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Silvio Berlusconi, a Showman Who Upended Italian Politics and Culture Dies at 86

nytimes.com

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Re: Silvio Berlusconi, a Showman Who Upended Italian Politics and Culture Dies at 86

#4

Post by hunglee2 »

Trump before Trump - Silivio Berlusconi was maybe the first of the modern populists - a political outsider who used celebrity status and media influence to enter the halls of power, and then proceeded to denigrate the establishment at every opportunity. It's a serious matter that this type of personality finds political favour amongst the people, and that our current systems of governance allow for unserious characters of this type to become paramount leader of an entire country.

More of this type to come. Tucker Carlson for President? Jake Paul? Wouldn't bet against either or worse

Re: Silvio Berlusconi, a Showman Who Upended Italian Politics and Culture Dies at 86

#5

Post by martopix »

For those who did not grow up like me in Berlusconi's Italy, he was an interesting character and in many ways a precursor of today's politics. When Trump came to rise, I felt many aspects were similar: both very rich entrepreneurs, arrogant personalities, a tendency to go against well established rules, personal attacks on opponents, an admiration for strongmen (Berlusconi had a clear crush on Putin), tax creativity, laws purposefully written for himself and his friends, and of course exploiting partisan news outlets. Berlusconi's career took a turn when he developed Mediaset to be a large TV company that could compete with national public TV, and still does, while offering a load of trash to the public. He was many times under investigation, sometimes convicted without ever going to jail, and many times exploiting the statute of limitations to avoid conviction by dragging the trial along for years.

His party was essentially founded upon him and his personality, and is currently one of the parties in the government coalition, with a relatively minor share, I expect voted by older people nostalgic of his era. We will not miss him -- but in hindsight we have seen even worse characters in the last 10 years.

Re: Silvio Berlusconi, a Showman Who Upended Italian Politics and Culture Dies at 86

#6

Post by badcppdev »

bilekas wrote: post #2

This is really sad actually. Whatever you think about him, you can't deny he lived life to the maximum!

I feel that there are ways of "living life to the maximum" which should be applauded and then there is a way that impacts negatively on other people and society in general.

To quote an opinion article[0], "he faced prosecution more than 30 times on charges including embezzlement, false accounting and bribing a judge. Many cases failed to go to trial, sometimes because Berlusconi changed the law under which he had been charged."

0 - https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/jun/12/berlusconi-dea...

Re: Silvio Berlusconi, a Showman Who Upended Italian Politics and Culture Dies at 86

#10

Post by mschuster91 »

One of the very few people whom it's not worth shedding tears over. The sheer destruction Berlusconi brought upon his country and democracy at large is unimaginable.

Berlusconi was the pioneer of modern populism, of all of it. Corruption, embezzlement, buying up or otherwise controlling media for manipulating or influencing coverage, being involved in so many scandals that it became completely impossible to track their progress or to discuss/demand consequences... you name it, Berlusconi invented it.

(Presumably) having sex with (close to) underage women and girls and having extramarital affairs in general was just the cherry on the cake (the Bunga Bunga affair).

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silvio_Berlusconi_prostitution...

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