I love Italy. I’ve visited twice and hope to again. I like the Italian people, the language, the culture.

I also like the book The Sack of Rome by Alexander Stille about the rise of Berlusconi. Looking from outside of Italy I wondered how Italy could elect Berlusconi not once, but twice. Trump provides an answer. It could happen here too.

I’ll also note that Italy invented fascism. A number of people have observed that Trump resembles Mussolini, not Hitler as was suggested in a recent New York Times book review.

Many of the complaints you have about Obama are actually complaints about larger US policy.

No one, including Trump, knows what policy would look like with a Trump administration. But many of the policies that are objected to here would be the same with either a (normal) Republican or a Democratic administration.

Some of the problems, like the disaster in the Middle East that is causing the refugee crisis go back to the G.W. Bush administration and the needless war in Iraq.

Like most of the world, Italy now lives in the shadow of two great powers: the United States and China.