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Ten years ago, an Italian friend took me to Turin to see a comedian whose unlikely act was selling out major stadiums, even though it contained very few jokes. There was an excited rock-spectacle vibe, in large part because he'd been banned from appearing on Italian TV stations, all owned or controlled by billionaire-loudmouth prime minister Silvio Berlusconi.

Beppe Grillo's ranting routine had become a hit among liberal-minded Italians who saw this manic figure in an unkempt beard as an anti-Berlusconi, anti-corruption activist in a country humiliated by both.

His performance left me bewildered. Part of it was Jon Stewart-style mockery of the powers that be, delivered with a George Carlin shrug of world-weariness. Another part was devoted to conspiracy theories about genetically modified crops, the "real" authors of the 9/11 attacks and the supposed plots of the Bilderberg Group. And much of it was simply Beppe Grillo urging his audience to say no to just about everything. They roared with approval.

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Sitting down backstage, he sounded more like an Italian Green Party figure: anti-trade, anti-growth, suggesting vague ideas to reduce the power of Italy's vested interests. When I mentioned that an intelligent veteran reformist much like him, Romano Prodi, was poised to win the forthcoming election and that maybe he could use this opening to bring about some change, Mr. Grillo bristled. "The left will probably win this election," he said with audible regret, "but in six months there will be another one, because the left has no idea at all what to do – and," he smiled, "I will be back in business again."

It would be a decade before I'd see a similar phenomenon in another country: wild hair, implausible conspiracies, anger without direction, a lack of any positive ideas, huge crowds whipped into a burn-it-all-down frenzy.

But then it would be a decade before we'd realize how far Mr. Grillo would take his act. This week, his virtually one-man political party, the Five Star Movement, successfully drove Italy's reformist, anti-Berlusconi prime minister, Matteo Renzi, out of office and plunged the country back into Berlusconi-era chaos.

He had turned his arena audiences into the second-biggest political party in Italy (it may now be the biggest). This week, they followed his instructions to say no on Mr. Renzi's referendum to reform the democratic system by reducing the power of corrupt regional fiefdoms and draining the sold-out swamps of the Senate – the very quagmires Mr. Grillo has built his career condemning.

Mr. Grillo wanted none of it. As he rose to power, any suggestion that he use his angry, reform-demanding movement to bring about real change for the Italian people has been rebuffed, driven away. He, like so many grassroots figures today, has embraced the politics of No.

And this is a side to this year's angry politics that doesn't get mentioned enough. What I've seen at rallies in Florida, Newcastle, Dresden and Turin is the same reflex desire to reject, to click on the "unfollow" button, to shut down anything that isn't yours. A lot of people have learned extensive vocabularies of derision and contempt – but have forgotten the vocabularies of hope, co-operation and compromise.

A few months after that Turin spectacle, Mr. Prodi did indeed win the election and set about trying to repair the enormous damage of the Berlusconi years. Mr. Grillo responded by organizing what he called "V-Day" (V for vaffanculo, usually translated to the more gentle "f--- off"), in which millions of Italians gathered to make obscene gestures at the government. It had the effect of bringing Mr. Berlusconi back to power.

When Mr. Renzi, known as a corruption-free mayor of Florence, rose to power in 2014, it was as if Mr. Grillo's 2006 fantasies had been realized. Mr. Renzi promptly delivered one of the comedian's key demands by eliminating Italy's awful proportional-representation voting system. Then he offered a referendum to do what Mr. Grillo had long demanded.

The angry clown would not smile. He shot the man who threatened to make his dreams come true. He might become prime minister next year or kingmaker in a coalition. It will be yet another triumph for the opposite of hope.

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