Politicians similar to Trump, recently in other countries

In My Humble Opinion
1

To better predict where Donald Trump may be headed, lets’ see if recent history can be of use.

It has to be recent history, because mass media and social media is essential. So let’s leave Hitler out of any comparisons.

So, tell us about Trump like politicians in your country in the last fifteen years. What happened? How did they poll, how did they influence the rest of politics, were they elected, how did they do?

In the Netherlands, we had Pim Fortuyn. Resembled Trump in many, many ways. Polls said he would win big-time. Media went apeship over him and his irreverent sound bites. Is famous for telling a female reporter to “go home and cook a meal”.
Fortuyn was murdered before the elections by an animal right’s activist, mainly due to his views on hunting and industrial farming. Fortuyn’s political party won by a landslide, becoming the biggest party after the elections. But…Fortuyns party was baiscally just him, himself and he, and he never got around to finding enough quality politicians to fill out the rest of the party. So after that election, Fortuyns’s party, without Fortuyn fell apart within a year due to internal scandals and undisciplined fighting.
In the five years after that, the party tried to coast on, defending Fortuyn’s "legacy"and not doing a very good job at it. Then it got a nwe strong leader, Geert Wilders.He avoided the previous problems by being completely autocratic. His only program points are “no more furriners” and “lets punish the undeserving poor AND those uppity politicians”. He has never taken full governing power, even though the numbers allowed him to, there seems no profit in that for him. He rather stands at the sidelins badmouthing . He had been doing well that way for ten years now.

And the other Dopers? How are your past and future Trumps doing?

2

Silvio Berlusconi has to be the closest parallel to Trump.

3

I hope one of our Italian Dopers can comment if the election of Berlusconi had a lot in common with Trumps’ election.

Berlusconi himself was, well, controversial, but I wonder what the final word is on if he was bad or good for Italy. And let’s not forget, leaders have only so much influence on politics. Whole countries have had a madman as titular head, and still have been reasonably run by countless capable and level-headed lower-tier rulers and civil servants.

4

Ricardo Martinelli was the previous president in Panama. He was a super-rich self-made supermarket mogul who founded his own party to go up against the two main traditional parties that have alternated in power since the military dictatorship was overthrown. He was a loudmouth, a blowhard, and a bully. When another politician called him “loco” during the campaign, he proudly adopted the slogan Los locos somos mas, more or less “We crazies are the majority.”

He won the election partly on promises of being non-corrupt. The idea was that he was so rich already he had no reason to steal more. As it turned out, his administration broke all records as far as the brazenness of its corruption. When his hand-picked successor was unexpectedly beaten in the last election, he fled the country in advance of charges being brought against him by the new administration.

5

Geert Wilders has trump-quality hair.

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In the UK the nearest equivalents are probably:

Nigel Farage, the leader of UKIP. A bombastic, charismatic, every-bloke, outsider politician, and strongly against immigration; has been accused of being racist and sexist, but his popularity among his supporters is immune to these sorts of accusations.

Boris Johnson, Conservative Mayor of London. Silly hair, also popularist and popular, despite the fact he is widely regarded as a buffoon. A close ally of Cameron and talked about as a possible candidate for the Tory Leadership, though I think the Tories would have to get themselves into a desperate spot before he became leader.

Nick Griffin, Former Leader of the BNP. A definite racist, who can trace his political lineage directly back to the Hitler-supporting British fascist Oswald Moseley (who was interned by Britain during WWII). He managed to make some in-roads for the BNP, despite holding views which repelled the majority of the country, however currently in the political wilderness

Robert Kilroy-Silk, former UKIP MEP. Started out as a Labour MP and then found fame as a talk-show host. Helped raise the profile of UKIP, but his outspoken extreme-right views and somewhat ridiculous persona saw him fail to become UKIP leader. Broke away and formed his own party, who expelled him in less than a year. Now effectively retired.

Lord Alan Sugar, Member of the House of Lords (formerly Labour). Not actually that politically similar to Trump, as though he is outspoken, his views are for the most part centrist. Beyond formerly being a major donor to the Labour party, not that politically significant either. But like Trump in that he is a famous entrepreneur, billionaire and star of the UK version of The Apprentice.

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Asympotically fat, from your list I only know Boris Johnson. And he has been around long enough to gouge how good or bad he is for the UK as a country. On the whole, I’d say he has been a good thing for politics. Voters have enjoyed politics for the first time in years.

Funny how Boris’ resemblance to Trump lies in his brazen style, not in his politics. And the blond hair, a stand-out trademark that distinguishes him from all the other balding or grey-haired suits standing next to stars-and-stripes printed pieces of cloth.

8

He sure does. Wilders is actually of Indonesian descent, and has naturally dark hair. There has been speculation why he bleached his hair when he went into politics; some say to cover up his Indonesian roots, some say to have an easily identifiable trade mark look.

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Yep, I would say, beyond his definite elitist streak, Boris Johnson’s politics are fairly amorphous. Sometimes he appears to be on the right-wing of the Tories, but other times he appears to be on the left-wing or the centre.

He does have a bumbling charm and can be funny and is hardly not entertaining, however I think Ken Livingstone had him pegged when he said he is deep-down a lazy git who is out for himself.

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Point of order: he’s not against immigration per se; he wants Britain to have control of who immigrates.

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Rob Ford (the former mayor of Toronto) isn’t a billionaire, but he’s a relatively wealthy blowhard who’s noted for “telling it like it is”. He was moderately entertaining as a gadfly city councilor, but it’s less entertaining having a gadfly in charge of things.

12

Hogarth, can you give some examples and a general impression how this guy did?

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The Economist gives a hindsight review of how Berlusconi did, for italy as a whole. They say he was so busy protecting his own interests, that he failed to make truly necessary reforms. On the other hand, they say, the country itself may have been impossible to reform. The man who screwed an entire country | The Economist

14

In Australia Clive Palmer has a few traits in common with Trump.

Lot of money, never in politics before, created his own political party and ran at the last federal election .

He actually got elected and had a few of his party reps elected but it’s slowly all turned to sh1te for Clive in the 2 years since.

His Party

His Wiki page

15

How so, stui magpie?

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The mayor of Toronto doesn’t have much power, but he made himself a laughingstock by showing up drunk various places in town and by getting his picture taken with drug dealers. City council voted to remove some of his powers.

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The Washington Post has an interesting article on the eerie similarities between Trump and Berlusconi .

The most important lesson: don’t be fooled by Trumps buffoonery. He WILL be elected. And while that won’t be a big disaster for the country, it won’t be good for anyone, either.

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I think this greatly underestimates the power of the party elites. fivethirtyeight.com has been tracking endorsements by governers and members of Congress. The Republican who was leading in endorsements at the time of the Iowa caucuses won the nomination every time since 1980.* So far, Trump has zero endorsements.

  • That’s still a small sample, but at least it’s a better indicator than looking at one election in another country.
19

Huh. Maybe its different in the US two party system. Most European countries have multiple party systems. But still… Trump has zero endorsements in your link? Maybe the data are from when Trump had not announced yet that he would run for Potus ?

20

That and the crack smoking.

Most of the polls still see the democratic candidate beating whatever republican candidate there is. Most people still vote along party lines which makes it easy to predict most states. The democrats may be shooting themselves in the foot by putting all their eggs in the Hilary basket.