In 2018, the Italian director Luca Miniero released a film Sono Tornato, (I'm back), the subject of which is il Duce Benito Mussolini, played by actor Massimo Popolizio. This film was a discrete success, appearing also on a number of television talk shows. It puts on the table the question: is it possible that Mussolini's return may be seen as something natural to a number of people? This can be seen when in parts of the film, where there are no actors or scripts, passers-by showcase their appeal to il Duce through gestures such as the Roman salute with their right hand in a spontaneous manner in a filmed social experiment.

In Italy in fact, a 2017 survey showed that 23% of Italians would be in favour of a five-year dictatorship as the only possible solution to the country's problems, while 71% agree that radical solutions are needed. What does this say about public opinion?

A valid theory is that we have entered into a period in which a considerable percentage of the public, disillusioned with the current political establishment and disintegration of strong values in society, begin to question whether or not a return to said strong values and attitudes would be the solution to the current problems.

Following the inter-war heroic phase, which brought about the Nazi-Fascist dictatorships in Europe and also following the Second World War, the world fell into a worrying high level of feel-good optimism, which paved the way for leftist political ideas to carry forward the most dramatic moral and cultural revolution ever with little resistance from so-called "conservative" or "centre-right" parties which were also engulfed by this post-war moral revolution.

The elections of Reagan and Thatcher, in the early 1980s, were early signs of some form of shift in public mentality; both appearing as the strong man and woman leaders in politics. These personalities were, however, quickly succeeded by dull politicians such as Bush and Major.

The 9/11 attack on the World Trade Centre also shook the public out of their pacifist comfort zones and exposed to the world the fragility of Western liberal democracy.

The migrant crisis in Europe also showed how defenceless we are when confronted with an invading people, dramatically shifting local demography and ways of life in the socio-cultural and also economic sphere. Laws of indiscrimination and mob-imposed labels such as "racist" show the full extent of the situation.

The ever-increasing ridiculousness of gender ideology and sexualisation of society has convinced a number of people that dialogue and compromise is futile. Hence the growing number of the discontent, who wish to preserve a more moral order grounded in natural law.

This reaction can perhaps be seen most dramatically within the Ecclesiastical sphere, where decades of watered down hippy morality and liturgy are being met with a strong growth of traditional Holy Masses, especially among the youth. A survey in the USA stated that among priests ordained post-2020, 85% declare themselves to be either "conservative" or "very conservative". It is also noteworthy that since the current pontificate in Rome, a number of moderates found themselves moving to the right and forming part of a growing conservative ecclesiastical wave.

What until a decade or so ago was considered fringe now has obtained electoral potency and political leverage, be it in the political or ecclesiastical sphere. Prior to this, labelling these groups as simply "fascists" was enough to stigmatise them. Since their growth, however, this is now not enough, hence new terms invented by the media to slander them such as "extreme right", "racist right", "misogynistic right" and so on.

The current transitory phase in Europe, which is seeing a rise in right of centre parties entering parliaments and even government bodies, is an indication of a society moving away from the moderate ground and towards the heroic ground. However, seeing as these are merely populist movements with some right wing traits, the march against liberal hegemony cannot cease here and must continue growing and evolving.

These political shifts in tendency are symptoms of the Western man born from the trenches of the First World War. The late 1910s and early 1920s saw years of feel-goodism, while the years that followed saw society shift towards Nazism and Fascism. The years following the Second World War again saw society shift to hippy culture and neo-liberal Americanism, and is currently undergoing a steady shift in the opposite direction again. These cycles show that the Western man is unbalanced because he has lost all that is objectively good, true and beautiful; so in search for identity and meaning, he shifts the pendulum hoping to find comfort and stability on either side; stability which can only be achieved through the restoration of European Christian Civilisation.

Image: Trionfo di Carlo di Borbone alla Battaglia di Gaeta c. 1735 Solimena Francesco