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The parallels between them are apparent. The 2 had exorbitant egos, overtly admired strongmen, had been obsessive about TV and had a penchant for kitsch furnishings and lewd jokes. Maybe most necessary, they each possessed an instinctive skill to faucet into the passions of the populace. One got here from actual property, the opposite from media: They met midway, within the borderland of leisure. In addition they shared a predilection for the politics of paranoia. Lengthy earlier than Mr. Trump cried “witch hunt” and labeled the Manhattan district lawyer, Alvin Bragg, a “psychopath,” Mr. Berlusconi was denouncing a Communist plot introduced by judges in “purple robes” who had been out to destroy him.
Mr. Berlusconi’s tips and oddities to elude his critics rivaled, maybe even exceeded, these of Mr. Trump. The hush cash Mr. Trump allegedly paid to Stormy Daniels appears nearly mundane in contrast with the time Mr. Berlusconi known as the police claiming that Karima el-Mahroug, a 17-year-old visitor of one in every of his notorious “bunga bunga” events who had been arrested, was a niece of the previous Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak. To no matter cost, Mr. Berlusconi at all times had a solution.
Mr. Berlusconi’s conspicuous fortune, estimated at $6.8 billion and comprising dozens of firms working in media, finance, sports activities and actual property, was the bedrock of his political mission. He preached his personal model of the prosperity gospel, arousing hope in Italians disheartened by a corrupt political class and financial stagnation. 20 years earlier than Mr. Trump appealed to Individuals left behind by globalization, Mr. Berlusconi was capturing the creativeness of the “forgotten males” of Italy by promising new jobs and tax cuts.
An oxymoronic determine, Mr. Berlusconi preached “moral anarchy” whereas giving succor to the far proper, tickling individuals’s passions with the exploits of his soccer workforce and surrounding himself with an ever-changing court docket of advisers, associates, lackeys and acolytes who hoped to make the most of his proverbial generosity. By day, he garnered votes from the working class. At night time, he invited his company to admire a synthetic volcano erupting actual lapilli within the boundless backyard of his oligarch-friendly, 126-room villa on the Sardinian coast.
As a result of Mr. Berlusconi by no means separated the non-public from the political, his fall occurred on each fronts concurrently. Relentlessly grilled by his political opponents for attempting to bend legal guidelines to his personal benefit, he spiraled into an more and more rowdy way of life. His title grew to become universally related to the intercourse events he insisted on defining as “elegant dinners.” When in 2009 Mr. Berlusconi picked candidates for the European Parliament from among the many feminine company of those gatherings, his second spouse, Veronica Lario, publicly protested in opposition to this “shamelessly cheesy” habits and filed for divorce.
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