A View of America From Italy

I am a dual-citizen, American by birth, Italian by choice. On January 6, 2021, I was riveted to CNN news and with the rest of the world, sat horrified as rioters broke into the Capitol and rampaged through the American seat of democracy. American friends asked me, are you watching this? What is the reaction in Italy?

To answer these questions, I interviewed 9 Italians and 3 English residents here in Italy. The following is a composite of their views to my questions.

What is your reaction to the storming of the American Capitol Building?

It was shocking and disturbing to see…The situation is chaotic and unstable… The mob certainly had no sense of the dangers of the pandemic..There was little reaction from the police. How could that have happened?…Where were the police?…People felt their system was under attack and thought the election was falsified so they assaulted the Capitol Building…This all showed how fragile democracy is…(a mixture of Italian reactions.)

English points of view

The storming of the Capitol was an extraordinary event on so many levels. If the US were a tin-pot banana republic it would have been appalling enough, but from the (not just self-proclaimed) World’s premier democracy it has left the rest of us in a state of understandable shock. How fragile the balance between order and anarchy is. The well broadcasted comparison between the security presence on view during the recent BLM demonstration and this was, to put it mildly, stark. That a mob of neo-Nazis were allowed to rampage through the seat of democracy has well and truly torn off the sticking plaster (band-aid) covering the very evident racial divide & discrimination that is rife in American society. This is truly alarming. Moreover, that the president of the country actively incited the mob to violence is almost Shakespearean and beggars belief. Trump’s legacy is plain for all to see. (English resident in Italy)

I suppose the siege of Washington looked a bit like the behavior of Oswald Mosley in the 30s. Not familiar with him? He was head of the British Union of Fascists in 1932. He was imprisoned in 1940 and his party was banned. In 2005 BBC History chose him as the worst historical Briton of the 20th century.(English resident in Italy)

What are your thoughts about the current situation in the US?

I lived in the US for 10 years a few years ago and for the past five years have gone back twice a year for business. The first feelings I get when I think about my second homeland is: paranoia and lack of logic. Lately the U.S. reminds me of an old alpha male wolf who is incapable of dealing with the changes around him. Specifically the fact that many other male wolves of his pack are eager to replace him. He bites here and there without any apparent logic, always mad at everyone. He does not take time to rest and think. He becomes paranoid about any movement in the forest, thinking someone is coming to kill and replace him, instead of enjoying the beauty of the forest where he has been the leader for so long. What happened Jan 6th is just an example of how logic does not appear to be 100% present in US. What is the point of rioting a couple of weeks before the supported person will retire; on the other hand, why implement the whole impeachment ordeal on the same date? The third strong perception I get when I think about the situation in USA, is that the election system needs to be updated. Can you imagine the funny jokes the world would have if Italy or France had an election system that was incapable of giving an outcome set in stone? Since the voting system, including the famous electoral vote, is a made in USA phenomena, no-one says anything. If the election outcome were clearer, Trump and his supporters would have had less to gripe about. (Italian living in Umbria)

I think Trump supporters are fanatical and potentially dangerous…Trump supporters are dangerous and have gone too far…Trump himself is crazy, how long he’s been crazy is hard to say….these Trump supporters think they are living the dream, for the rest of us it is a nightmare…Trump has never provided a point of unity for the country…What will happen to the alarming number of American voters who saw themselves in Trump’s vision for the country? Many Italians look at the American society with both concern and fear. (a mixture of Italian reactions).

I think the biggest problem in the US now is the deep divide caused by racism, and the division between the “have’s” and the “have-not’s”. In my experience, Americans are also very gullible and isolationists. (42% of Americans hold passports, while 76% of the people in the UK hold passports.) Isolationism, arrogance and gullibility all contribute to Americans’ capacity to believe and act on, crack-pot ideas.(English resident in Italy)

What are the implications for Italy in this chaos of the US?

It seems the US is very weak now and China’s influence in the world is growing. If the US is not successful, it will be a disaster for Italy economically…I have always thought, like many Italians, that there is a direct link between the US internal political situation and the European situation. We all watched, with bated breath fearing that Trump would be elected to a second term. Had he been elected, it would have affected not only the United States, but also Europe…The implications for Italy is that it strongly depends on Italy’s reaction to the Chinese economy…I don’t think there are specific consequences for Italy, or not only for Italy. The most important consequence is that that the weakness of Democracy has been shown, and it is so fragile that any group of people following a few “Tweets” could threaten it…Italy and the U.S. are allies…What worries me is if Trump or someone like him, declares war on say Iraq, then Italy would be pulled into the conflict, in the same way Mussolini followed Hitler into war. (a mixture of Italian reactions).

The U.S. has been one of Italy’s best partners, both for export and import. Trump’s taxation on many of Italy’s products certainly did not help, but Italy found new markets like Russia or parts of China for products that had never made it there before. There really was no point of doing this before as the US was purchasing most of the production.(Italian living in Umbria)

Do you think there are lessons for Italy in Trump’s rise and fall?

Unfortunately, no. Stupid people always think they are different…Salvini, who is a right wing populist leader, still has a wide consensus of support in Italy and has made no secret, like Trump, that he publicly “sympathizes in” or rather, literally, “believes in Q”. This is something that should be kept under observation…(a mixture of Italian reactions).

For many Italians Salvini is considered much less harmful than Trump, and he is even considered empathetic in the way he approaches Italian citizens. What unites Trump and Salvini is the strong tendency to isolate their countries and focus on the fears of the people. That said, Salvini no longer scares the Italians. He has lost a lot of credit and consensus and has self-eliminated from the primary scene of Italian politics, after his own self-inflicted loss in August 2019.(Italian living in Rome).

Trump made Berlusconi look like a kitten. Italians are masters at avoiding the issues although they have handled the COVID crisis well. The sensible people will learn from the fall of Trump.(English resident)

As much as the rise of Trump was a boost for right wing new nationalists like Salvini, Trump’s fall from grace will only serve to undermine and reverse this. The memory of Mussolini hitching his wagon to the Hitler’s populist caravan is not so distant, and while I wouldn’t want to compare Trump to Hitler, for a huge catalogue of reasons, Italians will be very aware of what happened to Mussolini. Having said that, there will always be, necessarily, radical elements at both ends of the political spectrum that remain attractive to the disenfranchised.

What are your hopes for the U.S. future?

My hope for the U.S. is that things will stabilize, and we will go on with our relationships in a more normal way…, I hope Biden leads the United States towards a more relaxed, open, inclusive and serene policy. More sensitive and empathetic, aiming at disarming the country and ensuring security and stability. I hope that we will not be forced to again witness scenes of armed massacres and discrimination … And I hope, above all, that Biden succeeds in making it, despite the obstacles and resistance of Trump and his supporters …(a mixture of Italian reactions).

I hope the US will learn from its errors, and be more attentive in choosing people in power, and find a stronger social community. Trump is part of the very elite that he has condemned and said he wanted to fight, resulting in the elite remaining in power, and a lot of people do not want this. I would like to see the elite losing power and distribute wealth in an equalitarian way. (Italian living in Umbria)

I hope that the government and security forces take serious measures and implement appropriate security measures to counter these expanding far- right wing movements (which are not new, we recall that they have been around for several years).(Italian living in Rome).

I hope they solve their health care problems and improve their policy for solving social and environmental issues. (Italian living in Turin.)

The world needs the US to be strong to protect the world against the interests of China, Russia and Iran. We need the US strong but also wise, democratic and responsible. (Italian living in Florence).

Simple. That the transition to the Biden administration goes smoothly, and it heralds a dawn of respectful, inclusive and gentle politics where the calm, quiet intelligent man is listened to and the noisy bombast is shown the door. The healing process must start immediately, with focus on the current pandemic. After such a period of upheaval, restoration of respect for the US, its global image and brand of democracy is going to take some considerable time. I don’t imagine the term American Exceptionalism is going to be used for a while, except perhaps in a derogatory way…(English resident)

Americans will address their white superiority complex. I hope that the vast sums of money in American politics is looked at and money from corporations banned. I hope that Kamala will eventually take over and lead the country in the right direction.(English resident)