"Berlusconi is our own Kung Fu Panda"

Slavoj Zizek compares Silvio Berlusconi and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in the London Review of Books. Like Putin in Russia, the two men have implemented a kind of dictatorial democracy, where the failings of democracy and its inability to represent the genuine popular will (e.g. people hate the government but still vote for it) are exploited to preserve a self-interested, corrupt leader. Quotes:

The last tragic US president was Richard Nixon: he was a crook, but a crook who fell victim to the gap between his ideals and ambitions on the one hand, and political realities on the other. With Ronald Reagan (and Carlos Menem in Argentina), a different figure entered the stage, a 'Teflon' president no longer expected to stick to his electoral programme, and therefore impervious to factual criticism (remember how Reagan's popularity went up after every public appearance, as journalists enumerated his mistakes). This new presidential type mixes 'spontaneous' outbursts with ruthless manipulation.

[...]

Surprised at seeing a horseshoe above the door of [Niels] Bohr's country house, a visiting scientist said he didn't believe that horseshoes kept evil spirits out of the house, to which Bohr answered: 'Neither do I; I have it there because I was told that it works just as well if one doesn't believe in it!' This is how ideology functions today: nobody takes democracy or justice seriously, we are all aware that they are corrupt, but we practise them anyway because we assume they work even if we don't believe in them.

He also reflects on the liberating possibilities of Islam (e.g. in the 1979 Iranian revolution) and Berlusconi's brutal anti-immigration policies: declaring a state of emergency and jailing a ship's captain who failed to sink a rubber dinghy full of immigrants.