An amazingly prophetic article about Trump from 2011

[jg10003]

http://www.city-journal.org/html/dodging-trump-bullet-10850.html

Dodging the Trump Bullet
Americans—and Republicans—are lucky that the Donald has bowed out.
Luigi Zingales
May 19, 2011

Donald Trump’s announcement that he will not run in the Republican presidential primaries after all is great news for the Republican Party and for the country....I come from Italy, a country that has elected as prime minister the Trumplike Silvio Berlusconi....

....Trump and Berlusconi are remarkably alike. They are both billionaire businessmen who claim that the government should be run like a business. They are both gifted salesmen, able to appeal to the emotions of their fellow citizens. They are both obsessed with their looks, with their hair (or what remains of it), and with sexy women. Their gross manners make them popular, perhaps because people think that if these guys could become billionaires, anyone could....

How, then, did Berlusconi get elected and reelected?....In a country where corruption and lack of meritocracy has all but killed the hope of intra-generational mobility, citizens chose to escape from reality and find consolation in dreams. Berlusconi adeptly fosters the illusion that he can turn everyone else into billionaires. His political career is something like Trump’s Apprentice program, only on a national scale.

Unfortunately, some of the same factors that sparked Berlusconi’s success in Italy have begun to show up in the United States. Social mobility has dropped. Income for 95 percent of the population has stagnated. The financial crisis has uncovered a dangerous connection between government and the financial establishment. Losing hope that they can rise from rags to riches the old-fashioned way, Americans are taking refuge in fantasy, from American Idol to The Apprentice. In such a climate, Donald Trump, whose own career has exemplified crony capitalism—from government subsidies for his developments to abuse of eminent domain—could have potentially won not just the GOP nomination, but even the presidency. That would have been a catastrophe for the Republican Party, for free-market capitalism, and for America.

[raging moderate]

1. Except Trump did NOT earn his billionaire status; he inherited it.

It has been shown that Trump could have wound up just as rich by simply investing what he got from his dad prudently. And without the multiple bankruptcies, the constant cheating of employees, and the repeated theft of services from various contractors.

[marylandblue]

2. Doesn't matter, his followers THINK he is a great businessman nt

[cilla4progress]

3. and whatever became of

Berloscuoni?

[dhol82]

4. He had 11 years to screw up Italy

[cilla4progress]

5. Answered my own question

https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2015/09/21/donald-trump-is-americas-silvio-berlusconi/?utm_term=.5b963fe13262

Snip:

Ultimately, it was the leaders of the European Union who forced him to resign, in exchange for rescuing Italy’s tanking economy during the debt crisis. Berlusconi stepped aside amid fears that the Italian economy, the third largest in Europe, was headed the same way as Greece.

It would be a terrible mistake for America’s political establishment to dismiss Trump’s populist appeal and presume him unelectable. Even if he doesn’t win, he’s already done damage: Laughing at, or simply ignoring his rhetorical, xenophobic bellowing can, perversely, further kindle Trump’s resentment-based politics, allowing them to fester unchallenged. The poisonous impact his campaign and antics are having on the country’s politics are exploiting and galvanizing broad, deep-seated, toxic resentment of the status quo, which has already defined this campaign — and which may well outlive Trump’s candidacy.