Analysis
Meloni brandishes Charlie Kirk against the opposition
‘In Italy, too, the climate is becoming unsustainable,’ Meloi declared. The construction of a ‘martyr’ as a ruthless, lethal weapon is as old as politics itself.
The right wing across the West, including the party governing Italy, is wielding the assassination of Charlie Kirk as a cudgel. At a party gathering in Rome, Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni set aside her fancy suit and, for a few hours, figuratively brandished a blunt instrument.
She lashed out fiercely at those who “justify the intentional murder of a young man who had the courage to defend his ideas.” According to the prime minister, this is not merely an American story – even as political murder has a long and bloody tradition in the “land of liberty,” often at the hands of unhinged individuals whom no one dares stop from acquiring highly accurate and lethal weapons.
Meloni launched into a denunciation: “In Italy, too, the climate is becoming unsustainable,” she declared, pointing without hesitation at the supposed culprits: “Has the time come to hold the Italian left accountable for this culture of justification? Is it right to envision a lesser punishment for someone who shoots a right-wing politician?”
“If Meloni doesn’t name names, she is the one fomenting a climate of hatred,” replied opposition leader Elly Schlein.
While it’s true that keyboard provocateurs have been running wild online, this is common on social media and means very little. The opening for the prime minister’s unseemly attack was provided by the mathematician Piergiorgio Odifreddi, who made a post that was reckless, to say the least, and which Meloni further magnified as she pleased: “He said that shooting Martin Luther King is not the same as shooting a MAGA representative,” she charged. “Does he mean there are people whom it is legitimate, or less of a grave matter, to shoot based on their ideas?”
Odifreddi quickly tried to clarify: “I only said that if one uses such methods, one can expect to provoke reactions of this kind. Which obviously does not mean justifying it.” But the avalanche was already unstoppable and would have happened regardless of whether the mathematician had posted or not.
The prime minister was only the loudest voice in a large chorus among the government coalition. Defense Minister Guido Crosetto took issue with those who “incite the crowd and fuel its worst impulses by using violent words.” Interior Minister Matteo Piantedosi, subtle as always, limited himself to a warning against “processes of imitation.” The typically moderate Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani was not moderate at all in this case: “There are too many teachers of evil in Italy who use violent language against their political opponents.” Tajani (Forza Italia) aimed his fire primarily at the Five Star Movement, with a heated diatribe against its leader, Giuseppe Conte: “Enough with this violent language that is turning politics into a hunt for the enemy. We cannot remain silent, because the situation is getting worse.”
The PD replied by accusing the right of “inflaming the climate to cover up the fact that this is a non-issue.” Conte rightly pointed out that this use of “victimhood” serves to “raise the temperature while pretending to lower it.” Renzi was the most blunt in his counterattack: “It’s time for Meloni to stop exploiting everything and playing the victim.” The entire opposition, through different paths, reached the same conclusion: “Meloni should focus on governing.”
But it would be an optimistic interpretation, to say the least, to believe that the right is exploiting Kirk’s death only to shift attention from its own difficulties or for some easy publicity. The goal of Trump in the U.S., and perhaps also of the right governing Italy, is to use Charlie Kirk’s blood to enact a drastic crackdown on political freedoms and the opposition’s democratic space in the name of a “martyr.” It is a very short step from denouncing “the climate of hatred created by the left” as the supposed root cause of a crime to intervening to suppress those who are blamed for creating that climate.
The construction of a “martyr” as a ruthless, lethal weapon is as old as politics itself. In the last century, the fascist right used it more and better than anyone, from Horst Wessel in Weimar Germany to Calvo Sotelo on the eve of the Spanish Civil War. But it has never happened, at least not to this extent, that a “martyr” has been so blatantly exploited in every country at once. With a crucial difference: where the right is not in power, its instrumentalization of a crime is limited to propaganda. Where it governs, as in the U.S. or in Italy, it can go much further.
Originally published at https://ilmanifesto.it/meloni-brandisce-kirk-contro-le-opposizioni on 2025-09-14