Tuesday, November 22, 2016
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What Donald Trump and Silvio Berlusconi have in common | The Economist
What Donald Trump and Silvio Berlusconi have in common | The Economist
"Mr Trump . . . may find it tempting to indulge in another form of personalisation that became a speciality of the Italian former prime minister: that of diplomacy. Mr Berlusconi was convinced he could foster Italy’s interests with the same deal-making skills that had made him rich. Never much at ease with his EU peers, he found his talents worked best with dictators like Muammar Qaddafi and the leaders of “illiberal democracies” such as Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Vladimir Putin.
It can be argued no real harm came of the man-to-man chats of which Mr Berlusconi was so fond. But it is one thing for the prime minister of Italy to cosy up to the Kremlin, and quite another for the American president to do so. After all, he is the man with his finger on the nuclear trigger."
"Mr Trump . . . may find it tempting to indulge in another form of personalisation that became a speciality of the Italian former prime minister: that of diplomacy. Mr Berlusconi was convinced he could foster Italy’s interests with the same deal-making skills that had made him rich. Never much at ease with his EU peers, he found his talents worked best with dictators like Muammar Qaddafi and the leaders of “illiberal democracies” such as Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Vladimir Putin.
It can be argued no real harm came of the man-to-man chats of which Mr Berlusconi was so fond. But it is one thing for the prime minister of Italy to cosy up to the Kremlin, and quite another for the American president to do so. After all, he is the man with his finger on the nuclear trigger."
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