Reading a live running commentary on Italy’s elections may just take you back to November 8, 2016, complete with alleged voter fraud. One thing is certain, Italy is proving that MAGA is not just an American campaign slogan. It is a movement that has caught on worldwide. What started with the election of President Donald Trump in America and Brexit in England is spreading- and globalists are panicking. The news site Express.co.uk kept a running log of the Italian election happenings here. To read this article is to relive the glory of the election of Donald Trump.

Winner Take All

Italy’s voting process has been described as First Past The Post or FPTP, which means winner take all. Here is a more in-depth definition of FPTP: “The First Past The Post system is the simplest form of plurality/majority system, using single-member districts and candidate-centered voting. The voter is presented with the names of the nominated candidates and votes by choosing one, and only one, of them. The winning candidate is simply the person who wins the most votes; in theory, he or she could be elected with two votes if every other candidate only secured a single vote.”

Italy’s exit polling finds that one movement is emerging as the single largest party in Italy. The anti-EU party, Italy’s Five Star Movement or M5S, is Italy’s answer to the anti-establishment MAGA movement here in America. This party, which emphatically asserts “Italians first!” has swept Italy off her feet. One Italian newspaper said, “Defeated everywhere else in Europe, populism won here.”

Social Media Proves Powerful

One of the ways Italy’s M5S generated a successful turnout was the extremely effective use of social media. Sound familiar? Despite the left and their rabid lamenting over President Trump’s tweeting, social media was instrumental in his campaign and has been excellent in cementing the MAGA message. By completely bypassing the mainstream media, social media has proven, once again, to be massively effective in Italy.

“One of our strengths was the ability to create a dense network on social media,” said one party official, “We have a lot of different personalities within the movement whose posts have been shared again and again. We were truly able to interact with our supporters.” These sentiments, concerning the use of social media, echo sentiments among the members of the Trump campaign, his administration and even members of Congress. Senator Mitch McConnell, the Republican Senate majority leader from Kentucky, recently stated in this video that he was not a big fan of Trump’s tweets before his December 22, 2017, press conference, but that he was “warming up to them.”

Recently, as New Right Network shared in this article last week, Twitter decided to purge thousands of conservative accounts. Facebook and YouTube followed suit in an all-out assault on free speech and the censorship of conservative voices. There is no doubt that these tactics are geared toward dividing the MAGA movement and stifling its impact. It would not be surprising to see Italy experiencing its own attacks on conservative voices in the future.

Mainstream Journalism Is Out – Citizen Journalism Is In

The advent of social media has completely negated the impact of mainstream media reporting, as leaders of parties and citizen journalists push to get the truth to the masses. Consequently, this powerful force has been able to move countries in ways never seen before. Italy’s M5S has truly played its Trump card in the use of social media.

While the way things will pan out with Italy’s new prominent party is still unclear, it is crystal clear that the movement that swept Britain and America has now swept through Italy. The similarities to the 2016 Presidential election in America are profound. “The populists have won, and the democratic party has lost. This is a very clear defeat for us,” says Michele Martina, a minister in the outgoing government. The rise of Donald Trump in America might have sounded the death knell in for the leftist Democratic Party and has certainly exposed deep corruption within the outgoing administration. Will Italy’s move towards populism and nationalism follow suit? It will be interesting to see.