The West’s cognoscenti – perhaps better the “condescenti” – appear to have grossly underestimated Giorgia Meloni, reports Benjamin Braddock in The American Mind. While Italy’s populist new prime minister has, as expected, begun to distance her country from the European Union and crack down on illegal immigration, Meloni’s mature statesmanship and shrewd cultivation of the U.S. are confounding predictions of a rapid flame-out. Making the conservative all the more popular among Italian voters.

Javier Milei Makes Fools of the “Experts”
As it began looking like Javier Milei might actually be elected President of Argentina, more than 100 leading international economists warned that this “far-right” political “wrecking ball” would “cause ‘devastation,’ spike inflation, expand poverty, and unemployment.” But as David Harsanyi relates in the Washington Examiner, Milei has tamed inflation, balanced the budget, shrunk the bureaucracy, deregulated the economy, driven down poverty and repaid billions in U.S. loans. And now, Harsanyi notes, Argentina is starting to boom.

