racism and xenophobia is as an alternative to complex reasoning.

History has shown us a different lesson: racism and xenophobia rise up when the establishment lets people down and humiliates them.

I’m not arguing that Trump and Brexit aren’t movements full of racism and xenophobia. But I think that is the least-interesting thing for us “complex reasoning” people to notice. It’s the same as the victors after WWI looking at German racism and xenophobia but never mentioning the crushing debt of Versailles, which certainly doesn’t excuse the Nazis, but was a major factor in empowering them.

The world has never been full of complex reasoning. When we build political systems good enough for enough people, we can move forward. When almost all the benefits of increasing productivity go to people whose contributions are unclear, and people who would like jobs manufacturing interesting products are given jobs lacking dignity and decent paychecks, of course people give up on the establishment.

Racism and xenophobia are the unfortunate, inaccurate, immoral but unsurprising alternative when trusting the establishment has been a failure for a generation. If we don’t give people a real alternative, we’re going to see the worst.