Imagine if the president of the United States was also the Senate majority leader, possessed Rupert Murdoch's and Mike Bloomberg's media holdings, was as rich as Bill Gates, had the real estate empire and personal arrogance of Donald Trump, and had ties to organized crime, and you begin to get an idea of the hold Silvio Berlusconi has over Italian public life. Conflict of interest? The lawyer who has defended him against corruption is also the president of the Justice Commission of the Italian parliament, which, not coincidentally, retroactively decriminalized many of the offenses with which Berlusconi has been charged. Berlusconi controls the political content that is carried over his television and radio stations, in his newspapers, and in the books published by the houses he owns. His shadow falls one way or another on every corner of Italy and virtually every aspect of Italian life. How did this happen? What does it mean?