And Liberal Democracy?
Liberal democracy is a liberal political ideology and a form of government in which representative democracy operates under the principles of classical liberalism. Also called western democracy, it is characterised by elections between multiple distinct political parties, a separation of powers into different branches of government, the rule of law in everyday life as part of an open society and the equal protection of human rights, civil rights, civil liberties and political freedoms for all people
All very nice and flowery but what does it actually mean? Most people say that Liberal Democracy is a mechanism which is "Supporting the rights and power of the people".
Democracy? Good question. Lots of answers to that in one article. However I believe most people actually see Democracy as this last paragraph of the intro.
Democracy contrasts with forms of government where power is either held by an individual, as in an absolute monarchy, or where power is held by a small number of individuals, as in an oligarchy. Nevertheless, these oppositions, inherited from Greek philosophy,[6] are now ambiguous because contemporary governments have mixed democratic, oligarchic, and monarchic elements. Karl Popper defined democracy in contrast to dictatorship or tyranny, thus focusing on opportunities for the people to control their leaders and to oust them without the need for a revolution
Populism appears to be the word assigned to the reaction of the "Leaders" of any threat which tries to upset the status quo of their "Liberal Elite" ideas. Most notably those "Populists" are opposed to a growing Elite with growing powers who are totally unaccountable to the people of their country". Namely the Institutions of the EU in this case.
It is quite interesting that every time the people attempt to use their "Democratic Power" to unseat the incumbents (from any party), the political elite (the parties who currently hold the balance of power), start ranting about "Populism". One has to wonder why, because it is nothing more than the exercise of Democracy to change the Leaders to a different solution. Not the time worn re-tread of any of the political parties.
In this particular case the people are voting for parties who are claiming they will focus on the "people" and not the "country".
It is interesting that our current "Liberal Democracy" seems to be reacting to threat in the same way, all over the world. If anything is actually going to really change, then scare the hell out of the people so that they don't do it. It worked in the Scottish Independence referendum. It did not work for Brexit. It is not working in Italy right now, in fact the polls say that the opposite is true, support for La Lega has surged in the last week.
As we found during the cold war, people accept threat the longer it goes on and does not actually happen. In political terms, this means that the longer the incumbent political parties threaten mayhem and destruction if the people don't vote for what they want, but it does not happen, the people will simply refuse to believe the scare tactics and vote for what they want and not what they are being scared into voting for.
Brexit is a case in point. Just go back and look at the threats and horror stories immediately before Brexit. We were going to have a "punishment budget", our currency was going to fall below 1:1 with the USD, taxes for people would have to go up and taxes for companies go down, Interest rates would go negative and all our savings and pensions would be screwed. You know, cats and dogs living together in peace, that sort of stuff.
What really happened? The markets threw a mini fit and then settled down, the Bank of England dropped interest rates, created a mini boom and bumped inflation to the point where they were forced to raise rates again and cause the boom to end. In short, nothing. We may have forgotten because things, essentially, have just continued. But those who are suffering crippling austerity "sanctions" for their EU bail out packages have not.
At the next Italian election the people are going to vote even more forcefully for change and, eventually, they will get that change. What will happen? Well we can be pretty sure that Italy won't suddenly vanish from the face of the earth, their economy is 3/4 the size of the UK and the EU can't afford to lose another one. This is the unravelling many feared when Britain voted for Brexit. Hence the Rhetoric.
Regime Change through Populism
We all need Italy to wake up and do this. It will be very interesting to watch this happening. The worst possible outcome is that Italy bottles it and fudges a government with the same old worn out ideology that has got it into the mess it is already in.
