There is diplomatic detachment between Palazzo Chigi and the White House. Relations between the Prime Minister, Giorgia Meloni, and Donald Trump’s US administration are at an all-time low. The war in Iran, with its frictions over Sigonella and the declarations about Pope Leo, have opened a rift between Italy and the United States. In the meantime, the prime minister suffered further attacks from Russia by Vladimir Solovyev, TV host and chamberlain of Russian President Vladimir Putin. On the other hand, Meloni could be the one to benefit from all this.
Meloni’s assists: rising polls
The greater media exposure seems to have increased support for Meloni, even receiving a message of solidarity from the opposition. “Her opponents have always accused her of being subservient to Trump. Now it has become more difficult for them to attack her,” he told the CNN Giovanni Orsina, director of the political science department of the Luiss University of Rome. “More or less the same goes for the Russian’s attack. It was really very harsh and somehow forced the opposition and even the President of the Republic to defend it.”
The polls seem to confirm the theory: after losing more than 10 percentage points in the polls following his defeat in the referendum, Meloni’s popularity has risen back to pre-referendum levels, according to Swg-La7 political polls.
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“I think this is an advantage, full stop,” Orsina told the CNN. “Not an absolute advantage, but certainly more positive than negative for her. For Italian public opinion, that kind of attack on the Pope was a bit excessive, and Meloni was able to respond to Trump on grounds that were undeniably in his favor, or at least in a way that Italians perceived as correct.”
What Orban’s defeat teaches us
Meanwhile, Meloni had to record the defeat of his ally, former Hungarian nationalist leader Viktor Orbán, who failed to win re-election. After Orbán’s defeat and Trump’s decline in popularity due to the war with Iran and its devastating effects on the global economy, the nationalist approach may not work as well as it once did.
“The feeling is spreading here that these forms of nationalism may not be the right answer and certainly Orbán’s defeat has contributed to this idea,” Orsina explained to CNN. “The fact that you propose the same nationalist response as Orbán and Trump is perhaps not the correct approach.”
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The 2027 elections: if successful, Giorgia Meloni would be the longest-serving Prime Minister after Silvio Berlusconi and Benito Mussolini. But the road is still long, between economic uncertainties and scandals within the majority.