Italy’s Populists Lost Power—And Now the Press

“Italians,” the great 20th-century Italian writer Ennio Flaiano once remarked, “always rush to the aid of the victor.” But what happens when there’s no clear victor? Or no coherent ideological line between government and opposition? Then where do you run?

Flaiano’s line has come to mind lately as we’ve watched Italy shift its tone and focus to adjust to a new reality: its recent switch from a right-wing government to a leftish one, one with the same anti-establishment party, the Five Star Movement, at its core, and the same prime minister, Giuseppe Conte, at its head.