Berlusconi paved the way for Trump's new style of politics
National Post, 18 June 2023
Statesmanship is replaced by gamesmanship, with very little sportsmanship
Two of the most famous criminal defendants in the world took centre stage this week — Silvio Berlusconi at his state funeral in Milan, and Donald Trump at his arraignment in Miami. The two were leading figures in three of the more important political phenomena of our time.
In every measure, Berlusconi was Trump’s superior — as a businessman, politician, cultural force and, yes, as a criminal defendant. Berlusconi built a massive media empire, changed Italian popular culture and then harnessed his cultural status to effect political change. He was a colossus of Italian national life for more than three decades and was feted upon his death with 33 pages in Corriere della Sera and 27 pages in La Repubblica, a newspaper that once regularly denounced him.
To the late Andrew Breitbart, a conservative media force significant in the rise of Trump — Steven Bannon, chairman of Breitbart News, was Trump’s chief White House strategist — is attributed the phrase that “politics is downstream of culture.” That thought was better formulated by Antonio Gramsci, the Italian Marxist philosopher imprisoned under Mussolini, but in both Italy and the United States it remains true.
Trump, whatever his success in business, was essentially a master of vulgar celebrity-driven culture. Indeed, his real estate empire principally sold a vulgar, celebrity brand. Berlusconi, whose media empire included three of Italy’s national television channels, offered Italians an alternative to the staid state broadcaster. He rose to billionaire status by dragging Italian popular culture down; a Berlusconi channel game show would typically include trivia questions and topless dancing.
Berlusconi first, and then Trump later, understood that politics as entertainment had broad appeal; even CNN, opposed to Trump’s influence, would air his lengthy rallies in full. The particular celebrity status Berlusconi offered was that of the ostentatiously rich businessman. It had roots in the United States — Ross Perot ran for president in 1992 — and Trump perfected it.
A second phenomenon Berlusconi and Trump advanced was the separation of personal morality from public worthiness to serve. Hypocrisy in politics is not new of course. Richard Nixon was strong on law and order, but indulged in criminal behaviour in Watergate; Bill Clinton prided himself on advancing women’s rights while using his position to sexually exploit women. Trump famously boasted that he could shoot someone dead on Fifth Avenue and it would not harm him electorally.
Berlusconi and Trump managed to garner the support of culturally conservative voters who would otherwise be repelled by their appalling personal conduct. Berlusconi turned his underage sex parties into something of a joke, but the reality was that he managed to get much of Italy to wink at something rather close to human sex trafficking.
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