JOEL KOTKIN: Trumpism: America’s Berlusconi Moment.
An old joke—that in heaven, the Italians do the cooking; in hell, they run the government—feels a lot darker now that American politics are taking an Italian turn.
Since the fall of Il Duce, Italy has had a staggering 62 governments, and while American doesn’t have that problem yet, our political system is showing all the signs of decline—an inability to come to any consensus, the increased vulgarity of discourse, the utter incompetence of an impenetrable bureaucracy and the growth of extra-constitutional fascist and Mob-like “familial” —run modes of governance—with which Italians have long and unhappy familiarity. . . .
The Donald speaks not only to the their fears haunting the middle class, but also their pride: he wants them to be proud of the country’s past. Some insist the real Italian model may not Mussolini but a more contemporary figure, former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi. Like Trump Berlusconi was a successful entrepreneur and also a loudmouth. who appealed to Italians by denouncing “political correctness” as well as the weakness and corruption endemic to the Italian state.
If so, there’s some room for hope. Unlike Mussolini, Berlusconi never succeeded in overturning the constitutional order.
Whichever comparison is more apt, there’s little doubt that iIn the run-up to the seemingly inevitable, horribly depressing face-off with Trump, we can count on Hillary Clinton and her reliable press minions to keep raising these Italianesque models. Trump will be dressed as a fascist, or even a Nazi, for breaking with the politically correct consensus. Like Berlusconi, he will be investigated for his numerous moral lapses—both personal and business—and, by November, will be about as attractive to much of the electorate as Mitt Romney without his noblesse oblige or respectability.
If Trump is tarnished, that’s a good thing. But ihis political demise would sadly t’s one that opens the door to another ugly Italian model, the less public but arguably more effective one followed by Hillary Clinton and much of the Democratic Party.
Clinton, notes journalist Jamelle Bouie reflects a machine model, with control of the party itself as a goal. Rather than an ideological figure, she “appeals to stalwarts and interest groups (like banks and industry) far more than voters who choose on ideology and belief.”
This approach approximates, more than anything, the structure—though not the actual violence—of the Mafia, with “families.” .These groups that represent distinct, sometimes interlocking, interests, each functioning with almost total dominion over its respective turf but able to process competing demands through a central “commission” like the New York based one founded in 1931—when organized crime, incidentally, was under assault by fascist Italy.
Under a second President Clinton, the Democrats will operate under a similar system, with Wall Street, tech oligarchs, greens, feminists, gays, African-Americans, public sector unions, universities, Latinos, urban land speculators sitting around the table and her as il capo di tutti capi.
She won’t have much patience for legal niceties, having already pledged to circumvent Congress if they won’t do her bidding.
But the press will consider that dynamic, rather than mob-like or fascistic, because she’s a Democrat.
Which is why, if you value civil liberties and good governance, you should always want a white male Republican in the White House: They get a degree of scrutiny that others do not.