p******e
发帖数: 897 | 1 Among the political figures who congratulated Donald Trump on his surprise
election victory was the politician to whom the billionaire real estate
mogul and reality television star has most often been compared: Silvio
Berlusconi.
The rightwing former Italian prime minister and billionaire media mogul, who
was dogged by claims that he used an underage prostitute at his infamous “
bunga bunga” parties and counted Vladimir Putin as a close ally and friend,
said the comparisons between the two were “obvious” and that Trump would
rule with “authority and equilibrium”.
If it’s true that Berlusconi and Trump, two showmen who have railed against
immigrants, mocked women and targeted press freedom, are indeed cut from
the same cloth, it may also be the case that few will understand liberal
Americans’ consternation in coming years like the Italians.
Here, then, are some warnings – and a few words of advice.
Political opposition: ‘Stop crying and try to understand his voters’
For years, Berlusconi’s boorish behaviour was a gift to political opponents
and journalists who were free to ridicule him. But ultimately they did not
prove an effective opposition.
“Berlusconi’s opponents had a very wide and open avenue and they couldn’t
resist walking down that avenue. This brought them to a number of defeats.
Because when he said: ‘The west is [superior]’, and opponents said: ‘How
politically incorrect, white imperialist’, the reality is that a huge part
of the Italian voters said in private: ‘He is right,” said Giovanni Orsina
, author of Berlusconism and Italy, an exploration of how Berlusconi held on
to power.
Silvio Berlusconi adjusting his tie during the recording of the Italian Rai
1 television programme ‘Porta a porta’. Photograph: Guido Montani/EPA
Opposing Berlusconi by ridiculing him, Orsina said, was a way to preach to
the converted, as were attempts to warn that Berlusconi’s rule represented
the end of Italian democracy.
“The most powerful way to oppose him, but it was never really done
seriously, was to try and understand what his voters want and try to address
the need of his voters. No jokes, stop shouting, stop crying, stop saying:
‘It is a horror and disaster’; try and seriously understand what his
voters want, and the left was never really successful in doing that,”
Orsina said.
Press freedom: journalists ‘must be wary of complicity’
Trump has made no secret of his disdain for the media, having promised
during his campaign to “open up our libel laws” to make it easier to sue
media organisations for damages – singling out the New York Times, CNN, and
the Washington Post, among others – and promising: “If I become president
, they’re going to have such problems.”
Donald Trump will make it easier to sue media organisations. Photograph:
Justin Sullivan/Getty Images
Berlusconi’s rise in Italy was inexorably linked to his control of the
media. He not only exerted influence over state-controlled organisations
through his role as prime minister, but through his own media empire,
including a major broadcaster and publishers.
“Many journalists were complicit even without being controlled, for example
by accepting conditions, or when he chose journalists he preferred for
interviews,” said Jacopo Iacoboni, a political journalist at La Stampa.
In what was later called “the Bulgarian edict”, Berlusconi in 2002 accused
journalists at state-controlled RAI of using “television as a criminal
means of communication”, in part because of reports that alleged Berlusconi
had ties with organised crime. The journalists were subsequently fired and
banned from working for RAI.
Everyday sexism: prepare for a new feminist fightback
Berlusconi was ultimately acquitted of knowingly hiring an underage
prostitute at his infamous “bunga bunga” parties, and of abusing his
position to cover it up. But his tenure became synonymous with the everyday
demeaning of women – particularly on television – as sex objects, as the
prime minister regularly insulted and mocked women in public, even making
sex jokes at public events meant to honour women’s achievements.
In Berlusconi’s Italy, a woman’s looks were paramount. The prime minister
even appointed a former model and showgirl to serve as equal opportunities
minister.
Trump’s obsession with women’s looks has similarly been well documented
throughout his campaign for president, including his rating women on a scale
of 1-10, and numerous accusations of sexual harassment and assault.
But in Italy there was also a backlash, and an awakening among some Italian
women, according to Emma Bonino, the former foreign minister and feminist
who helped secure abortion and divorce rights in Italy in the 1970s.
“Berlusconi’s attitude prompted a sort of revolt from women, and women’s
groups, who had been silent and absent for years, even on important women’s
issues,” Bonino said. It prompted opposition to female stereotypes,
particularly in the media, and the scourge of domestic violence, which had
often gone unacknowledged, she said.
The religious right: an unholy alliance?
Italian bishops looked the other way and did not criticise what might
otherwise have been deemed less-than-Christian behaviour, as long as
Berlusconi helped them on their legislative agenda, including blocking same-
sex unions, limiting fertility treatments opposed by the church, and
generally addressing their fear of being “swallowed up by secularisation,
Islam [in the form of immigration], and liberalisation”, said Massimo
Faggioli, a church historian at Villanova University.
Five years after his resignation from office, Italy still has no prospects
of passing same-sex marriage into law (though civil unions are now legal),
lesbian and gay parents do not have legal rights over their children, IVF
treatment is limited to married couples, and surrogacy – strongly opposed
by the church – is illegal.
Similarly, the thrice-married Trump - who has never convincingly spoken of
having religious faith – won the support of four out of five white
evangelicals, largely based on their hopes that Trump would elect
conservative anti-abortion judges on the supreme court. While it has
received scant attention, Trump has also promised to repeal a 1954 ban that
prevents tax-exempt organisations like churches from getting involved in
politics, a change that could give churches an even more powerful role in US
politics.
Berlusconi and the law: a worrying precedent
Last week Trump settled fraud lawsuits relating to Trump University for $25m
, removing a legal headache despite having pledged to fight the cases to the
bitter end.
He has also alleged that he is the subject of an audit by US tax authorities
and, before his election, had threatened to sue women who had accused him
of sexual harassment and assault.
Berlusconi faced similar entanglements with the judicial system and the
issues ultimately pressured him and constrained his ability to pass
legislation. Prosecutors who sought to charge him with crimes were derided
as unelected communists, and there a poisonous relationship soon developed
between judges and prosecutors and the prime minister’s office.
Silvio Berlusconi during a tax fraud trial in Milan. Photograph: Filippo
Monteforte/AFP/Getty Images
“Berlusconi tried to use his political power to defend himself, making laws
and using his position as prime minister to delay trials. There were also
several legal attempts – like making a law that as president of the
republic you cannot go to trial as long as you are in power – but he never
really succeeded,” said Orsina.
Trump enters the White House after a contentious election in which he
derided federal investigators at the FBI, but also after he was seen as
having been helped by the FBI director, James Comey, who made a surprise
announcement about the continuation of a probe into Hillary Clinton – which
was later dropped – 11 days before the election. Trump has also sought to
delay a civil fraud trial into one of his businesses until after his
inauguration.
Minority rights: ‘Migrants were scapegoated for societal decline’
Like Trump, Berlusconi’s rise was fuelled by his anti-immigrant views,
particularly against the Roma and, later, migrants. In his final years in
office, defections from Berlusconi’s Forza Italia party forced him to look
to Italy’s far right – even more than he had before – to keep his
coalition, essentially forcing him to lock arms with the xenophobic Northern
League, which has called for the expulsion of migrants. A similar dynamic
may soon be at work in the US.
While Donald Trump this week called for the deportation of 2 million to 3
million undocumented immigrants who have allegedly committed crimes, he left
the door open to even more deportations later on, even as the Republican
speaker of the House, Paul Ryan, who is a mainstream conservative, denied
there was interest in a “deportation force”. A rupture between Trump and
Ryan could force Trump to seek alliances among even more rightwing
Republicans on immigration policy.
Donald Trump meets speaker of the House, Paul Ryan, in Capitol Hill,
Washington. Photograph: Joshua Roberts/Reuters
The position of minorities in Italian society, according to the senator and
human rights expert Francesco Palermo, was “affected severely”, in large
part due to a series of “emergency decrees” that sought to expel the Roma
from Italy. Funds for traditional minorities were reduced and are now 1/10
of what they were in 2000, Palermo said, and migrants “were scapegoated for
the overall decline of society”.
“I do not believe minorities will be a direct target under the Trump
administration, as this would immediately be under the spotlight. But more
worrying, the deterioration of their situation will be a consequence of the
societal climate. This is somewhat similar to the trend we observed in Italy
under Berlusconi,” Palermo said.
The damage done
Berlusconi did not ultimately vanquish Italy’s democratic institutions. But
the lasting damage he inflicted, according to Guy Dinmore, a former
correspondent for the Financial Times who covered Berlusconi’s final term,
came in the way his three-time premiership celebrated and normalised the
flouting of rules, including on paying taxes.
Under Silvio Berlusconi’s premiership, ‘people were almost encouraged not
to pay their taxes’. Photograph: Alessandro Di Meo/EPA
“What he did was to perpetuate the old system he inherited, which was a
clientelist system where meritocracy had no place, and corruption is rife,
and people were almost encouraged by Berlusconi not to pay their taxes.
Italy was a swamp … and he made it worse,” Dinmore said.
Journalist Iacoboni agreed, saying the lasting impact of Berlusconi was “
the cultural idea that you could do anything in your own interests.”
“He legitimised every kind of infraction of rules, going back to his
television career in the 1980s. It was as if to say: ‘You Italians like to
be gross with women? Well, I say to you, you can do this.’ I think this [
idea you can do anything to further your own interests] is much worse than
even the legal accusations.” | p******e
发帖数: 897 | 2 https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/nov/21/if-berlusconi-is-like-trump-
what-can-italy-teach-america
who
friend,
would
against
【在 p******e 的大作中提到】
: Among the political figures who congratulated Donald Trump on his surprise
: election victory was the politician to whom the billionaire real estate
: mogul and reality television star has most often been compared: Silvio
: Berlusconi.
: The rightwing former Italian prime minister and billionaire media mogul, who
: was dogged by claims that he used an underage prostitute at his infamous “
: bunga bunga” parties and counted Vladimir Putin as a close ally and friend,
: said the comparisons between the two were “obvious” and that Trump would
: rule with “authority and equilibrium”.
: If it’s true that Berlusconi and Trump, two showmen who have railed against
| A**d
发帖数: 13310 | 3 左逼和建制派早就该把川普刻画成贝鲁斯科尼这种笑话，川普就选不上了。可是这群不
学无术还把选民当白痴的大傻逼懒到家非要滥用希特勒，根本就不好使
who
friend,
would
against
【在 p******e 的大作中提到】
: Among the political figures who congratulated Donald Trump on his surprise
: election victory was the politician to whom the billionaire real estate
: mogul and reality television star has most often been compared: Silvio
: Berlusconi.
: The rightwing former Italian prime minister and billionaire media mogul, who
: was dogged by claims that he used an underage prostitute at his infamous “
: bunga bunga” parties and counted Vladimir Putin as a close ally and friend,
: said the comparisons between the two were “obvious” and that Trump would
: rule with “authority and equilibrium”.
: If it’s true that Berlusconi and Trump, two showmen who have railed against
|
|
