Another Take on Trump

For John, BLUF:  Here is the dark view of the Presidential Election.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

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With the intro line "FASCIST VS. CAPO", Reporter Joel Kotkin (Daily Beast) gives us "Trumpism:  America’s Berlusconi Moment".

The sub-headline is:

Trump envisioned and created today’s city of white boxes for rootless new money types, who dominate the city even as they leave little mark here.

Here is how it starts:

An old joke—that in heaven, the Italians do the cooking; in hell, they run the government—feels a lot darker now that American politics are taking an Italian turn.

Since the fall of Il Duce, Italy has had a staggering 62 governments, and while American doesn’t have that problem yet, our political system is showing all the signs of decline—an inability to come to any consensus, the increased vulgarity of discourse, the utter incompetence of an impenetrable bureaucracy and the growth of extra-constitutional fascist and Mob-like “familial” —run modes of governance—with which Italians have long and unhappy familiarity.

Yes, Mr Silvio Berlusconi is more the model for Mr Trump than is that other Italian, Il Duce (Benito Mussolini).♠♥ 

Here is an excerpt from further down the article:

If Trump is tarnished, that’s a good thing.  But his political demise would sadly [lead to] one that opens the door to another ugly Italian model, the less public but arguably more effective one followed by Hillary Clinton and much of the Democratic Party.

Clinton, notes journalist Jamelle Bouie reflects a machine model, with control of the party itself as a goal.  Rather than an ideological figure, she “appeals to stalwarts and interest groups (like banks and industry) far more than voters who choose on ideology and belief.”

This approach approximates, more than anything, the structure—though not the actual violence—of the Mafia, with “families.”  These groups that represent distinct, sometimes interlocking, interests, each functioning with almost total dominion over its respective turf but able to process competing demands through a central “commission” like the New York based one founded in 1931—when organized crime, incidentally, was under assault by fascist Italy.

Under a second President Clinton, the Democrats will operate under a similar system, with Wall Street, tech oligarchs, greens, feminists, gays, African-Americans, public sector unions, universities, Latinos, urban land speculators sitting around the table and her as il capo di tutti cape.

She won’t have much patience for legal niceties, having already pledged to circumvent Congress if they won’t do her bidding.  What drives progressives crazy about the former Secretary of State is not centralism – they generally supported Barack Obama’s rule by decree – but the very pragmatism that grows naturally out of this kind of familial structure.

Well, that is a pretty dark view of the future.  At least we aren't Italy, which is a fractured collection of provinces masquerading as a nation.

Hat tip to the InstaPundit.

Regards  —  Cliff

♠  It is time we show some historical understand and drop the references to Adolf Hitler.
♥  Keep in mind that Mr Mussolini is the one who invented Fascism.  The term comes from the latin, Fasces.  Remember the back side of the Mercury Dime?  That is the symbol.  But, back to Mr Benito Mussolini, he was a Communist, who decided that Communism was not a workable solution.  But, with World War I the idea of liberal democracy was called into question with the need for total mobilization of the nation, including civilians into uniform or into industry or other productive activities.  Thus, we got Fascism.