Professor Jan-Werner Müller from Princeton claims in the London Review of Books:
But the peculiarity of Trump is that he seems the equivalent of Grillo and Silvio Berlusconi merged into one person.
I don’t think he is, but Müller’s view is an enormous improvement on the Trump as Berlusconi trope. If one is keen on painting Trump as America’s answer to/version of Europe’s anti-establishment populism, one should not ignore Grillo. He’s a comedian by trade, but not a comical figure on the political scene.