I cant say I have heard about open borders in italy. Is this in case they bring it up? Was EU making them? I don't know if this is some kind of backlash like trump was for The US.

YES! Oliver didn't pay enough attention to the M5S as the votes prove, they are INSANE, most people vote them for protest or because of their claim I've already mentioned of "we're the only good politicians", additionally they are promising a "citizenship income", which they want to guarantee to lots of people and of course is unaffordable by our current economical situation. The citizenship income is the main reason why the M5S got this many votes: the votes for M5S mostly came from the South while the votes for Lega came mostly from the North (Lega used to be a separationist party), this is due to the lack of jobs for Italians living in the South which has been an issue since Italy's birth. Overall it's clear to anyone that grasps a little of politics that M5S is a "too good to be true" party and as soon as they'll be at the lead of the country they'll just turn the country in a flaming ball of chaos.

On the Fascist Oliver omitted that while yes, Lega is racist and somewhat fascist, they're not even the WORST in the elections, there's currently two Far Right parties, CasaPound and Forza Nuova, who are admitedly neo-fascist, they have no problem to admit it and, while both of them are under 1%, they are still a HUGE problem because they can easily gain votes from Lega, which as we know now has 18% of the total votes. To be clear, our constitution, which was adopted in 1948 afted the fall of Mussolini, is supposed to ban all sorts of fascist or violent parties, but, due to it being rushed after the end of the war, its misleadingly worderd, this makes it so that the only illegal thing is creating the "Fascist Party", as in a party that is litterally named Fascist, anything else is allowed. Many tried to change the constitution but it's extremely hard and this point was never fixed.

On the opposite side the Left isn't perfect too, while PD (which is center-left) was by far the best option (personal opinion), there are also comunist parties, first of which is PaP, while they have proven to be less aggressive than the Far Right, they were involved with fights against the police in the last few months, which caused a growth in popularity of the Far Right parties

The EU and NGOs brought in ca 600K migrants in the last three years into Italy from Africa. All right and center right parties promised to deport them back and they probably won the election based on that.

Berlusconi pledges to deport 600,000 illegal immigrants from Italy

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/feb/05/berlusconi-pledges-to-deport-600000-illegal-immigrants-italy-election

It's pretty obvious that Russia is trying to dismantle the EU and boost nationalist movements in western countries.

I highly doubt that Italy actually *has* 600 000 permanent refugees, the majority should move north within the next few years.

Or a Civil War. Everyone needs a new one. Apparently, five decades of compromise still haven't sunken in just yet. Some people only learn by way of the gun if I know... 

SO they are not full blown sweden and are trying to avoid becoming like them. Understandable. 

I wanted to like the M5S at first due to the failures of the center left party but I couldn't ignore some of their insane positions to make that vote. I drew the line when I found out they have an anti-vaccination stance, I can't believe how popular it is there (I live in the US). I ended up voting PD knowing they would not win and that nothing would change even if they did. The choices people have there are terrible.

Matteo Salvini rejected cooperation with M5S...

Even now I am starting to wonder if these guys realize the enemy of their enemy is their friend. I am also tempted to ask an Italian person I met in school whether they voted for these guys or Italian United Russia...

I think it's telling the self-described PD supporter (Luke888) calls them "the left" while simultaneously calling them center-right.
"let's pretend and call things by something else than it really is because it makes it easier to rationalize buying into status quo"
sums up election for PD, and why nobody trusts them because... obviously. (not attacking Luke888 here, honesty is good)

With Renzi quitting (who opposed M5S coalition, and facilitated consolidation of PD into liberal center-right vehicle more
comfortable with Macron's En Marche and Spain's Ciudadanos, precipitating exit from PD of "real" center-left socialists)
that leaves M5S + PD coalition as most likely outcome by what I understand, exactly what M5S' Di Maio openly called for.
I wonder if this post-Renzi PD would change enough to bring back the anti-Renzi dissidents who found their way to LeU.

I recall reading interview with center-right supporter who shifted from supporting FI to voting for PD solely because of
dislike for Lega (and probably their overt fascist electoral allies), which makes PD's poor showing all the more spectacular,
if even with support from that sector one could consider that guy representative of, they still had horrible end result.
Which is really the norm for liberal center-right, there is no significant popular base for it, and cases of their popularity
like Spain's Ciudadanos swing on tangential issues (Catalonia, anti-corruption sentiment vs PP while C's never in power),
or of course, to use the famous comparison, the Nazis' own leverage of nationalist hate to cover for privatization policy.

Then it's hilarious to see all the non-Italian "Atlantic Council" crowd get hyped over "Russia" angle while
Italians across political spectrum largely couldn't care less and would prefer constructive friendly relations.
Of course, de facto, Italian governments have caved in to support Russia sanctions, just as they caved in to
allow NATO to bomb and overthrow Libya using Italian territory, despite good Italian relations with Qadafi,
and the obviously apparent negative repurcussions Italy has felt since the war (likewise for NATO war vs Syria).

Meanwhile we get standard "Russia backs far-right" BS ignoring how happy NATO is to deal with far-right
whether in Baltics, Ukraine or Bulgaria where government includes fascists solely to keep out "pro-Russia" socialists.
(same fascists previously cast as "pro-Russia" in NATO-strong circles, but when they're useful, no complaints)
Of course same circles tended to complain of things like good relations of Schroder (German SPD) with Russia,
which is as mainstream center-left as you can get, almost like they make up scare propaganda to suit their needs.

Anyways, while thread is on Italy, is there any chance they get the EU Medicine Agency returned to Milan?
Seems to me if Dutch aren't compliant by a certain date leading up to Brexit deadline, it seems reasonable
Milan be substituted, being as it equally reached final round (only losing by coin-toss) and fulfills all needs 100%.