Imagine, for a minute, time-travelling Nazisstumble blinking into a 21st-century internet café and log on to read the news. Days ago, Giorgia Meloni, the hard-right leader of the Brothers of Italy party, became prime minister. In California, as Kanye West’s anti-semitic tirades were picked up online around the world, protesters on a freeway were photographed giving Nazi salutes with banners referencing those comments.
They might google Donald Trump and Brazil’s gone-but-probably-not-for-long Jair Bolsonaro. Or the Sweden Democrats, who swept into power this autumn despite wellknown neo-Nazi roots. Or Marine Le Pen, leader of France’s anti-immigrant National Rally — formerly its Front National — who in the summer scooped a staggering 41.5 per cent of the vote in a run-off with lofty centrist Emmanuel Macron.
