Hvordan man bør imøtegå Trump (og Listhaug?)

Luigi Zingales er en italiensk økonomiprofessor som for tiden jobber ved University of Chicago. Han kan plasseres et sted rundt sentrum-høyre i politikken. Han var en av de få som tok Donald Trump alvorlig som politisk aktør så tidlig som i 2012. Han advarte om at Trump ville være en katastrofe for det Republikanske parti og for landet og at skaden kunne bli langvarig.

...The only thing more frightening than Trump’s running for president would be Trump’s getting elected president. From a party perspective, while losing an election is bad, winning one with the wrong candidate for the party and for the country is worse. I know something about this: I come from Italy, a country that has elected as prime minister the Trumplike Silvio Berlusconi.
Trump and Berlusconi are remarkably alike. They are both billionaire businessmen who claim that the government should be run like a business. They are both gifted salesmen, able to appeal to the emotions of their fellow citizens. They are both obsessed with their looks, with their hair (or what remains of it), and with sexy women. Their gross manners make them popular, perhaps because people think that if these guys could become billionaires, anyone could. Most important is that both Trump and Berlusconi made their initial fortunes in real estate, an industry where connections and corruption often matter as much as, or more than, talent and hard work. Indeed, while both pretend to stand for free markets, what they really believe in is what most of us would label crony capitalism.
Berlusconi’s policies have been devastating to Italy. He has been prime minister for eight of the last ten years, during which time the Italian per-capita GDP has dropped 4 percent, the debt-to-GDP ratio has increased from 109 percent to 120 percent, and taxes have increased from 41.2 percent to 43.4 percent. Italy’s score in the Heritage Foundation’s Index of Economic Freedom has dropped from 63 to 60.3, and in the World Economic Forum Index of Competitiveness from 4.9 to 4.37.
Berlusconi’s tenure has also been devastating for free-market ideas, which now are identified with corruption [min uthevelse]How can such a pro-business prime minister wreak havoc on the economy and on the idea of free markets? Because “pro-business” doesn’t necessarily mean “pro-market.” While the two agendas sometimes coincide—as in the case of protecting property rights—they’re often at odds. Market competition threatens established firms, which often use their political muscle to restrict new entries into their industry, strengthening their positions but putting customers at a disadvantage. A pro-market strategy, by contrast, aims to encourage the best business conditions for everyone. That’s in fact the opposite of what a real-estate tycoon wants: to keep competitors out and enhance the value of his own properties. By capturing (or more precisely, purchasing) the free-market flag in the same way one might acquire a business brand, Berlusconi likely has destroyed the appeal of the free-market ideal in Italy for a generation.

Man ser allerede veldig klare tegn til at Trump vil oppføre seg på samme måte. Hva er så beste måte å kjempe mot ham på. Zingales har en interessant tanke som ved første øyekast ikke virket opplagt.

The Italian experience provides a blueprint for how to defeat Mr. Trump. Only two men in Italy have won an electoral competition against Mr. Berlusconi: Romano Prodi and the current prime minister, Matteo Renzi (albeit only in a 2014 European election). Both of them treated Mr. Berlusconi as an ordinary opponent. They focused on the issues, not on his character. In different ways, both of them are seen as outsiders, not as members of what in Italy is defined as the political caste.

Jeg tror dette er riktig fremgangsmåte. Selv om det er fristende å hisse seg opp bare rope høyt om hvor totalt uspiselig denne personen er, tror jeg det er mer å vinne på å rolig ta for seg konkrete standpunkt og kle av dem i tur og orden. Disse personene har vist at de er mestere i å spille på følelser og hvis det er det kampen handler om kommer de til å vinne.