This is an enlightening read about how Brexit played out so “counter-intuitively” (from the perspective of progressive\u00a0United Staters), as well as an informative glimpse into the somewhat icky complexity of the EU (for example, I previously had not appreciated the extremely pro-business and anti-labor implications of EU policy).<\/p>\n
But that’s not why I’m sharing. \u00a0I’m sharing because this article inadvertently lays out pretty clearly how\u00a0Donald Trump<\/a> will end up getting elected:<\/p>\n Democracy is premised on the idea that there\u2019s a range of things to vote for, and you vote for the one you like. If there isn\u2019t a range, it fails (and turnout plummets)<\/span>. …<\/p>\n A problem is that the so-called \u201cdebates\u201d that have been going on all refer to something monolithic called \u201cimmigrants\u201d, and in the unitary sense intended there\u2019s no such thing; arguments like \u201cimmigrants is good\u201d vs \u201cimmigrants is bad\u201d just aren\u2019t talking about the same people. What <\/span>you\u2019re<\/span><\/strong> talking about is the comfortable articulate middle-class world, which is a million miles away from 20 blokes forced to sleep in a damp garden shed in between picking cabbages, being charged half their pitiful wage for \u201crent\u201d and \u201ctransport\u201d and being used to undercut guys from Boston or Spalding (who would have worked, but not like this). Similar things apply across our wrecked manufacturing base (aka almost everything north of Cambridge). Everyone in this system is getting screwed except the scumbags running it. And even worse is the system which facilitates and encourages it.<\/span><\/p>\n There is a huge and growing disconnection between happy middle-class life in urban centres and this kind of thing down at the dirty end\u200a\u2014\u200athey\u2019re different planets, different universes. …\u00a0The referendum was swung by a huge slab of population who are being taken for granted and ignored in precisely this \u201cyou don\u2019t count\u201d manner.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n …<\/p>\n Lots of people don\u2019t do that; they have the intuitions but can\u2019t articulate them, so they hang the feel of it on anything they can find, eg \u201cforeigners\u201d. If you demonstrate to them that what they\u2019re saying is wrong, they just look uncomfortable and shift ground, because <\/span>it was never about that in the first place<\/span><\/strong>. Just because they can\u2019t articulate, that doesn\u2019t mean there isn\u2019t a problem or that they should be ignored; they\u2019re humans with real, immediate problems.<\/span> Yes, a very few will be impossible neurotic bigots at a deep psychological level, but the majority are simply trying to say something and can\u2019t manage it. The happy middle-class urban world tends to mock this or be sanctimonious about it in a PC way (\u201cracists!\u201d); I find this cruel and disgusting.<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n Please check out\u00a0the whole thing\u2014it reads quicker than the author warns:\u00a0\u201cI want to stop something exploitative, divisive and dishonest\u201d\u200a\u2014\u200aconversation with a Leaver<\/a><\/em>, by Oliver Humapge and his dad<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" This is an enlightening read about how Brexit played out so “counter-intuitively” (from the perspective of progressive\u00a0United Staters), as well as an informative glimpse into the somewhat icky complexity of the EU (for example, I previously had not appreciated the extremely pro-business and anti-labor implications of EU policy). But that’s not why I’m sharing. \u00a0I’m … Continue reading “This Article is About Brexit, but Shows Us Why Trump Will Be Elected”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_share_on_mastodon":"1"},"categories":[11],"tags":[53,56],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.davideriknelson.com\/sbsb\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/696"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.davideriknelson.com\/sbsb\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.davideriknelson.com\/sbsb\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.davideriknelson.com\/sbsb\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.davideriknelson.com\/sbsb\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=696"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.davideriknelson.com\/sbsb\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/696\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":697,"href":"https:\/\/www.davideriknelson.com\/sbsb\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/696\/revisions\/697"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.davideriknelson.com\/sbsb\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=696"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.davideriknelson.com\/sbsb\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=696"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.davideriknelson.com\/sbsb\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=696"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}