Matteo Renzi came to power promising to change Italy or change his job. On Sunday, Italians made that choice for him, rejecting the constitutional reform on which he'd staked everything.
It's tempting to plot a continuous line from the U.K.'s June vote to leave the European Union through to the election of Donald Trump to the Italian referendum on Sunday that ended Renzi's government and his hopes of changing politics in Italy. In each, populists won and establishment power was rejected. But Tolstoy's famous observation about families can be applied to elections: All victories are alike, but each loss is a failure in its own way.
Read Full Article »