An excellent summary of the character of il Duce, and the comparison with Trump is apt indeed. When times are difficult, the public do seem to be easily seduced by larger than life characters suggesting that all can be easily fixed, just so long as we take it out on some minority (who are to blame for all of society's ills, naturally). Mind you, in certain parts of Italy, Mussolini still seems to appeal to some folk.
We chartered a yacht from Procida (an island in the bay of Naples) back in 2008. I quickly realized that we had made a big mistake by going in August (from a sailing point of view) as every port was overflowing and overpriced, and every Napolitan with a speedboat was out and about, flat stick & trying to cut as close as possible to the idiots in a sailboat. It came as no surprise to me that the captain of the Concordia was from Naples.
Anyhow, I digress, the point was, when we sailed up to Amalfi, after loving the beauty of the Amalfi coast we were rather disappointed by the town itself, finding the whole atmosphere a bit tacky and downmarket - rather "kiss me quick". The absolute nadir was a boutique we found which was entirely devoted to selling Mussolini memorabilia. We just couldn't believe our eyes.
