The emperor has no clothes

Speaking to his  supporters, Berlusconi decided to tell the following joke:

"A Jew tells a relative: at the time of the extermination camps, a fellow countryman asks our family to hide him and we do. We put him in the basement, take care of him and ask him to pay us on a daily basis. The other fellow asks: how much was it? Three thousand euros. A month? No, per day. Wow! We'll we're Jews, and he paid up because he had the money. So give me some peace. But here's a question for you: do you think we should tell him that Hitler has died and the war is over?" Berlusconi wraps up his story by asking supporters: "cute, eh?".

In another video, filmed ahead of the G8 summit which Italy hosted in  L'Aquila, Berlusconi tells a sexist joke which targets Rosy Bindi, the butt of his remarks several times in the past. It ends with a blasphemy.

How on earth is it possible for world leaders to take this men seriously?  

Berlusconi's  vulgar populism  insults intelligence.  His deeply ingrained contempt for any notion of checks and balances makes him an autocrat who thinks that popular support gives him some divine right to ride roughshod on the institutions which keep him in check.  He is a populist with an authoritarian streak who has little respect for an office which demands sobriety and prudence. No wonder he feels so much at home with Ghaddafi and Putin. 

Fundamentally he represents a dangerous anomaly-a monopolist who owns a media empire which celebrates  a brand of "dumbing down" populism.  Naturally he managed to win over a segment of the working class not just through sheer media populism but also by the left's inability to communicate with the masses.

But both processes are inter-related. For the task of communicating big ideas becomes more convoluted in country run like a reality TV show where strong signifiers like legality and solidarity have lost meaning while small talk and gossip is institutionalised. On the other hand simplistic and racist generalizations as well as vulgar jokes are easier to convey in the reality circus.

That is why  I really wonder whether we are really assisting to the autumn of the patriarch or whether he will simply play the victim of obscure strong powers to continue governing in his own style-ad personam first as PM than as President. Surely the rest of Europe can do much more.  For who is going to tell the world that  the emperor  has no clothes?