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Culture War Roundup for the week of September 26, 2022

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I am really curious about what sort of person still votes for Berlusconi. What does a 85yo Berlusconi still contribute to the Italian politics that other right wing or centrist leaders don't?

"I had good years under Berlusconi." I knew a ton of people who voted for Bush II in America on that basis, and some who voted for Hillary for that reason. Part of it isn't really anything to do with economic policy, it's just, well, Berlusconi was in charge when I was young and vigorous, those were good years for me. Why vote for someone like him when the real thing is right there?

Older than Radio, Marx in the Eighteenth Brumaire:

Historic tradition has given birth to the superstition among the French farmers that a man named Napoleon would restore to them all manner of glory. Now, then, an individual turns up, who gives himself out as that man because, obedient to the “Code Napoleon,” which provides that “La recherche de la paternite est interdite,” he carries the name of Napoleon. [#6 L. N. Bonaparte is said to have been an illegitimate son.] After a vagabondage of twenty years, and a series of grotesque adventures, the myth is verified, and that man becomes the Emperor of the French. The rooted thought of the Nephew becomes a reality because it coincided with the rooted thought of the most numerous class among the French.