The rise of billionaire Donald Trump in the US presidential race has been met with a mixture of horror and fascination. As his campaign, once regarded with derision, continues to rack up successes — most recently, in the Michigan and Mississippi primaries and the Hawaii caucus — pundits are scrambling for some historical or foreign analogue that can shed light on the phenomenon. While no comparison is perfect, the most apt comparison is with Silvio Berlusconi, the Italian media mogul who has served three terms as his country’s prime minister. It is not a reassuring model.
Of course, Berlusconi and Trump share some superficial similarities, including multiple marriages and a generally vulgar style, but the most important — and the most worrying — qualities they share is an ability to substitute salesmanship for substance, a willingness to tell bald-faced lies in pursuit of publicity and advantage and an eagerness to intimidate critics into silence.
Berlusconi’s policy platforms, even his fundamental ideology, have always lacked consistency. During his successful campaigns, he said whatever it took to win votes; during his three terms in office, he used the same tactic to form coalitions. His only agenda was to protect or advance his own business interests.
So far, Trump has followed much the same strategy, saying anything to grab another vote. The question is what this would mean if he were to make it to the White House. The system of checks and balances established by the US Constitution has an unmatched capacity to prevent any single branch of government from going haywire, but the manipulation of public opinion is a powerful weapon in any democracy and it is a weapon that Trump, like Berlusconi, knows how to wield better than most.
Berlusconi’s greatest successes — especially during his 2001 to 2006 and 2008 to 2011 terms (he also served in 1994 to 1995) — lay in the manipulation of media and public opinion.
Although Italy is well known for its low trust in government, with citizens largely resigned to the idea that virtually every public figure is self-serving, Berlusconi managed to numb the popular consciousness even further. He somehow lulled Italians into believing that all was well in their economy and society, even in the wake of the 2008 global economic crisis, when plainly it was not. Under his leadership, Italy lost many years when its government should have been pursuing critical reforms.
How did Berlusconi achieve this? For the most part, he used the joke, the lie and the smile. When that did not work, he resorted to bullying, including through libel suits.
In fact, few media tycoons — Berlusconi owns Italy’s main commercial television channels and several daily newspapers (either directly or through his family) — have ever been as freewheeling in their use of libel litigation to silence journalists and other critics. The famous Italian anti-mafia writer Roberto Saviano referred to Berlusconi’s “mud machine,” with which he would smear anyone who dared stand in his way. (Full disclosure: As editor of The Economist, I was the target of two libel suits by the former prime minister.)
All of these tactics are in Trump’s inventory. Trump is aggressive with his opponents, especially in the media. Throughout his business career, he has frequently invoked libel laws. If he wins the presidency, he has said, he will seek to control media criticism. And yet his essential message is optimistic, delivered with a joke and a big smile. As Berlusconi has shown, when the population is feeling grumpy or disillusioned, as much of the US is today, this approach can be highly effective — and for a very long time.
Some pundits who have invoked the Berlusconi comparison have highlighted one distinction between the bombastic billionaires: Berlusconi, they say, at least has some charm and much more business acumen. This assessment is not only far too generous toward Berlusconi; it also risks making it seem that Trump is less dangerous than his Italian counterpart.
The reality is that, while Berlusconi certainly has his charm, Trump’s swelling base of support seems to see a certain charm in him, too, even if it is a less seductive version. Moreover, while Berlusconi undoubtedly possesses business acumen, he has, like Trump, cut plenty of corners along the way. The ties of Berlusconi’s close aides and friends to Italy’s various mafia clans are well documented.
However, none of this is particularly important, in terms of its implications for the US today. What is important is that both Trump and Berlusconi are ruthless and willing to resort to any means to achieve their (self-serving) ends.
Given this, underestimating Trump would be a huge mistake; he will always prove stronger, more slippery and more enduring than expected. The only way to avoid a Berlusconi-level disaster — or worse — is to continue criticizing him, exposing his lies and holding him to account for his words and actions, regardless of the insults or threats he throws at those who do.
Too many Italians shrugged their shoulders at Berlusconi’s lies and failings, figuring that he would soon go away, having done little harm, but he did not go away and he did plenty of harm. The US cannot afford to make the same mistake. The price of liberty, Americans are fond of saying, is eternal vigilance. In confronting Trump, there can be no discount.
Bill Emmott is a former editor-in-chief of The Economist.
Copyright Project Syndicate.
Could Asia be on the verge of a new wave of nuclear proliferation? A look back at the early history of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), which recently celebrated its 75th anniversary, illuminates some reasons for concern in the Indo-Pacific today. US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin recently described NATO as “the most powerful and successful alliance in history,” but the organization’s early years were not without challenges. At its inception, the signing of the North Atlantic Treaty marked a sea change in American strategic thinking. The United States had been intent on withdrawing from Europe in the years following
My wife and I spent the week in the interior of Taiwan where Shuyuan spent her childhood. In that town there is a street that functions as an open farmer’s market. Walk along that street, as Shuyuan did yesterday, and it is next to impossible to come home empty-handed. Some mangoes that looked vaguely like others we had seen around here ended up on our table. Shuyuan told how she had bought them from a little old farmer woman from the countryside who said the mangoes were from a very old tree she had on her property. The big surprise
The issue of China’s overcapacity has drawn greater global attention recently, with US Secretary of the Treasury Janet Yellen urging Beijing to address its excess production in key industries during her visit to China last week. Meanwhile in Brussels, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen last week said that Europe must have a tough talk with China on its perceived overcapacity and unfair trade practices. The remarks by Yellen and Von der Leyen come as China’s economy is undergoing a painful transition. Beijing is trying to steer the world’s second-largest economy out of a COVID-19 slump, the property crisis and
Former president Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) trip to China provides a pertinent reminder of why Taiwanese protested so vociferously against attempts to force through the cross-strait service trade agreement in 2014 and why, since Ma’s presidential election win in 2012, they have not voted in another Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) candidate. While the nation narrowly avoided tragedy — the treaty would have put Taiwan on the path toward the demobilization of its democracy, which Courtney Donovan Smith wrote about in the Taipei Times in “With the Sunflower movement Taiwan dodged a bullet” — Ma’s political swansong in China, which included fawning dithyrambs