Feb 15, 2021 AUSTIN – Throughout Donald Trump’s single term as president of the United States, his opponents in both the Democratic and Republican parties frequently portrayed him as a would-be fascist dictator. But with Trump ousted from the White House, this analogy has become untenable. The Italian leader Trump resembles most is not the fascist dictator Benito Mussolini but rather Silvio Berlusconi, the scandal-prone former prime minister. Figures like Trump and Berlusconi — tycoons or media celebrities who ran for office as anti-establishment populist demagogues — are not uncommon in contemporary Western democracies. In Europe, the list includes elected leaders like: Czech Prime Minister Andrej Babis, one of the country’s wealthiest men; former Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko, previously his country’s “Chocolate King”; and his successor, Volodymyr Zelensky, a comic actor who had previously played a Ukrainian president on television.