But have right-wing libertarians become illiberal? Nicola Porro answers.

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What's happening to right-wing libertarians? Haven't they become illiberal? Strange phenomena are indeed occurring on the right, with supporters of legal rights turning to handcuffs (see the Milan investigation) and defenders of parliamentary immunity clamoring for a European vote to resume the trial of Ilaria Salis, while Donald Trump and his followers in the US say they want to "prosecute their media enemies" after returning to the White House with a campaign centered on the fact that they were silenced. So, let's turn the question to right-wing libertarian Nicola Porro , deputy editor of Il Giornale and host of "Quarta Repubblica" (which is currently doubling up on TV, again on Rete4, with the new segment "Dieci minuti," following the evening Tg4: a case of the day commented on from a perspective that isn't that of the news or that of the talk show—and the ratings seem to reward him with an average of 5.3 percent). So, Porro, where have the right-wing libertarians gone? "In Italy, the category of libertarians is very hard to find. And it certainly takes tremendous strength of spirit today, to defend, for example, this horrible European Parliament in its decision to confirm the immunity of Ilaria Salis . A sort of stress test for a libertarian: Salis represents, in my view, the worst imaginable, but principle is worth more than the worst imaginable. Some might lean on Karl Popper's maxim, that it is necessary to be intolerant towards those who practice intolerance. A maxim I do not share: in the case of Ilaria Salis, the principle that a person under investigation and not yet convicted, as an elected official, should have a shield that stems from the fundamental principles of the separation of powers is far superior to the idea of ​​having to oppose the horrible character represented by the MEP."

Freedom of speech "isn't for wimps," says Porro: "We're all good at thinking we can say the terrible things we think; the difficult thing is respecting the horrible things we don't agree with. For example, when Piergiorgio Odifreddi spoke about the death of Charlie Kirk ("Shooting Martin Luther King or Trump isn't the same thing; he who sows the wind reaps the whirlwind," the mathematician had said on La7, ed.), I think it's completely legitimate for Odifreddi to think something like that, even if for me it falls along the same line of ideological horror as Salis." The Milan investigation, however, for right-wing libertarians, shouldn't have become a stress test. "From this perspective, Milan is a scandalous case," says the host, "faced with a prosecutor's office that had adopted the Mani Pulite method and is espousing phenomenal anti-capitalist and anti-market biases. But right-wing newspapers, in my opinion, and a certain right-wing public opinion, were too blinded by their antipathy toward Mayor Beppe Sala." Meanwhile, in the US, in the Trump camp, the proclamations of the past are being contradicted.

In the United States—and this is no excuse—there is a monstrous thirst for justice after fifteen years of Wokism. Whoever won the elections reacted with the idea of ​​punishing those who had fueled that Wokism. This is stupid for two reasons. The first is in principle: Kirk himself, with his own flesh and blood, is the icon of free speech. The second is practical: Trump swept the elections with 90 percent of intellectuals and the media against him. I don't understand what problem he has now in letting them speak. I don't think, as left-wing intellectuals say, that we're moving toward an era of American authoritarianism, but I do think this anti-liberal behavior in the management of information is insane. They are guilty of a sort of reverse Wokism, after having been elected thanks to anti-woke policies. But if the right doesn't learn from the mistakes of the left, it is destined to meet its own end, after having won by not wearing the distorted lenses of Wokism, in the US as in Europe .

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