AHC and WI: Italian Prime Minister Riccardo Santorum

Let's say Rick Santorum's (Riccardo Santorum ATL) dad decided to stay in Italy and married someone else and still gives birth to an alternate version of him. Would he pass as a liberal or communist like OTL Santorum's relatives or if he goes the GOP-style path, some sort of a neo-fascist?

Bonus: Also find a way to get this alternate Santorum to be Italian Prime Minister.
 

TinyTartar

Banned
If he goes into politics, it would be out of religious identity. Santorum economically speaking is communitarian for the most part, believing in big government in all aspects of life, both for family issues and for aid for the needy. He might find affiliation with the Christian Democrats due to his sort of centrist economic ideas and social conservatism.
 
If he goes into politics, it would be out of religious identity. Santorum economically speaking is communitarian for the most part, believing in big government in all aspects of life, both for family issues and for aid for the needy. He might find affiliation with the Christian Democrats due to his sort of centrist economic ideas and social conservatism.

Really? I assumed his views were more in line with the Tea Party.
 
Riccardo "Rick" Santorum (born May 10, 1958) is an Italian attorney and
Santorum was born in Riva del Garda,Italy to the middle of the three children of Aldo Santorum (1923–2011), a clinical psychologist and his Italian wife, () not only did he grow up in an observant Catholic family, Santorum, was also a Scout in the Association of Catholic Guides and Scouts of Italy (AGESCI).
During his school years he was nicknamed "Rick le Rooster", supposedly for both a cowlick strand of hair and an assertive nature, particularly on important political issues.
He graduated in 1980 from the University of Turin with a BA degree with honors in political science and worked as a post-graduate fellow in economics at the Einaudi Foundation from 1980 to 1982.

After the Einaudi Foundation, Santorum was admitted to the Italian bar and practiced law for 10 years. Santorum left his private law practice after his election in the 1992 general election, as a Pole of Freedoms & Pole of Good Government member of the Chamber of Deputies, working under Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, in Italy's lower house, where he stayed until the 2001 general election when he became a member of the Senate, for the House of Freedoms party.

On 12 November 2011, in the midst of the European sovereign debt crisis, Santorum was invited by President Giorgio Napolitano to form a new government following the resignation of Silvio Berlusconi. Santorum was sworn in as Prime Minister on 16 November 2011, an office he would hold until June 2014, being replaced by Matteo Renzi.

On 31 January 2015, he was elected by parliament to be the 12th President of the Italian Republic.
 
Really? I assumed his views were more in line with the Tea Party.

The Tea Party as typically defined tends to be much more classically liberal than Santorum is. While he can dogwhistle as well as any American politician, he's been on records as talking about the merits of an industrial policy, which puts him arguably to the economic left of much of the Establishment faction. Where he does appeal to the Tea Party, it's on issues primarily of nationalism and to a lesser extent concerns about immigration.

If Ricardo is anything like Richard, I'd expect him to be pretty Euroskeptic. I don't think FN would be a good fit for him given its origins as the MSI - probably he'd fall in reluctantly with Berlusconi's people. I suspect he'd be a controversial minister, though ironically from being the opposite of Berlusconi.
 
Apparently people think he would have the same views as OTL, even though he would've been brought up in an entirely different environment.
 
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