In 1917, the Italian Army suffered one of the worst disasters of the First World War. A combined offensive by Austria-Hungary and Germany broke the Alpine Italian line at Caporetto and swept within seventy miles of Venice, capturing some 250,000 Italian troops. The Italians made a last ditch stand at the Piave River determined that “Qui, e non più di qui!” (“Here, and no farther!”). The Piave line held and the Italians went on to total victory in 1918.
I often see Italian Americans as holding the cultural line in the age of overwhelming change. We have our share of utopian liberals willing to accept whatever comes down the pike, but we are mostly a conservative people, slow to change. Italy is as much a timeless museum as an innovating nation, so it’s in our DNA.
The media recently described Democrat Senator Joe Manchin (orig: Mancini) as a “monkey wrench” in the Democratic drive to radically change America politically, culturally, and economically. He has refused to abolish the filibuster ‘circuit breaker’ or admit Washington, DC as the 51st state, or ‘to pack’ the Supreme Court. He has questioned a controversial bill to usurp states’ voting laws and one for “infrastructure” that encompasses outrageous, unrelated expenditures. In short, Manchin’s one-man army has made the Potomac his Piave River.
A few meters from Manchin’s Senate office lies the Supreme Court where another Italian American, Justice Samuel Alito, struggles to keep that Court relevant. Last Friday, the Wall Street Journal lauded Alito for warning the nation of a ‘woke’ cultural takeover. The issue that sparked this warning was the Court’s refusal to accept a case Texas brought against California. California barred funding to any group that wants to hold events in Texas, an ‘unwoke’ state. Essentially, California declared an economic war against any ‘unwoke’ state, i.e, any state that California deems non-progressive in elections, education, or social mores. Justice Alito is finding that the Court is not as conservative as Democrats feared. His Trump-appointed colleagues refused to address valid constitutional election issues before the 2020 election, and now they refuse to rule on interstate commerce. As Alito says, when Texas and California, or any state, entered the Union “…they acquired the right to have their disputes with other states adjudicated by the Nation’s highest court.” If the Supreme Court begs off, who’s fulfilling the Constitution?
It seems that ‘woke’ corporations are filling the gap. Coca-Cola and Delta Air Lines have been drawn into opposing Georgia’s new voting integrity law, deemed by Black Lives Matter and Black church groups as racist. Those groups have also weaponized Major League Baseball to punish Georgia by transferring the annual All-Star Game out of state, and threatening to boycott hesitant corporations. But one Atlanta-based company, Home Depot, is holding the line on being dragged into this political issue. Home Depot’s co-founder and a major stockholder is 85-year old Ken Langone. The home improvement giant employs over 400,000 Americans, paying above minimum wage in its 2,300 stores around the nation. Is it too big to boycott? Langone’s reputation for racial equality is well-known. He has given hundreds of millions of dollars to NYU Medical center and created an endowment to pay the tuition of NYU medical students, of all races. He’s holding the line in Georgia.
Nationally, both Democrats and Republicans are flummoxed by where and how to hold the line against social media – Google, Twitter, Facebook, Amazon, et al – monopolies owned by a coterie of rich individuals who control the social internet. One man who is not flummoxed is Florida Governor Ron DeSantis. He is determined to confront the media oligarchs even if the federal government lacks the consensus to do so. His state will be the first to treat social media as a “public utility”, obligated to provide equal service to all. The Republican governor cites social media’s anti-Republican messaging during the last election, when it deleted the NY Post exposé of the Hunter Biden scandal and then banned Donald Trump from Twitter. For DeSantis, these were violations of the First Amendment by a “public utility.” While federal law does not allow individuals to sue social media for such abuses, he believes individual states can punish these “utilities” for them – he’s talking about millions of dollars in fines. The bill has Senate approval, now goes to the Florida House.
Will holding this line be victorious? Alito’s Court may well decide someday. -JLM
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