“The end of an era.” La Repubblica headed its coverage of Silvio Berlusconi’s death by emphasizing his long spell at the center of public life. This framing of his “historic” stature was perhaps kinder than a warts-and-all treatment of his record of criminal ties, abuse of office, and use of parliament to defend his TV empire. Yet to say that his death marks the end of an era is to misunderstand the changes he embodied. From Italy’s current far-right government to the rise of Trumpism in the United States, we are still living in Berlusconi’s world.

The media tycoon’s first electoral run in 1994 heralded many changes that soon spread across Western democracy. Centering his campaign on resisting a supposedly overmighty left, he ran as leader not of a mass party but of a start-up vehicle called Forza Italia. Its candidate lists were populated by his business allies; its campaign took place via his own private TV stations; and its call for a “liberalized,” free-market Italy was married with the use of state power to serve his own business interests. It was, in short, a creeping privatization of Italian democracy.

This was possible due to the rottenness of the old order, expressed in a corruption scandal known as “Bribesville,” which sank the old mass parties between 1992 and 1994. In an atmosphere of failing popular faith in institutions, Forza Italia and its allies claimed to represent a new “liberalizing” movement; they denigrated elitist “politicians.” The neofascist Movimento Sociale Italiano recreated itself as the party of “la gente” — ordinary folks — not “tangente” — the bribe.