In case you missed it, Venice has just voted to secede from Italy. It’s happening all over Europe: a backlash against centralization, a resurgence of identitarianism, and a yearning for local control. (It’s happening in America, too.)
When I was in Venice and Florence in 2012, it seemed that almost any conversation with the locals quickly devolved into an anti-EU rant, so I’m hardly shocked to see this in the news. We neoreactionary types are all about self-determination and ‘exit’ as important freedoms, and so the good people of Veneto certainly have my blessing. I think a ‘patchwork’ Europe of smaller, more homogenous states will be a happier place, and smaller polities will be able to arrange their affairs in ways that are better suited to their individual customs, folkways, and needs.
Patrick Buchanan, who understands the enduring pull of ethnonationalism better than most, weighs in on all of this, here.