Berlusconi Wrote the Playbook for the Modern Strongman
Italy’s longest-serving postwar premier turned media power into enduring influence.
Silvio Berlusconi in the Italian Parliament, 2013.
Photograph: AFP
Before there was Donald Trump, before Viktor Orban, before Boris Johnson, there was Silvio Berlusconi.
The billionaire media tycoon, who died Monday at the age of 86, turned his celebrity into a magnet for Italy’s forgotten everyman, gaining four stints as prime minister and forging an enduring political influence. A former cruise-ship crooner, he wrote the cheat sheet for the populism that today challenges liberal democracies worldwide. From his taut, perma-tanned appearance, to his mockery of women, his railing against immigrants, his abuse of political power to further his personal business dealings and his confrontation with the courts, Berlusconi was the very model of the modern right-wing strongman.