Reading time: a few seconds plus video.
As economies decline, demagogues – political leaders who seek support by appealing to popular desires and prejudices – will gain power.
Italy’s economy is circling the drain and austerity is causing much pain. The revolutionary Beppe Grillo, a comedian and convicted murderer gained considerable political power in their last election.
Here’s a video of Beppe with English subtitles. Note the body language similarities with another demagogue, Adolph Hitler.
He’ll be lucky if a ‘fatal accident’ doesn’t befall him.
Expect to see more as the economic pain increases.
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I hate to agree with you but you’re right, dammit. Politics has always been down and dirty but it seems to have degenerated to the point where no good people are willing to sacrifice themselves for the good of all. Perhaps they realize we’re beyond the point of no return so all efforts would be futile. Hope I’m wrong.
I can’t say I’ve done a lot of reading on Hitler or picked up a copy of Mein Kampf, but I can’t help but think most of Hitler’s actions were to make the German people feel scared and to give more power to him and the government – seems like the opposite of what Grillo is trying to do.
Beppo’s similarities with Hitler are two-fold: his demagoguery in telling people what they want to hear and his theatrical body language.
Most politicians are demagogic so there’s nothing compelling there. His theatrics are comical but then he’s a comic turned politician so that too is hardly compelling. Beppo’s politics are completely different than Hitler’s and I didn’t mean to imply any similarities.
However, the danger is our tendency to choose demagogic leaders as times get tougher. The demagogues aren’t usually the ones to lead us out of trouble; they usually set one group against another and fail to address the real issues.
Thanks for the interesting links. I can get the imbedded YouTube link to work but I’m at a loss why the screen doesn’t display.