A Colossal Failure of Political Discourse

It has now been a few mornings since Americans woke up to the stunning news that the United Kingdom had voted, fairly decisively, to exit the European Union. Since then, countless articles have been written analyzing, dissecting and explaining how and why this came to be, especially when the world’s experts, nary a week before, expected the opposite result.

My first reaction when I checked Twitter on the morning of Friday, June 24 was a silent, “huh.” It was at once a reaction of incredulity, disbelief and finality. I thought, “Wow, they actually did it. They crossed that threshold.” Probably like most people around the world, I would have preferred that the U.K. voted to remain in the E.U. but I watched with veiled amusement and frustration as the reactions came pouring in like a tidal wave. Social media and newspaper opinion pages were lit aflame by liberals decrying the results of the referendum.

My view on the whole issue was that if it was 1973 and Britain was about to join what was then the European Economic Community, I would have chafed at the idea of relinquishing sovereignty. But it is not 1973 and the level of entanglement and integration in the intervening years have made the prospect of an exit too destabilizing and fraught with too much uncertainty.

So you see, my opposition to “Brexit” wasn’t out of love for the grand European project. I just didn’t think the world needed the turmoil right now.

Anyway, as the “morning after” wore on, I noticed that the vast majority of sentiments expressed on social media and in opinion articles — especially those published in mainstream outlets — were extremely critical of Boris Johnson and his ilk, who voted to “take back control.” Not a surprise.

But even as I tired of reading about this topic (after all, nothing had changed yet), I was faced with a feeling of incredible frustration. The criticisms that were levied against those who voted to leave reflected the exact same sentiments that drove them to leave in the first place! It is as if no one has learned anything from this episode. Even those articles touting Europe’s opportunity for self-reflection were rife with the same worldview that what had just happened was objectively wrong.

Since the world emerged from the Cold War, the powers-that-be had peddled an era of globalization, spurred forth by the dawning of the internet age. It was this world that gave birth to the European Union. And with this new ideology came the insistence that borders had to become more porous. The flow of trade goods must be accompanied by a similar flow of ideas, values and people. Those who resisted, who wanted to retain a cohesive sense of national identity and historical culture, were shamed into submission and accused of being uneducated, xenophobic, bigots, backwards, or just plain wrong.

Brexit is a reminder that an entire population cannot be constantly told that they are bigots and that their values and concerns were not worth consideration, and not expect some sort of comeuppance.

Which is why the liberal reaction to the results of the referendum is so mind-boggling for me. Instead of recognizing that the European Union and its bureaucratic elites failed to adequately address the concerns of the Euroskeptics, especially as it comes to immigration, they dismissed their concerns altogether! The uneducated and the bigoted had won. That was the thought of the pro-Europe contingent.

To me, this is the ultimate battle being fought and lost today. There is no more political and civil discourse. There is no more compromise, no more understanding. There is no more empathy. No matter how often people tout those qualities as important, especially liberals, people now only empathize with those they agree with. The world stands now at an impasse where it is suddenly impossible for conservatives and liberals to accept that people have different worldviews, values and priorities. We play a zero-sum game. Western liberalism has been corrupted by illiberalism.

Unfortunately this is also reflected in the United States of America. My country. My home. Though I am no fan of Trump and will not be voting for him this fall, I look with dismay at the callousness and self-righteousness with which so many dismiss the concerns of his supporters. It was this dismissive and holier-than-thou attitude that drove these voters to his message in the first place. They are tired of being insulted; tired of being told that they don’t matter and that their views are wrong, that they are the problem with the world.

Democracy only works when we are capable of sitting across from one another and articulating our points of views without being driven from the table. For too long oppression has painted a dark spot in human history. Discourse got us through it. But now, discourse is failing, and our reward is more pain and chaos.