Brexit & Trump: My thoughts from November
Both Brexit and the election of Donald Trump were a rejection of the establishment and the tired elite that run and benefit from it. In June and in November the choice of the establishment class has lost in what was labelled a ‘shock defeat’. Of course, the results should not have been shocks. In every day society, the signs were there and many polls have had shown ‘Leave’ and ‘Trump’ to be very much in the running — if not slightly ahead. The evidence was there, but both times the smuggest liberal sections of society and those inside the political and mainstream media bubble have not seen it coming. Why? Because there was an arrogance that the current establishment was accepted and would not be challenged. The mess we find ourselves in is the fault of both sides.
Firstly I think that whilst many have rejected an establishment that has failed them, Farage’s Brexit and Trump are products of the current system that people believed they were rejecting. I do not believe that Farage or Trump will tear up the establishment as may hoped, but they recognised people’s justified disaffection with it and were able to use it as a vehicle for their own cause. There is little to no guarantee that life will improve and ultimately the rhetoric of their supporters has often been vile; blaming those around you or below you in the pyramid. Ultimately both have left their countries with societies more divided and with their peoples more suspicious of one another. Meanwhile for the richest and most powerful, little if anything will change.
However the ‘progressives’, for want of a better term, need to realise that this is equally upon them. Whilst they are in horror at the situations they now find ‘the West’ in, much of this is their own making. Ultimately lots on the ‘soft left’ have not attempted to accept that many of the grievances that the public had existed. As people joyously shared their friends ‘stupid’ pro-Brexit posts or videos of John Oliver ‘destroying’ Trump they were actually fanning the flames of the fire they wished to extinguish. People may have held views that appeared racist or looked to solutions that were bigoted, but they were offered no real alternative they were simply told they were wrong. Few tried to compassionately explain to them the real enemy or provide them with alternative answers. Instead these people were laughed at and belittled for their views. This emboldened them.
Nobody dared to recognise that the public’s disillusionment with the system was justified. The left should have been offering brave new solutions to the tired world order — ones that simultaneously rejected the bigotry that both the establishment and alternative right movements shared. Instead, the corwardly faux-alternative they were offered to the racist dog whistling of the right was a continuation of the status quo and another ‘least worst option’. They were asked to support the representatives of the system and establishment that had failed them — Prime Minister David Cameron’s Remain campaign and the Wall Street backed Senator Hillary Clinton.
Both times the liberal elite believed that whilst people were disillusioned that they would be too scared to reject the system around them; that ultimately enough people would remain loyal to get the 50% or 270 Electoral college votes they required. However, as those people were laughed at and ignored, they looked for answers and — however wrongly — they found them. Farage pointed at immigrants and Trump promised a wall and these were tangible solutions. These figures — however abhorrent their solutions were — dared to suggest that something was wrong and with this grain of truth connected with people. And slowly many of the disaffected working classes found hope. It was hope in the form of hate but a starving man will take what he is offered.
The solutions offered and accepted in the polling stations in June and November were potentially very dangerous. It’s easy to simply despair — but this has happened twice. Twice in five months I have rolled over in the early hours and clumsily fumbled my iPhone to see that a ‘shock’ result had happened. But this will happen again unless ‘the left’ accept that the system is broken and begin to offer real, radical alternatives. Surely everyone must realise that now is the time to burst the political bubble they exist in? Now is time to learn from the mistakes that have got us this far?
Instead the centrists flutter their eyelids across the pond at David Miliband to be the saviour of the Labour Party. The Democrats have unmistakably begun making advances towards Michelle Obama. For many the solutions are another Miliband and another wife of a popular former President. This is a symptom. For these people the solution to the hate and divisions and inequality in these countries is more of the same.
The march to the right continues.
