I was born in the UK, but I’ve spent almost all of my life in Canada. I do have some emotional ties to the old country (esp. my beloved Antrim Coast); maybe the geographic separation gives me a necessary level of emotional separation as well.

I’ve been watching, from a distance, the EU referendum play out in the various media, from television to twitter to the blogosphere.

I’m also watching the grand spectacle of the American presidential election campaign, again with (hopefully!) the necessary level of emotional separation.

I’m also old enough to have been deeply affected by the Cold War and all of it’s various surreal dramas.

The combination of age and… let’s call it historical awareness, leads me to look at these events in a different light (not necessarily superior!) than my peers.

What I do know is this: we are, all of us, victims of intentional manipulation by persons and organizations with vested interests in the outcomes. It would be a very rare and infrequent occurrence if the vested interests coincided with our interests, or even of the interests of society at large.

Let’s start with the EU. By the way, I do not profess to having an expert’s level of knowledge on this, what follows is just what I observe. I’m entirely open to being corrected on what follows.

The EU was established with the best of intentions. I mean, what sane person would not want to prevent a repeat of the horrors of WWI and WWII? I do note, however, that the EU really came into effect just after the collapse of Soviet Socialism (after 1990). I’m still working through the meaning of that.

Anyway, for some unknown/unstated reason, the founders of the EU decided to downplay and minimize the role that representative democracy would play in EU governance. That, to me, is the single greatest mistake that the EU could have made.

Politicians and bureaucrats are humans, and are just as susceptible to temptation and corruption as anybody else.

The concentration of political power and authority in one or a very few isolated governing bodies is an irresistible temptation to those people or organizations of society who may need to manipulate the government for their own objectives, especially if the governing bodies are not held accountable to the people they govern.

And, unfortunately, in the case of the EU, this is what has happened.

Do you really believe that as a governing body, the EU really represents your best interests? Or the interests of the Greek citizens? Or the interests of Germans or Swedes, when massive uncontrolled immigration is permitted?

There are equivalent circumstances in America. One particular political philosophy, “progressivism” or “social democracy” is largely in control, and decisions are made by so-called “elites” who think that they have the best interests of Joe and Joanna Average at heart.

When you separate and isolate the governing “elites” from direct resposibility and accountability for their actions and decisions, you get the modern day EU and America (and Canada, for that matter).

The “Brexit” outcome is a direct response to this imbalance, manifested as it is in poor economic and immigration policies. We will have to wait and see if a similar response occurs in America.