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Big societal changes require big state interventions
We are in an era where charisma trumps reason-based discussions and people become hypnotized by social media.
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Democracy lesson: Students count voters during a general election training simulation at Karangpandang state senior high school in Karanganyar, Central Java, on Sept. 27, 2023. (Antara/Mohammad Ayudha)
O
nce upon a time in Europe, just after graduating from university, I used to look at a buffoon-turned-politician with a certain sympathy. Back then, I had started working in an NGO engaged in development projects in the so-called South.
Yet my sympathy, or perhaps my infatuation for, that politician and multiple-term prime minister of my country put me into a corner within the organization I was working with.
I was a sort of "black sheep", a strange guy who had embraced lofty (and progressive) goals, but who also moderately supported a very atypical politician, a joker, a womanizer who was running his political machine as if he were managing his media empire.
Unsurprisingly, this very unconventional politician embraced right of center policies. He was an entertainer, but also someone promising transformative changes to the country. He was often derided for his unstable politics, in spite of a very high degree of prosperity being enjoyed by more than half of the nation.
People, or at least a good segment of the population, were tired of the status quo. Citizens were fed up with a system full of inefficiencies, especially in the civil service.
With the landslide victory of Donald Trump in the United States election, I have felt an almost uncontrollable urge to share my story of when, as a young man, I was a supporter, albeit not totally uncritically, of Silvio Berlusconi.
Fast forwarding to the present, I consider myself a progressive not only in the principles and values that I try to embrace in my personal and professional life, but also politically.
