Re: <nettime> made for TV, made for social media

[Alessandro Delfanti <a.delfanti@insiberia.net>]

Dear all,

the Yugo-mentions are spot-on but let me note that, like so many times 
before, Trump's tactics are straight out of Berlusconi's playbook -- on 
amphetamine, of course. Berlusconi never accepted the results of the 
Italian 2006 elections, his second major defeat. Like in the US, the 
elections were run by B's very government, but not having nobody to 
blame for the supposed fraud certainly did not stop him for making shit 
up. This included his own minister of the interior repeatedly claiming 
that the elections he had supervised had been fair. Sounds familiar? But 
why should reality get in the way of a wider political strategy. 
Berlusconi got to oppose a weak executive, backed by a shaky majority, 
which eventually led to a big centre-right victory in 2008. He was 
eventually given the boot by the EU troika as many will remember. Again, 
he could claim he had not been defied in the open democratic 
battlefield.

Differences: First, the 2006 centre-left government was the 61st since 
WW2 (1 per year on average). The Italian system is unstable by design 
and B knew he'd soon have a new chance. Not so much in the US. Second, B 
literally OWNED a major political party. There was no room whatsoever 
for internal dissent or for alternative centre-right coalitions. The 
possibility has only materialized with his convictions and physical 
decline in the last few years, and with a changed political climate (his 
death will be even more disruptive for the right). In the current US 
situation one of the most interesting variables remains the Republican 
party. Even with all its authoritarian tendencies and unique ideological 
drives, the old guard may try to salvage it if the alternative is a 
complete surrender to a defeated Trump. Obviously B was also the product 
of a different media politics, owning most private TV networks -- and 
yet still calling out a supposed hegemony of left-wing media. Finally, B 
had no army of protofascist thugs to deploy, no major racial upheaval to 
capitalize upon (or let's just say that the war against minorities was 
completely asymmetrical and there were no big differences between the 
left and the right in terms of their role in it), nor was he interested 
in being seen as an authoritarian leader. No violent coup attempts 
there.

Now, in other areas the similarities between B and T are quite striking. 
Like others before them, they both see the institutional democratic 
process as a fiction whose script can be rewritten. We knew that in the 
past this has led to a variety of different outcomes, not just to the 
Reichstag fire. Still processing what that means in today's US politics.

Ciao from Canada
a


> Put another way, was it the burning of the Reichstag or the storming
> of the Winter Palace? or neither?
>
> > On Jan 8, 2021, at 7:47 AM, mp <mp@aktivix.org> wrote:
> >
> > 
> >
> > > On 08/01/2021 04:07, Keith Sanborn wrote:
> > > Dear John,
> > >
> > > There is a difference between a fascist coup attempt lead from above 
> > > and
> > > a mass insurrection.
> >
> > ... when you put it like that, it sounds like there is a difference.
> >
> > Does that mean that poor, white Americans have no sense of the local, 
> > of
> > community, of constitutional rights or anything like a good 
> > enlightened
> > liberal would?
> >
> > Are they all stupid, or all fascists, is that the meaning here?
> >
> > Whose values and whose baseline of reality defines the frame of
> > reference here?
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