Michael Szalay

Jul 22, 2024 | publicbooks.org | Michael Szalay |Charlotte Rosen

“Better a pig than a fascist.” This line, one of Hayao Miyazaki’s finest, first appeared in his 1992 film Porco Rosso. Yet the line reappeared last summer in Tunis, on signs protesting the visit of Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, Italy’s hard-right populist leader whose Brothers of Italy party traces its roots to the Movimento Sociale Italiano, established by Mussolini supporters.

Sep 13, 2023 | publicbooks.org | Michael Szalay |Johannes Lenhard |Megan Cummins

A TV news network throws in with a far-right presidential candidate and declares him the next president. The network is ATN, a fictionalized Fox News from HBO’s Succession that makes its money off Republican causes and has supported the candidate, Jeryd Mencken, throughout the election. At a crucial juncture, ATN calls Wisconsin for Mencken, knowing his partisans have set fire to ballots that promised to tilt the state Democratic.