A college football player apologized after tweeting his support for incoming Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, a conservative nationalist who the Left portrays as a fascist.
Brian Buschini, a sophomore starting punter for University of Nebraska, posted his approval of a viral Meloni speech from 2019 in which she accused liberal elitists of attacking the family. In the speech, Meloni unabashedly defended her faith and belief in traditional values.
“All glory to God!” Buschini wrote in response to a tweet praising the speech. “Love this!”
The speech Buschini praised, then apologized for praising, has become a rallying cry for conservatives around the world who see Meloni as the latest hope for stopping the West’s slide toward socialism.
Pro-Life Prime Minister of Italy Giorgia Meloni:
"We will defend God, country and family."https://t.co/Cm15gBGeHx pic.twitter.com/Xbdz2gRIMw
— LifeNews.com (@LifeNewsHQ) September 26, 2022
“Why is the family an enemy? Why is the family so frightening?” Meloni said. “There is a single answer to all these questions. Because it defines us. Because it is our identity. Because everything that defines us is now an enemy for those who would like us to no longer have an identity and to simply be perfect consumer slaves.”
Meloni, 45, a member of the Brothers of Italy party, heads an alliance of conservative parties which now boasts majorities in both houses of parliament and will likely form a new government. Critics have branded her a fascist and compared her to World War II-era dictator Benito Mussolini, in large part for her fierce criticism of globalists and her early political roots in a party linked to the infamous figure.
Pro-family nationalist Georgia Meloni is poised to become Italy’s next prime minister. (Photo by Antonio Masiello/Getty Images)
“And so they attack national identity, they attack religious identity, they attack gender identity, they attack family identity,” she continued in her career-defining speech three years ago. “I can’t define myself as Italian, Christian, woman, mother. No. I must be Citizen X, Gender X, Parent 1, Parent 2. I must be a number. Because when I am only a number, when I no longer have an identity or roots, then I will be the perfect slave at the mercy of financial speculators. The perfect consumer.”
A day after praising the speech, Buschini was taking it back.
“I want to take the time to apologize for a tweet I posted yesterday,” he wrote. “I saw a headline from a speech the new Prime Minister of Italy made that seemed to support Christianity and family values. I unfortunately tweeted about this without knowing the background or history of this politician or the movement she is involved with. In no way do I support fascism or racism in any form. I apologize for posting without understanding the reality of what I was posting about.”
Meloni, who was raised by a single mom in Rome, won her first local election at 21 and became Italy’s youngest ever minister when former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi made her youth minister in 2008. In her 2021 autobiography, “I am Giorgia,” Meloni described joining a local chapter of the Italian Social Movement, created in 1946 by supporters of Mussolini.
She compares her party and her politics to Republicans in the U.S. and Britain’s Conservative Party.
“Yes to natural families, no to the LGBT lobby, yes to sexual identity, no to gender ideology, yes to the culture of life, no to the abyss of death,” she said in a June speech. “No to the violence of Islam, yes to safer borders, no to mass immigration, yes to work for our people, no to major international finance.”