IN Rome about a dozen years ago, I had a long dinner with Donald Trump.
Only his name was Silvio Berlusconi.
Aren’t they essentially the same man? The same myth?
They have the same obsession with their wealth. Same need to crow about it. Same belief that it’s the irrefutable measure of their genius. Same come-on to countrymen: If I enriched myself, I can enrich you.
They’re priapic twins, identical in their insistence on being seen as paragons of irresistible lust. If hideously sexist utterances ensue, so be it. Loins before decency. Pheromones over good sense.
And the vanity. Oh, the vanity. During my meal with Berlusconi, who was then the prime minister of Italy, he grew most animated when complaining about Italian journalists’ put-downs of him as a dwarf.
A dwarf! He stressed to me that he was taller than José María Aznar, Spain’s leader at the time. A few years later, on a television talk show, he informed Italians that he was “definitely taller” than Napoleon. And a few years after
that, at a political rally, he proclaimed: “I am taller than Putin and Sarkozy,” referring to his Russian and French counterparts. “I don’t understand why all the caricaturists portray me as a dwarf, whereas the others are allowed a normal height.”
We give in, Silvio. You’re a mountain among midgets.
And we admit it, Donald. No one’s hair sweeps the heavens like yours.
You two are the biggest, the best, shaming all the rest.
Now will you please just let us be?
Trump shows no signs of doing that. Last week he made a new bid to be envied, once again unzipping his accounts and flashing the world his finances. This time he claimed to be worth about $10 billion, which is almost certainly a
gross exaggeration. His assets expand with his ego.
His popularity with voters does, too, according to recent polls, which showed him at or near the head of the pack for the Republican presidential nomination. I don’t expect this to last, but it probably means that we’re stuck with him through at least a few debates.
So it’s time to search for solace, and perhaps there’s some in knowing that he’s not a peculiarly American creation, nor is he a particular indictment of our political culture and electorate.
Trump is Berlusconi in waiting, with less cosmetic surgery. Berlusconi is Trump in senescence, with even higher alimony payments.
Trumpusconi is a study in the peril and pitfalls of unchecked testosterone and tumescent avarice. It’s a commentary on wealth in the Western world: how ardently certain blowhards pursue it, how much the rest of us forgive in those who attain it, how thoroughly we equate money and accomplishment.
It’s a comedy. It’s a tragedy.
It’s even a porn flick — or close to one. Trumpusconi stars overlapping cads who cultivate dovetailing images as epic playboys.
Both men have learned that they can turn such cloddishness to their advantage, by casting it as unvarnished candor. Sloppy talk becomes straight talk. Insult becomes authenticity, even if it’s pure theater and so long as it’s a hell of a show.
And self-regard goes a long, long way. It can be mistaken for wisdom. It can masquerade as vision. With enough of it, the clown transforms himself into a ringleader. The dwarf looks like a giant.
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/19/o...-left-region&WT.nav=opinion-c-col-left-region
