by Gerald Celente

Previously
by Gerald Celente: War
Peace, An Awakening: Renaissance or Ruin?

The spectacular
showing by Beppe Grillo’s Movimento 5 Stelle, which just won more
votes in Italy’s general election than any other single party, represents
a brand new, powerful, double-barreled trend that will reshape the
way political campaigns are run and, in so doing, will reshape the
future.

The unanticipated
results sent a shock wave across Italy and rattled world equity
markets. Taking 180 of Parliament’s 630 seats, Grillo’s party amassed
enough votes to not only deny front runner Pier Luigi Bersani the
clear majority needed to form a working government, it also sent
an even louder message to the entire eurozone: Adesso basta – enough
is enough!

Faced with
the prospect of still-higher taxes and more German-inspired austerity-as-usual,
the Five Star Movement’s anti-establishment/anti-austerity populist
showing far exceeded the predictions of the media, pollsters and
politicians.

The resurgence
of the embattled and disgraced media tycoon Silvio Berlusconi was
also unanticipated. But his strong showing was less a sign of popular
support than the consequence of the mogul’s overt multi-media-vote-buying
campaign, promising amnesty for tax evaders and a $5 billion tax
refund to property owners.

Trend 1: Media
Doesn’t Matter Beppe Grillo, unlike all the other candidates, spurned
Italian TV and instead built his personal presence and party strength
via a 73-stop barnstorming tour and a brilliantly orchestrated Internet
campaign. Nine months ago he was polling only 5 percent nationally.
With the largest social media following of any politician in Europe,
Grillo’s “head on the Internet, feet on the ground” rise
to prominence was generated through his one million Facebook and
Twitter friends and followers.

This is the
trend of the future!

It is also
a new millennium megatrend Gerald Celente forecast in detail in
the December 1999 Trends Journal. Moreover, in terms of presence,
platform and personality, it is as though Beppe Grillo had been
invented for the role of the Italian version of the “Internet
Candidate” Celente predicted:

The Internet
Candidate

Starting in
1999, the opening salvos will be fired in the battle against the
hegemony of America’s two-party political system. A combination
of technological advances and seething public opinion has set the
stage for the Internet candidate – a political newcomer beholden
to no one and able to reach everyone.

Free At Last

No longer bound
by conventional political rules of engagement, freed from the necessity
to raise mega-millions to wage campaigns and no longer solely reliant
on media approval for coverage, the Internet candidate will be a
new-millennium voice speaking a new-millennium language that appeals
to the politically disenchanted and disgusted.

Just as the
advent of television changed political campaign strategies forever,
so the Internet will shortly revolutionize the entire political
process.

The potential
Internet candidacy awaits its real-life Internet candidates…. (The
Trends Journal, Winter 1999)

Moreover, while
The New York Times (and the rest of the mainstream media)
now maintain that “Few experts anticipated the depth of anger
displayed by Italian voters over the austerity” measures imposed
by the Technocrat Monti, the fact is that nearly a year before the
election Gerald Celente not only anticipated the “anger,”
he singled out Beppe Grillo as the man who would give voice to it
and transform that anger into a coherent force. (Gerald
Celente on CJAD, Montreal Canada, 29 May 2012) Trend 2: Throw
the Bums Out The dire political conditions that made it possible
for Grillo’s ascendance in Italy also prevail in countries big and
small around the world. The “politically disenchanted and disgusted”
citizenry Celente postulated as a pre-condition for the trend he
predicted all those years ago, has essentially become the norm:
polls report that 88 percent of Italians distrust political parties,
as do 80 percent of the British, while 85 percent of Americans distrust
their government … and so on around the world.

Standard, entrenched
political systems everywhere – ostensibly democratic, autocratic,
left-wing, right-wing or monarchical – are ripe for revolution,
non-violent or otherwise. The Internet Candidate is an “idea
whose time has come.” Adesso basta, the message from Italy
is being heard around the austerity-ravaged world.

Perhaps it
is no more than coincidence, but Italy, where the European Renaissance
first took root and flourished, may be the breeding ground for Renaissance
2.0.

March
4, 2013

Gerald
Celente is founder and director of The Trends Research Institute,
author of Trends
2000 and Trend
Tracking (Warner Books), and publisher of The
Trends Journal. He has been forecasting trends since 1980,
and recently called “The Collapse of ’09.”

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