AS A WRITER who has covered Silvio Berlusconi since he became Italy’s prime minister in 1994, it has been difficult not to be overcome with a powerful sense of déjà vu all over again watching the presidential campaign of Donald Trump.
Some of the resemblances are obvious as well as uncanny. Both are billionaires who made their initial fortunes in real estate, whose wealth and playboy lifestyles turned them into celebrities. Both have had ugly divorces and brag of their sexual prowess. Trump notably defended his manhood at the debate last week, while Berlusconi once said, “Life is a matter of perspective: Think of all the women in the world who want to sleep with me but don’t know it.” (This was before Berlusconi began holding “bunga bunga” parties with prostitutes.) They are masters of media manipulation, Berlusconi as Italy’s largest private television owner, Trump as the star of his own reality TV show and creator of the Trump “brand.” Entering politics, both have styled themselves as the ultimate anti-politician — as the super-successful entrepreneur running against gray “professional politicians” who have never met a payroll and are ruining their respective countries.
The strategy worked well for Berlusconi — he won three national elections and served as prime minister for nine years between 1994 and 2011. Will it do the same for Trump?
Both are deliberately transgressive, breaking through the tedium of politics-as-usual by using vulgar language, insulting and shouting down opponents, adopting simple catchy slogans, and making off-color jokes and misogynistic remarks. Their verbal “gaffes” — which would be suicide for most politicians — are actually part of their appeal. I recall when Berlusconi presided over a European summit, and when negotiations stalled, he said to the assembled heads of state, “Let’s lighten up the climate by talking about soccer and women.” He turned to Gerhard Schroder, then-chancellor of Germany, who had been married four times. “You, Gerhard,” Berlusconi said. “What can you tell us about women?” The remark was greeted with a chill. At first I thought, How could Berlusconi be so foolish? But his true audience was not the European heads of state — it was Italian men back home. After all, what are the two favorite topics in most Italian bars? Soccer and women.
Similarly, one might have thought Trump would have doomed himself with remarks apparently about the menstrual cycle of Fox News anchor Megyn Kelly, and his ability to get “a young and beautiful piece of ass.” But this nose-thumbing of “political correctness” has allowed both Berlusconi and Trump to successfully create an unusual hybrid persona: a kind of everyman’s billionaire. Someone who, on the one hand, by virtue of extreme wealth, success, and audacity, is a kind of superman for whom the normal rules of conduct don’t apply. At the same time, their plain, coarse speech connects viscerally with many people, particularly the less educated part of the electorate. They have an improbable inter-class appeal, very rich men who pursue policies that benefit the very rich (see the proposed Trump tax cut) while making effective rhetorical appeals, in a beerhall idiom, to the grievances of the struggling members of the middle and working classes.
Neither Trump nor Berlusconi has a real political program; what they are selling is themselves. Berlusconi used to say that what Italy needs is more Berlusconi. I recall a very telling moment in his first election campaign: During a TV debate, his opponent, the economist Luigi Spaventa, was pointing out the holes and inconsistencies in Berlusconi’s economic program, and Berlusconi stopped him mid-sentence and pointed to the victories of his soccer club, AC Milan: “Before trying to compete with me, try, at least, winning a couple of national championships!” The remark had the air of unassailable truth — however irrelevant it might be to Berlusconi’s fitness to govern. Similarly, when asked how he is going to get Mexico to pay for a giant wall between its country and ours, Trump simply responds, “Don’t worry, they’ll pay!”
Yet there is another element — a systemic one — that helps explain why Italy and the U.S. are the only major democracies in which a billionaire circus has raised its tent: the almost total deregulation of broadcast media. Berlusconi managed through political connections (with evidence of massive bribery) to acquire a virtual monopoly of private television in the 1970s. He introduced highly partisan news programs, giving TV shows to such on-air bullies as Vittorio Sgarbi and Paolo Liguori, who peddled conspiracy theories like Glenn Beck and shouted down political opponents in styles similar to Bill O’Reilly. In both Italy and the U.S., you have major networks that are, in essence, the media arm of one of the country’s main political parties. It’s important to realize, however, that the transformation of the media landscapes of both Italy and the U.S. did not simply happen, but were the result, in part, of political decisions.
About 30 years ago, the Federal Communications Commission had quaint rules called the Fairness Doctrine and the Equal Time Doctrine. They were seen as a way of guaranteeing that private license holders operated at least partly in the public interest and guaranteed a degree of pluralism of views. These rules made a certain amount of sense in an analog age in which the number of frequencies was limited. Television (and television news) was dominated by the big three networks, each of which competed for as much of the total market as it could get. It made no sense for any of them to create an overtly partisan newscast that would alienate Republican or Democratic viewers. This was hardly a golden age — broadcast news was arguably dull, centrist, and establishmentarian — but there were basic rules of civility and a certain respect for factual accuracy.
With the advent of cable television in the 1970s and the Reagan revolution of the 1980s, this all changed. President Reagan’s FCC chairman, Mark Fowler, insisted that television was no different than any other commercial appliance — “a toaster with pictures,” he called it. The technological changes in the field — the emergence of cable — reinforced this position. With dozens and eventually hundreds of channels, it was felt, the old rules of fairness and balance were passé, because the sheer number of channels would ensure pluralism. What this view failed to appreciate was that it didn’t correspond with the way people actually consume news: They do not watch multiple points of view, switching frequently between PBS, Fox, MSNBC, and CNN. Instead, each group seeks out the news that fits its own ideological assumptions and stays there.
In 1987, Fowler eliminated the Fairness Doctrine. The next year, Rush Limbaugh created his nationally syndicated radio program. Fox News, headed by former Republican Party operative Roger Ailes, began operating in 1996.
IN BRITAIN, Germany, and France, state media companies still dominate the airwaves and act as a kind of referee for civil discourse and establishing commonly accepted facts; the situation that prevails is akin to American TV before it was disrupted by Reagan and Fox. It has not prevented extremist political movements from developing, but it has meant that the principal conservative parties and their electorates accept basic realities such as global warming and the fact that the invasion of Iraq was not a rousing success. You cannot simply say anything on their airwaves.
Italy, however, has been the outlier in Europe. Not only were Berlusconi’s own networks transformed into his air force and artillery, he consistently placed his own people in strategic positions in the state broadcasting system — his ostensible competitor. A director of news of the largest state channel invented a system known as “the sandwich,” whereby all political news would be presented in the same manner: It would begin with the Berlusconi government’s view of the news, contain a thin slice of opposition opinion, and conclude with another thicker slice of government rebuttal. Without his elaborate web of media protection, it is hard to understand how Berlusconi could have survived so many appalling scandals.
To reinforce their alternate realities, both Berlusconi and Trump have made a special target of the so-called mainstream media. Trump’s use of social media to go after his critics is reminiscent of the frequent attacks Berlusconi made on his critics in the media. One particularly disturbing moment occurred the other day when Trump urged camera operators at one of his rallies to point their lenses at a particular protester, suddenly making her the object of public rage. It reminded me of a moment when Berlusconi stood side by side his good friend Vladimir Putin at a press conference in Moscow. When a Russian journalist asked a tough question of the Russian leader (this was several years ago when such a thing was still possible), Berlusconi made the gesture of firing a machine gun at the woman. In a country where several critical journalists have actually been murdered, this was decidedly unfunny.
Just recently, Trump indicated that he intended to change the libel laws of this country to keep people from writing bad things about him. “The press is a real problem in this country,” he said. “They’re worse than the politicians. … They can write anything they want and you cannot sue them, because the libel laws, they essentially don’t exist, and one of the things I’m going to do is I’m going to open up the libel laws.”
Berlusconi did not have quite the same problem in Italy, where libel laws are far more favorable to plaintiffs. In American libel law, truth is an absolute defense and in the case of media publishing false information about a public figure, the plaintiff must show that the speaker knew it was false or acted recklessly. In Italy’s defamation laws, something can be true and yet defamatory. Berlusconi and his close associates have sued dozens of journalists and critics over the years, often losing but costing his critics money, intimidating publishers, and keeping them tied up in the courts or reduced to silence.
I have learned about the nice distinctions of Italian defamation law from personal experience. When my book, The Sack of Rome, came out in Italy, Berlusconi’s best friend and the head of his media company, Mediaset, sued me for criminal defamation. His main argument was not that the facts in the book were incorrect, but that I should have included other exculpatory facts that would have left the reader with a more positive and, in his view, truer picture of him. Fortunately, I won the case at trial and on appeal, but in Italy, where there are three levels of justice, 11 years after initial charges were filed, the case is still working its way through the legal system.
Are there lessons from Berlusconi that might help us predict Trump’s trajectory and defend against it? Yes and no. Indro Montanelli, a conservative Italian journalist and a fierce Berlusconi critic, said that Italy would need to develop an immunity to Berlusconi by absorbing a certain dose of Berlusconi. Unfortunately, it took 17 years of constant scandals and economic incompetence for Italians to grow weary of Berlusconi. On the positive side, the American electoral season is much longer than Italy’s. Berlusconi came to power in a kind of rapid blitzkrieg of barely three months. Nine months of all Trump all the time may help create Trump fatigue and allow some immunity to develop. Moreover, Berlusconi benefited from the complications of Italy’s complex semi-proportional system: He won elections without ever winning a majority of votes; it will be harder for Trump to reach 50.1 percent.
Lastly, Berlusconi and Trump have a penchant for self-destruction. The giddiness of public adoration — the narcissistic high of constant media attention — creates a feeling of omnipotence that causes them to make mistakes, as Trump did the other day in resisting the invitation to distance himself from David Duke and the KKK. What Berlusconi did — and Trump follows the same path — is create a kind of ongoing reality show whose ratings depended on him continuing to do and say outrageous things. Berlusconi, as Trump, often overestimated himself and underestimated his opponents. Berlusconi won three times but he also lost twice to a politician (Romano Prodi) who was far duller and far more competent. We have to hope it doesn’t take 17 years for America to tire of the Donald.
A very thoughtful analysis of the parallels between Trump and Berlusconi. But Mr. Stille errs in his statement in the penultimate paragraph that Trump needs 50.1%, i.e. a majority, of votes to win. Under our unique Electoral College system he actually needs a majority of electoral votes to win as George W. Bush did in 2000 while only receiving 47.87% of the popular vote.
Much of the damage Berslusconi did to Italy is irreversible. But he is a product of the same environment…Orwellian level corruption and Trojan Horse Fascism which we’ve been sliding toward in the U.S. since Reagan. It was always an undercurrent, as it is in almost all countries to a degree. Reagan’s puppet show masters brought it to such a level that by the time Bush was elected the process had been perfected. Cut off legitimate news organizations from real information, incite the ignorant, and wait for a disaster like 9/11 to let the animals (Bush/Cheney) out of their cages.
We U. S. citizens (and the world) can only blame the mainstream media for so much. For years the general populace hasn’t really given a s–t about what’s going on behind the curtain – and now we’re paying for our ignorance and apathy. Beyond that, we’ve split off into a nation of seemingly diametrically opposed people at war with themselves and the system overall; Trump and Sanders are the result, one confounding a whole party and one dumbfounding a candidate who felt guaranteed the at least nomination, if not the election, without much of a struggle.
Alas, for every one person reading the Intercept, a thousand (a hundred thousand?) are watching ABC, CBS, NBC, Fox, CNN, et al. It is shameful that I get more valuable reporting on the election from Comedy Central than I do from the CBS (or even PBS!) I fear that we reached decades ago a tipping point from which we cannot push back, and that the only way toward righting this country is inevitable and complete collapse. And that’s a belief that I’d love to be proven wrong about in what’s left of my lifetime.?
I’m italian and, sadly, we didn’t get rid of Berlusconi, he doesn’t race for official positions, but he “guide” the people in his party from behind, they’re just his puppets
No TI article would be complete without a couple of gratuitous swipes at Putin.
Oh please. Everyone in the world of actual facts and non-state owned 24-7 propaganda understands what Putin is.
He deserves every bit of condemnation that comes his way for returning Russia to the Dark Ages with all it entails of dictatorship, the persecution/murder of dissenters, monopoly on public opinion, fervent nationalism, the creation of perceiev enemies (to maintain a feeling of ‘us agaimst them’, thus ensuring support), persecution of political opponents. The list of despicable traits this former deeply corrupt, aggressive expansionist goes on ad infinitum.
You’d have to be the victim of his incessant state propaganda (i.e Russian) and/or a paid Putinbot to not realize that this former KGB-agent with a massive inferiority complex is an abomination to everything decent, not to mention a disaster for Russian prosperity.
What I’d like to see The Intercept dive into would be all this arrant bullshit about blacks and Bernie Sanders. According to Wikipedia, blacks make up 37% of Mississippi residents. Just now, 87% of Mississippians voted for Clinton. Which is to say, even if the shadowy Elders of Negro somehow mind-controlled every single last member of their race to vote for Clinton, that still leaves her doing 50-50 with the other races, versus something like 82% I think it was of whites in Vermont who voted for Sanders. Which is to say… all these racist explanations are complete red herrings.
I think we should understand why the Old South is voting against Bernie. My guess is he’s an Easy Rider candidate in territory where the way they’ve traditionally dealt with anyone who couldn’t find a job was to declare them vagrant and send them to Jim Crow work camps to put some of the other uppity laborers out of work. They don’t really get the whole idea of socialism, period. I think it’s about time to stop commenting on people’s skin color and start commenting on what they think!!!
Sadly, I will never be able to unsee the photo of Berlusconi in that leopard print “banana hammock”… and unfortunately this article has now imprinted the same in my minds eye of Drumpf. The Horror, The Horror
Unfortunately, Mr. Stille, you forgot to mention one important thing and that’s where your final point leaks a little:
“He won elections without ever winning a majority of votes; it will be harder for Trump to reach 50.1 percent”
as the fine analyst you are, you should remember that a 51% i s not a 51% of the whole potential voters. One of the reasons leading to Berlusconi’s multiple victory, and quite an important one, was due to abstinence. Why didn’t people against Berlusconi vote? because they were disgusted by the complicity and hypocrisy of the so called “center left”. Many of those who naturally opposed Berlusconi didn’t feel like voting for candidates they felt didn’t represent them even though they knew that would lead to the clown’s victory.
Now, I often read the Guardian and what I see often are comments by perspective voters who ride along this line: “I’m not gonna vote for Hillary, it’s the same old story repeated again. I’D RATHER VOTE FOR TRUMP and…” (the rest is profanity)
or maybe they’d rather not vote at all.
conclusion? if you have 100 potential voters, say 30% are Trump adepts and the remaining are naturally against but do not want to vote for Hillary, they may decide to abstain…add a few more, say, a 16% of voters who decide to vote just against Clinton due to the above mentioned reasons.
Result?
it’s easier than many think to reach a 51%. And when you’re the President of the most powerful country in the world and you’re like Trump, the impact you can have on your country and the rest of the world is huge. Berlusconi was removed when he started affecting Europe in 2011. Who’s goign to remove Trump?
Don’t overestimate your fellow citizens over the dumb Italians (the impression you give when you talk about us. Must have been hard to be a US expat in Italy, Mr. Stille)
“I’m not gonna vote for Hillary, it’s the same old story repeated again. I’D RATHER VOTE FOR TRUMP and…”
Sadly, I’m beginning to be pulled in that direction. For too many years I’ve headed to the polls not proud to vote for a candidate, but merely casting my vote against the opposition. A deviant side of me this time around, seeing Hillary as a definite “more of the same s–t” candidate, wants Trump to take the prize. He’ll make what could quite possibly be the worst (and most damaging) president this country has even seen, but perhaps we’ll get the inevitable crash over with.
For the next several decades, perhaps generations, it will be quite beneficial to be rich. Those of us who don’t fall into that category may wish to keep fresh cyanide capsules on hand.
What is the Trump equivalent of bunga bunga parties?
trumpa trumpa
If drumpf wins we can always get a commercial flight to space, they are getting cheaper.
People need to get the difference between POPULAR and POPULIST? Big indeed!
How long will Lee Fang be on vacation?
Personally, I hope the USA implodes before it’s failed non culture, individualism and hypergreed destroy society if not the world. One only has to listen to rap music which has become mainstream.. Professional Wrestling which has become mainstream. Comic book movies which have become mainstream and Dubya the inarticulate who became POTUS . The whole country seems to have become a pubescent male fantasy where even the educated elites pretend to be or are fools. A nation of McPeople looking for love on the internet, dosed up on legal and illegal drugs and looking for friendship and salvation on flakebook and TV churches; think about it; you are a really sick nation; be gone before you contaminate the rest of us.
I can see that much deep thought went into this analysis.
Trump is being supported by a lot of voters and has been winning primaries. If this country is not an autocratic regime, like those in Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states, WHY are those who are voting for Donald Trump being demonized? Do elites and GOP establishment know why these citizens are p**sed off? Or do they really care why these people have jumped of the establishment band wagon?
Yes, Donald Trump is a populist candidate who shares many personality traits with Silvio Berlusconi. However, the advent of their political careers is fundamentally different. To begin with, Silvio Berlusconi was closely aligned with key socialists – especially Bettino Craxi who politically facilitated the build-up of his media empire. More importantly, he was a member of Propaganda Due (P2), a dark-masonic lodge that provided political cover for key members of Italy’s “Dark State.” Investigations of Propaganda Due have revealed an ever-evolving, nefarious nexus of corrupt politicians, mob owned business interests, the CIA, Vatican Banking, and Italian intelligence services. It served as the mean by which the Vatican, OSS, and Mafia collaborated on the expatriation of NAZI scientists to the United States under project paperclip. It was also instrumental in the CIAs operation GLADIO – a covert, stay behind volunteer network in Western Europe that was positioned to gather intelligence, open escape routes and form resistance movements in the event of a Soviet invasion of Europe. GLADIO was eventually linked to a string of false flag “domestic terrorist” attacks in keeping with an evolving “strategy of tension” that was aimed to divide, manipulate, and control public opinion using fear, propaganda, disinformation, psychological warfare, agents provocateurs, and false flag terrorist actions in order to covertly achieve their strategic aims. It is a documented fact that in 1966 a Musssolini-era Fascist named Liccio Gelli became the Grand Master of the P2 lodge and that he was working as a CIA operative at that time. Under Gelli”s masterful leadership, the P2 lodge became further involved in drug and gun running, bank manipulations and failures, domestic terror, sedition, espionage, political corruption, and murder. When searching Licio Gelli’s villa in 1982, the police found a document called the “Plan for Democratic Rebirth”, which called for a consolidation of the media, suppression of trade unions, and the rewriting of the Italian Constitution. Silvio Berlusconi’s socialist political patron, Bettino Craxi, was also a member of the P2 lodge and tied to the largest political corruption Scandal in Italy’s history.
Yes, billionaire Silvio Berlusconi was a popular political figure, but he has a dark side that has yet to be fully revealed. Although Donald Trump, his father, and attorney have all directly engaged in business deals with the Mafia (e.g. one could not get cement in New York City without doing so), Donald is a Boy Scout compared to Berlusconi.
Karl; not being a conspiracy guy but realizing that there are lots of conspiracy’s I thought I would look this one up. Low and behold, P2 is another one I was not aware of. Nullius in verba magesteri.
Indeed, the words of the master are lost…
It is Bad News that women helped elect Berlusconi, and market trends (though the linked AP story is old) indicate we have women who are willing to play the role game according to His rules. For instance: “The Bombshell bra has been selling out, and that’s not because husbands are buying them for their wives,” says Morris, who works at of BMO Capital Markets. “It’s the wives buying for themselves.” — “Bras and other clues on the economy can be found at mall” – USAToday 11/21/2010
We might also study the sales of false eyelashes and suffocating perfumes for hints that we will be Trumped, and will suffer his disaster until our country is on the brink of destruction.
In his wake, we will hear the same cries we heard from Italy, post- Berlusconi:
“Only a mentally ill person could have a burning desire to govern right now,” Mr Bersani said at a meeting with Five Star politicians.”
http://indyradio.xyz/government-fails-form-italy
Okay, so the author is trying (hard) to make 2 main points: Trump and Berlusconi are terrible persons and they should not be allowed to do politics and ‘the media’ needs to be regulated the way it is in Britain and France so that Trump and Berlusconi don’t become successful politicians.
Now, let’s not forget that Trump’s rise was preceded by the US American voters electing and RE-electing horrors such as Bill Clinton and George W Bush and disappointments such as Obama. And we all know what this ‘fool me twice’ indicates. Okay, I’ll remind the author: it indicates that ‘we’ are getting the exact government that we deserve.
Oh, and one more thing. Is the author aware of ‘who’ might be the next US prez if not Donald Trump? Ahhh… beautiful Hillary… Talking about staring into the abyss and throwing up non-stop.
“Okay, so the author is trying (hard) to make 2 main points: Trump and Berlusconi are terrible persons ….”
See, right off the bat you prove yourself a simpleton. There are many kinds of “terrible persons.” Most of them do not resemble Trump or Berlusconi.
Read more carefully before you comment again in the future.
You really are quite some type of asshole. STFU and go away, little Vic.
You’ve lost every argument you have ever gotten into here, “Lin Ming” – it’s not me who will be disappearing anytime soon.
Anyway “Arth” appreciates your instantaneous support, “Lin Ming”.
What arguments?
I post a comment, you post a comment – we all win!
Arth, if Trump did not exist the Clintons would have had to invent him. He’s the perfect foil: his misogyny pushes pseudo-feminists towards Mrs Clinton and his over-the-top behaviour makes her seem competent and measured. It’s no coincidence that both of them have negative ratings close to 60%. Both of them are loathsome, and I can only hope that if they, or Clinton and any of the Republicans, are the nominees, that the sane center (Sanders voters and Independents) will go Green and elect Dr Stein with a plurality.
Re: “In Britain, Germany, and France, state media companies still dominate the airwaves and act as a kind of referee for civil discourse and establishing commonly accepted facts …” — i.e., unlike in Italy. This author ought to wake up fast and get wise. The BBC, Deutsche Welle, and France 24 are among the worst pollutants in the western world, what with their constant reporting of ‘news’ — as first filtered, processed, and spiced, though, through the lenses of their respective governmental biases. Mr. Stille might do well to come live in Turkey for a month or two and see just how well state-sponsored and state-sanctified media companies do in establishing ‘commonly accepted facts’ and maintaining a ‘civil discourse’. Warning:- It’d be quite a mind-bender, and far from pleasant. Putin and Berlusconi are nothing as compared to Erdogan.
Honestly. I am a 25 year old female and I’m looking to leave the U.S. in the next 2 years.
I am sickened to see the sexism making a comeback. I was hoping it was just where I live (Miami) but I’m starting to see it’s not. It’s a society issue. Women make the majority of the population and we are still objectified from our neighbors to our leaders.
I’m watching our leaders call for an end to human rights and encouragement of brutality. An end to freedom of speech and call for more anonymity for government. My mom literally CLAPPED for the TV yesterday watching Trump promote torture. EVERYONE around me calls me too sensitive and that I’m ridiculous to think America is going backwards.
This is NOT the America I grew up learning about. And honestly, it’s flat out disgusting that they teach America they way they do because it is a giant lie.
I’m over the money-making-death-machine. I just want to find some stability and actually want to associate with people my age… I’m so ready to leave.
My grandma left Italy for a better future for herself as a woman and for future generations. Time to continue the tradition.
Where is the place which is beyond the reach of this perversity?
I still physically reside within the fake U$A,
but I left that culture long ago and I continue to
leave it behind on a daily basis, as much as I can,
even though my body is still within the fake U$A.
To me, the vast majority of voters are the victims of brainwashing
and I can only occasionally and somewhat gently try
to show them a different vision
while they dismiss me as if I am the delusional one.
I think your “nation” needs to be within you, even if it appears
as if you are within someplace else.
Yes, exactly, what we really need is much more of this type acceptable sexism, because as a woman, it makes me feel so much better about myself…
http://www.forbes.com/2011/04/26/enough-with-the-male-bashing.html
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jim-joseph/male-bashing-in-marketing_b_3545715.html
Honestly? Really? As in:
1. I wouldn’t lie to you
2. You can take this to the bank
3. I kid you not
4. Truth be told
5. Frankly speaking
6. You can believe me when I say…
7. All bullshit aside
Why is that, when someone feels compelled to lead of their commentary with the word “honestly,” one expects a lie to immediately follow?
“What separates the winners from the losers is how a person reacts to each new twist of fate.”
~ Donald Trump
wow that’s vapid enough to be emblazoned on a lunchbox
lolol
I’m very highly educated. I know words, I have the best words…
~ Donald (Drumpf) Trump
I am also 25 years old, descended on one side from an Italian grandmother.
Now is not the time to give up and leave, I don’t think. At least, not for me. This is my home. I find Clark’s comment above reassuring. We must all organize to demonstrate a different vision, an alternative.
Get asap. Sad but true that us women are so comfortable and stupid. When over half the population supports their own, their daughters and g/daughters’ demise– like no reproductive care so they can have thirteen to seventen pregnancies per reproductive years, get the hell out fast! Fare well!
I’m curious: how do you see sexism making a comeback? I mean, at a superficial level it looks like we’re at a near lock for having the first female president next year. Of course, there are ongoing abuses, notably pay inequality, as exposed for example in the Sony hack, but I’m not aware of those getting worse. There is some continuing judgmental puritanical idiocy, like a news network demanding the Erin Andrews give some kind of interview before she could work on account of some perv peeking at her. ( https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2016/03/01/the-ordeal-of-espns-erin-andrews-target-of-nude-peephole-videos-and-sexist-affronts/ ). In the age of the Internet that seems worse, a risk that needs to be fought – we need companies to come out and make a clear statement that even if a woman has been in a hundred porn videos they are not going to discriminate, and letting ex-boyfriends and webcam hackers threaten their employees is completely out of the question. But I don’t understand why you say sexism is notably worse on the whole.
Trump is actually a very traditional Republican which we have not had for decades. Lower taxes, an atmosphere favorable for business, better jobs, less war and more diplomacy, etc. This is pretty much the traditional Republican platform. The Democrats, say at the time of Barry Goldwater, were considered the party of war! So I conclude people are not listening to his position. They would rather liken him to Hitler or Berlusconi or Mussolini. I find most of the Intercept articles regarding Trump as useless and boring.
Why not actually study the man and write something of value?
Okay, let’s play.
“America’s primary goal with Iran must be to destroy its nuclear ambitions. Let me put them as plainly as I know how: Iran’s nuclear program must be stopped–by any and all means necessary. Period. We cannot allow this radical regime to acquire a nuclear weapon that they will either use or hand off to terrorists. Better now than later!”
yeah dude’s a flaming peacenik
At least he says similar things about Saudi Arabia, and a whole lot of other countries – see this from Reuters:
“There are also concerns abroad that the United States would become more insular under Trump, who has pledged to tear up international trade agreements and push allies to take a bigger role in tackling Middle East conflicts. . .”
“European diplomats are constantly asking about Trump’s rise with disbelief and, now, growing panic,” said a senior NATO official, speaking on condition of anonymity. With the EU facing an existential crisis, there’s more than the usual anxiety about the U.S. turning inward when Europe needs U.S. support more than ever.”
Source: Reuters, Mar 7, 2016 Foreign diplomats voicing alarm to U.S. officials about Trump By Mark Hosenball, Arshad Mohammed and Matt Spetalnick
Seriously, why should we be spending billions and billions in Europe and the Middle East on NATO and military adventurism when those billions could be much better spent on things like domestic infrastructure and rebuilding our manufacturing sector?
I think he has changed his story far too often for anybody to take seriously the idea that he has coherent “foreign policies” of some sort.
Pressing–us gave nuclear to Pakistan, reassuring?
All we’ve had are republicans. The democrats are Neo-liberals which means right wing. They’ve been cutting taxes and public programs like crazy. Those things are literally the problems with America. Not only that trump’s policies with taxes and “business” are abysmal and guaranteed to cost all of us a lot of money. He’s also not interested in diplomacy. He’s interested in bombs and torture.
Trump is a fraud. This has been known, and is readily knowable with even the most cursory study of the Great Man. He’s certainly traditionally a citizen of the US in his need to brag, his love of violence, and his general ignorance. So, maybe you should do some studying of your own on this subject.
His apparent opposition to trade agreements seems very good, yet if he is going to advocate the expansive use of torture, this is something we can’t ignore. You don’t fuck around with war crimes or crimes against humanity – it is a duty to say no to those right off, then pray you can preserve US sovereignty from TPP afterward. If the U.S. or any country uses its sovereignty to commit unspeakable crimes, that sovereignty is no longer defensible at all.
Appunto!
Berlusconi’s personal behavior is in line with that of politicians everywhere – Bill Clinton, for example, or George W. Bush, particularly in his younger years, or Dominique Strauss-Kahn, ex IMF-chief, whose behavior is a close mimic of Berlusconi’s. Probably much more so than Trump.
Consider Berlusconi’s close relationship with George W. Bush, for example in 2008:
“At Monday’s White House ceremony, the Italian Prime Minister gushed with praise for his host: “I’ve been honored over these years by the possibility of cooperating with you. I’ve found in you a man of great ideals, great principles, a man of vision.” He continued: “And it was always easy for me to share your ideas, to share your visions, to be next to you, to stand next to you, because we are always bound by these common love for freedom, love for democracy, respect for the others, and the feeling, this common feeling that we are here just to serve our peoples.” Bush returned the compliments, thanking Berlusconi for his “friendship and his wisdom,” and calling him “a man of sincerity and principle, who speaks his mind and keeps his word.”
Source: Time Magazine, “Berlusconi, Bush’s Last Best Friend”
By Jeff Israely Tuesday, Oct. 14, 2008
Berlusconi was about as pro-establishment as they come – not at all an outsider in terms of foreign policy actions – for example, when Bush, Blair and Sarkozy declared Libya’s Gaddafi “our good friend” in 2003 who was “WMD-free”, Berlusconi was there with them (Gaddafi had opened his oil fields to Exxon, BP, etc., in contrast to Saddam – but Gaddafi, unlike Saddam, had retained uranium yellowcake and chemical weapons stockpiles – this is all well before the Arab Spring, remember). Berlusconi then enthusiastically backed the 2003 Iraq invasion, which made him popular with Bush and Cheney.
Now, what has Trump said about Bush? He points to his failures on and before 9/11, he says that Bush lied about WMDs in Iraq (both true statements), and he points out that the Iraq War was a massive debacle that created a mega-disaster in the Middle East – here’s a quote:
“Saddam Hussein was a bad guy. But one thing about him, he killed terrorists,” Trump said. “Now Iraq is Harvard for terrorism. You want to become a terrorist? You go to Iraq. Saddam Hussein understood, and he killed terrorists.”
So that’s where Trump differs somewhat from Berlusconi, I think (although, like Berlusconi, he would probably support the CIA black-site rendition program).
However, like Sanders, he’s not on board with the idiotic neoconservative-neoliberal foreign policy that Washington has been pursuing for the past few decades; it’s rather like Sander’s quote at the debate in Michigan, on why American infrastructure and public education is in such a sorry state:
“How did we have so much money available to go to war in Iraq and spend trillions of dollars . . . but somehow not have enough money, not just for Flint . . . . .it’s not just infrastructure, it is education. Detroit’s public school system is collapsing.”
Establishment neocons and neolibs – nor the corporate American media, from the NYTimes to FOX News – just won’t discuss such issues – which is why a Sanders vs. Trump presidential election would be a real change.
Berlusconi is far more comparable to Trump than Hitler. The ‘Hitler’ analogies by analytically weak American liberals dominate the liberal websites – mostly because American are ignorant of Berlusconi. Racist bloviating is one thing; invading Russia, jailing commies and exterminating Jews is another.
I would assume that hitlers early years, before he had actually shown himself for what he was. He had to start somewhere. It’s not that trump is exactly like hitler, it’s more about the fact that these are the types of conditions hitler arose from.
Given you don’t have a crystal ball, saying that Trump WILL turn into Hitler is quite a long, long shot. The social and economiic conditions – specifically the strength of a Communist and Socialist movement that had to be smashed by capital – are not present. Fascism is used by the the ruling class to crush labor. Unfortunately, Labor in the U.S. is pretty much already crushed and the real left is very small and no threat to their rule … yet.
“”Both are billionaires who made their initial fortunes in real estate”
Don’t know where you got this but Trump inherited his money. In fact, had he not invested in real estate and left the money in Wall Street, he would be worth more than he is now.
Berlusconi did not inherit any money. He was the recipient, at the very start of his RE career, of huge amounts of money deposited by the Sicilian Mafia at the bank where Berlusconi was an executive (Banca Rasini, Milan) given to him to be laundered through those RE ventures. The money would be delivered in suitcases by Mafia couriers directly to the bank. While Berlusconi never provided any evidence of the sources of his initial capital at the numerous trials he was subjected to, this explanation is not fantasy but the fruit of careful research and reconstruction by professional investigative journalists.
I guess that helps explain why Berlusconi publicly attacked the Italian journalist Roberto Saviano, author of the very revealing book, Gomorrah, which describes the criminal gang structure of Italy, its close ties to global trade and regional business interests, its role in toxic waste dumping, and how politicians in Italy turn a blind eye to its activities.
good point.
“Are there lessons from Berlusconi that might help us predict Trump’s trajectory and defend against it?…. We have to hope it doesn’t take 17 years for America to tire of the Donald.”
What the author says about the man behind the curtain might be to some degree true. Even if Trump is all you say America is not Italy. I think if Trump does not move more to the center and tone down his rhetoric, insults and ideology, maybe already too late, he will not be President. Further if he fails to deliver something to the populists that actually support him he will be at the best/worse a one termer. He is running a populist, popularity contests that in the USA can quickly lose ratings and be cancelled.
There is an off chance, benefit of great doubt, that he might get something right, secure the border and pass a generous and fair but controlled “legal” immigration policy. This would be in the vain “only Nixon could go to China.”
Trump is almost certainly the wrong man for the job but might be just the ticket to wake up the American people to restore a Constitutional Republic. He is by nature a Bull that will break a lot of establishment elite china.
I do not like his style or support him but I might vote for him as a “necessary evil” to expose our flawed governance and arouse the populace. What is so right about Donald is he is so often so wrong that people might rise up and demand and restore Constitutional law and perhaps set the stage for a candidate that actually works for WE the people not moneyed people and corporations. Desperate times desperate measures, maybe vote rump, sorry Trump?
It is ALWAYS the case that a primary candidate runs to the ‘base’ of the party, and becomes more center-party during the presidential campaign.
Trump will do the same.
Obama is the perfect example of this, and he’s had to wait until after his reelection to actually try to enact some of the more ‘leftist’ policies he promoted during his primary run…
Trump wins no surprise, if he wins twice big surprise. Either Trump is not as bad as many of us think or America is much worse off than we think.
A Trump win might convince the Democratic Party to finally abandon the corporate neoliberal policies championed by the Clinton and Obama crowd that are so unpopular with the American public, and which have had such a disastrous economic effect on the American middle class, and which have led to the loss of so many Democrats from Congress during Obama’s term.
Well, maybe. . .
One of many possible futures from a Trump win, some others are better both parties serve the electorate not the elites. Still others could be worse than we have, the future is hard to see.
Part of a politician’s role during their country’s decline is to provide people with a distraction from the increasing gloominess of their day to day lives. Living a lavish lifestyle is helpful, since people can experience luxurious living vicariously. That’s why royalty always prioritizes pomp and ceremony. Italy and the United States unfortunately lack a royal family, so this role must be assumed by their leading politicians. Of course, it’s also important to become embroiled in as many scandals as possible, since that helps distract the peasantry as austerity squeezes them into deeper poverty.
Mr. Berlusconi was very good at this, and Mr. Trump definitely shows promise. I’m not sure I would vote for Mr. Trump just on the basis of this article, but it does make a strong argument. Politics is a form of entertainment, or at least of anesthesia, and Mr. Trump seems to have the right stuff.
“Living vicariously.”
Bullseye!
This vicarious-ness reminds me of how so many people
in their religiosity celebrate the “holy ghost/holy spirit”
as if it is real.
I suspect that, for many people,
Trump and Berlusconi (and their class-mates)
are that spirit incarnate.
They are clearly FREE from the rules they use to manipulate
the majority of people who they see as being lessers,
based upon a vision where, above all else,
monetary riches determine value and rights.
Spoken like a true Italian, benitoe. *I know, my first real girl-friend was a who..er, night-worker, in Naples… albeit, long time ago.
But this *Living a lavish lifestyle is helpful, since people can experience luxurious living vicariously.* … is too cruel beyond the pale. You go too far, son-brother.
Now, what The Trump is selling is, believe it or not, “honesty”. The peoples are fed-up with all that never=ending mealy-mouth media/politicians telling them to live high-on-the-hog … vicariously!
If the formula is money=success, then Trump is by all accounts successful. It don’t take a degree from Trump University to figure that out.
Ergo, The Trump is, indeed, … corruption you can believe in.
I would like someone to explain how Berlusconi is an ally of Putin after Berlusconi trying to smear his opponents with KGB ties using the “Italian Mitriokhin Commission”, and such sources as Mario Scaramella (a scandalous information, arms, AND nuclear material peddler, who is charged with calumny) and Alexander Litvinenko (who peddled numerous pseudo-scandals regarding Vladimir Putin (even blaming HIM for the 7/7 bombings, both on his own and for his (and Masha Gessen’s) buddy Boris Berezovsky). Berezovsky also backed the disastrous Iraq War.
This article is misleading in several instances.
The most significant to today’s world is that the author
leaves out the FACT
that Obama has opposed the reinstating
of the fairness doctrine since he was a candidate in 2008.
The democrats are part of this corruption.
Please do not turn this website into another effing alternet.
Articles like this are shat. Your “reporter” is writing fiction. Nobody knows if Trump will get elected and how he will act once in office. The reporter is simply writing fiction, what he think will happen. Who cares what the reporter thinks will happen.
It has always seemed silly to me when one writer has an article published at The Intercept, and so then a commenter decides that his or her opinion about that one writer and one article is what The Intercept is. What does it mean to say,’do not turn this website into blah blah blah’? There are a diverse multitude of writers who have been published here regularly, and some published occasionally, and even a few published as one-offs. Your concern seems ludicrous when measured against the past and current track record of The Intercept.
Good call Kitt. And this wasn’t even a competent scolding.
Let the record show, sock puppet whose temporary name I won’t bother spelling with extra e, that most of the article was not taken up with prediction, but most of your comment was.
He’s making a point based on his personal experience.
If you don’t like reading analyses based on knowledge or experience, you should probably quit reading media websites.
I may disagree on a few points but I do care to read someone’s competent insight. So when you write: “who cares” I may reply:” I do” and most likely a few more people here.
bottom line: who cares about YOUR opinion?
Stretching it a bit:
. Trump has not ben elected yet, all that you write about Silvio is after he was elected.
. Berlusconi has quite a few clouds as to how he made his fortune (mafia? Mangano his horses keeper was a mafioso). You can say all you want on how Trump has managed his business, but not that.
. B. (I am tired of writing his long name) is famous for vulgar jokes and invectives, not for outright insults and atrocious statements.
There are similarities….they both are onto Putin, maybe Trump would not mind having a couple of nights in a dacha courtesy of Vlad, Silvio would warmly recommend it.
And on and on.
Finally mr Stille, I find it very gratuitous “…..are the two favorite topics in most Italian bars? Soccer and women……”, that you should write that, the bars you mention are perhaps the ones you frequented? A lot of us just get a coffee and on we go….a bit of snobbishness eh?
Trump? Cruz? Rubio? They can destroy the world, far better the bunga bunga:)
There are in fact rumors of Trump’s mafia ties. It seems to stretch the imagination that he could have entered into the Atlantic City and Las Vegas casino markets without ever crossing paths with some wise guys.
Wnt,
Do not confuse the difficulty of setting up a “radio station” with the inability of moneyed interests to buy a radio station that broadcasts their views. For those folks “regulations” are a feature that keeps the riff-raft poor out and keeps them in. As the common man might ask you, if you believe what you say how do you explain Fox “News”? Maybe you can cite Rupert Murdoch as having had no money and no moneyed interests behind him?
I don’t like this one. To start with, comparing Trump to a disgraced Berlusconi seems like a trick. If Trump has “bunga bunga” parties, we don’t know about it, so the fair comparison is between Trump and the guy the Italians kept reelecting. Now whether that guy was a good Italian politician or a bad one can be a question worth looking into, but all their politics is half mad, so we shouldn’t expect a direct comparison.
More annoying is the claim that media is “unregulated”. It’s NOT. Just try setting up a radio transmitter and see how unregulated it is. Just try to rig some houses together with your own private cable network and you’ll see how unregulated it is.
The comparison to make here is if (I fear I risk giving somebody a “good idea”) some city like New York were to auction off “protest rights”. Henceforth, the right to hold up a picket sign would be a commodity owned by bidders who control each community and decide who can protest where. I think we can see that this infringes free discussion – especially once one company buys up the right city-wide. This is no different than when a city awards a “cable franchise”, allowing one company to determine what people can watch and (to a disputed extent) what they have access to on the Internet.
It should be obvious that a just system does not allow a company to have special rights in this regard – either anyone can string cable, or use an existing public cable infrastructure, or nobody can. As a very distant sop, you can say that those awarded a franchise have a responsibility to offer free ads to all candidates for office so that the effect of money on the campaign is limited to other things they have to actually buy. As an even more pathetic sop, you can demand a “Fairness Doctrine” that is really pretty arbitrary and evadable. But don’t say that those things are regulation – they’re an attempt to give a crumb back from the loaf stolen, nothing more.