Home
/
RELIGION & LIBERTY ONLINE
/
An Italian view of America’s election results: Berlusconi reincarnate, financial penance
An Italian view of America’s election results: Berlusconi reincarnate, financial penance
Nov 6, 2026 10:59 AM

Yesterday, Hillary’s concessionand Donald’s victory speeches would be made only one mile apart at the Midtown Hilton at the Javits Center in New York City. As the night wore on, the Clinton party quickly souredin the ballroom while the Trump camp began uncorking the bubbly. The opposing sentiments set the two camps a world apart.

Clinton’s presidential campaign director John Podesta, with aplomb, delivered unwanted news: for now the Democrats’ dream had died and all those sobbing at the Javits Center should wipe drythe tears and call it a night. They would get some rest to renew their political fight.

The reaction, however, was far from noble among Clinton’s media ‘adorables’ here in Italy. There was weeping to be sure, but also gnashing of teeth.

The obvious despair (normal) was one thing, but the visceral reaction (not normal) was quite another.

The ultra-liberal American political-economic experts appearing on Italy’s state-run television talk shows were vexed, to say the least. The best way to describe the talk show atmosphere is to imagine a reenactment of the Jerry Springer Show from the 1990s, where boiling points were quickly reached and little mercy granted. Like Springer, the Italian host often got wound up in the violent verbal crossfire, calling for order in the court of public opinion.

The mentators were cranky. After all, it is not tutti i giorni that they have to do the pizza-and-espresso-fueled graveyard shift on political punditry.

“Of what use is our work as journalists, if people end up voting otherwise?” (bubble quote). When you realize that the people don’t adhere to “Democratic” journalism. (below)

They bickered, talked over each other, and threatened to leave the studio. And yet they made valiant efforts to track poll data all night, offering due diligence on why the results shifted literally every 3 minutes (often not in the direction they had wanted) during the neck-and-neck ballot results.

They would make hair-splitting projections for all 50 U.S. states, and with mercial breaks in between and no Oracle of Delphi to call upon to change Providence.

The homegrown Italian television hosts, likewise, were especially worn thin on sleep and patience. They had to suffer through translating for their night owl audience all the politilingo thrust on them by mentators who, while quite fluent in Italian, weighed in with unbearably heavy accents: “YOH pensOH kAY OHraH il nostrOH preZIdentAY ObamHA deBORAH eSSeRAY vIRAamentAY anZIoSOH. Hillary, ancORAH peJOE!”(I believe our President Obama must be very uneasy right now. Hillary even worse so! ).

“Ripete, per favore” (Say that again, please!), the pale-faced hosts would beg, cringing, as if they just heard nails grinding on a chalkboard.

As the morning fog cleared in Italy’s financial capital of Milan, a victorious Trump made a V-sign (also a nasty “take a hike” hand jester in Italy). The television protocol now was to roll historical clips on Trump’s American political miracle, but I sensed the producers had not quite planned for this. They surely had placed all their bets on Hillary’s success story, a vision they profoundly admired.

Nevertheless, after a few minutes of scrambling for the Trump b-roll, a pre-taped story line on Trump aired. It was textbook robber baron imagery of a topped-hatted, hardball-playing business executive strong arming his way to success on 5th Avenue. A top-model in one hand as he appeared to vainfully fix his hair in a Trump Towerglass pane with the other.

I am somewhat exaggerating, but you get the picture. A dashing, daring, and debonair crook.

Then naturally came a barrage of nasty images of the President-elect firing the young and innocent, like a hunter shooting frightened deer in the forest, and a bizarre exploit of him pushing someone over a desk.

Berlusconi the Fair: Trump’s doppelganger. Or is it vice versa?

Then they sung moribund financial funeral hymns of the European stock exchanges “plunging” in Milan, “rocking” Paris, a “spiraling” in London and a “diving” further on the Frankfurt index. There were the two refrains – the Italian daily double obsessions of the German bund –Italian titolo spread spiking and U.S. Dollar trading much lower against the Euro at such an early hour. Surely financial penance for the American political mortal sin mitted!

It was clever, but tired propaganda. The Italian viewers, nevertheless, read the writing (that is, thegraffiti) on the wall: “Here we go again: Silvio Berlusoni Reincarnate.Forza America! We invented this political animal.”

“And just like pizza we exported,” they said one-upping their cultural cousins, “the americani will devour our political fast food to grow even more obese. God bless (and good luck) America!”

Comments
Welcome to mreligion comments! Please keep conversations courteous and on-topic. To fosterproductive and respectful conversations, you may see comments from our Community Managers.
Sign up to post
Sort by
Show More Comments
RELIGION & LIBERTY ONLINE
If Only Women Ran The World….
My persuasion can build a nation Endless power With our love we can devour You’ll do anything for me -Beyonce, “Run the World (Girls)” That’s the apparent fantasy of Democratic Congresswoman Jan Schakowsky of Illinois. She recently hosted her annual fundraising luncheon, with guest speaker, Planned Parenthood’s Cecile Richards. Schakowsky said, “humanity is at a crossroads on this small planet and that our survival as a species is dependent on women taking charge, taking the world in our own hands.”...
Commentary: Recruiting for Big Government: Food Stamps Run Amok
The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), the federal government’s “food stamp” program, is symptomatic of America’s current view of the role of government, says Elise Hilton. It is there to take care of our every need. Hilton notes that the government is actively recruiting people for SNAP, in a heady mix of money, entitlement, and big government. The full text of her essay follows.Subscribe to the free, weekly Acton News & Commentary and other publicationshere. Recruiting for Big Government: Food...
Paying For College By Selling Yourself
There is no doubt that higher education is costly. Textbooks alone can run $1000 a semester for some undergraduates. Waiting tables and flipping burgers won’t cover those costs. With many parents just as strapped for cash as their children, how does one pay for a college diploma? For some young women, the answer is to sell themselves. There are websites that offer “matching” services for “mutually beneficial relationships”; that is, a young woman signs up for a “sugar daddy”. He...
Bruce Edward Walker: ‘Shutting down discourse is justice denied’
Bruce Edward Walker recently wrote mentary for The Tampa Tribune entitled, Shutting Down Corporate Speech in the Name of Social Justice. He says that: Corporate boardrooms arebeing caught up ina newwave of religious fervor sparkedbyclergy andmembers ofreligious ordersin search ofsocial justice. Alas, this movement is only superficially about the spirit.In truth,corporate directors pany executives are facinga very worldlymissionary effort bypriests, pastors, nuns and laypersonsarmed withproxy shareholder resolutionsthat advance politically liberal dogmas, including attempts to undermine the Supreme Court’sCitizens United ruling....
Churches Mobilize Professional Response for Oklahoma
One of the powerful scenes after Hurricane Katrina was church organizations cutting their way through the roads with chainsaws so they could set up hot meal tents the very next day. Church responders have transformed into “well oiled machines” and are being praised by The Red Cross and federal agencies. Because of Katrina, and tornadoes like the ones that decimated parts of Tuscaloosa, Ala. and Joplin, Mo., churches in munities can offer a level of expertise to the local houses...
‘The USDA of Europe?’
Tim Burrack, vice chairman and board member of Truth About Trade & Technology, recently wrote mentary for the Washington Times about the agriculture industry in the U.S. and how it is ing more and more European. He says there is fear of a “growing bureaucracy that is smothering freedom and innovation.” Burrack goes on to explain that the U.S. Department of Agriculture has taken an unfortunate step toward Europeanization when it delayed the approval of two crops that will help...
Q&A: Neighborhood Film Company on Transforming the Broken Through Business
Ricky Staub and Anders Lindwall were on a steady path to success in the film industry. Ricky was working for a big producer and Anders was freelancing as mercial director. Then, God called both of them to leave their jobs and start pany of their own — one focused on leveraging the process of filmmaking toward whole-life transformation for adults in recovery. Creating a unique business model founded on a concept called “family ratios,” NFCo melds for-profit with non-profit to...
Rent and Regulations are a Household’s Greatest Expenses
A new study estimates the cost of regulation in the U.S. at $14,768 per household: For two decades, Wayne Crews of the Competitive Enterprise Institute has tracked the growth of new federal regulations. In his 20th anniversary edition this week, he’ll report that pages in the Code of Federal Regulations hit an all-time high of 174,545 in 2012, an increase of more than 21% during the last decade. Relying largely on government data, Mr. Crews estimates that in 2012 the...
Religious Persecution: Syrian Christians Are ‘Exhausted’
The plight of Syrian Christians is well-documented, and includes the kidnapping of two Syrian bishops. In an address to the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland this week, Dr. Mary Mikhael of the National Evangelical Synod of Syria, said Syrian Christians are “exhausted” from the strain of life in that nation. She said there was no Arab Spring for the people of Syria but ‘only a stormy dark winter’. In particular, she expressed concern that there would soon be...
‘God’s Love with Work Gloves’
After a disaster strikes, very few organizations have the vast resources and expertise to feed so many people as Southern Baptist Disaster Relief. They have received praise from countless victims and organizations, including The American Red Cross. After Katrina, they were the first to have hot food tents up and running, feeding tens of thousands three meals a day in munities along the Gulf Coast. Most state Baptist Conventions have their own disaster relief agencies that in many instances have...
Related Classification
Copyright 2023-2026 - www.mreligion.com All Rights Reserved