With Donald Trump having become the first former US president to face federal criminal charges even as he campaigns for another White House run and Silvio Berlusconi having departed this mad, mad, bunga bunga world, “dictator chic” is much in focus.

When Mr Trump was indicted on charges that he mishandled classified documents and allegedly stored them in places that included a Mar-a-Lago bathroom, a photo of the scene depicted stacks of boxes under a large crystal chandelier. It was in the toilet, leading commentators to raise issues of both design and hygiene. New York Times columnist Paul Krugman tweeted that perhaps there was “a correlation between anti-democratic politics and a certain kind of bad taste.”

Originally published at https://rashmee.substack.com