Josh Marshall's thoughts on Brexit, Trumpism, and the similarities and differences:
I think this goes way back, to the Civil Rights movement of the '60s and the social movements that have come after -- women's rights, gay rights, the increasing presence of non-white minorities, and the slow but steady excision of religious assumptions from our civil law. It's no longer the white, Protestant America that people assume is the only possible America.
And I think this dissatisfaction has been manipulated to direct it against the wrong targets: it's not Mexican immigrants who are "stealing" American jobs, it's the corporations who are moving them to Chinese sweatshops and who have enough influence in government to push trade deals that benefit them and no one else. It's easy to point to feminists, gays, immigrants as the cause, when those groups are tangential at most. "Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain!"
Read Marshall's take. It's interesting, but I don't think it's the whole picture.
And speaking of Brexit, we're seeing some buyer's remorse.
Put simply, Trumpism and the greater arc of rightist politics in the US in recent years seems to follow this pattern. A declining but still very large fraction of the population which feels that it is losing power, wealth and something between ethnic familiarity and dominance to rising segments of the society. To map this on to the specifics of US society this pits a one group that is both older and whiter against another that is generally younger and less white.
Two points are worth recognizing about this deep social and political cleavage. First, this rebellion on the right is based not on strength but on weakness, the loss of power, control, demographic dominance, privilege. Second, in key respects it is an accurate perception of the change overtaking America.
I think this goes way back, to the Civil Rights movement of the '60s and the social movements that have come after -- women's rights, gay rights, the increasing presence of non-white minorities, and the slow but steady excision of religious assumptions from our civil law. It's no longer the white, Protestant America that people assume is the only possible America.
And I think this dissatisfaction has been manipulated to direct it against the wrong targets: it's not Mexican immigrants who are "stealing" American jobs, it's the corporations who are moving them to Chinese sweatshops and who have enough influence in government to push trade deals that benefit them and no one else. It's easy to point to feminists, gays, immigrants as the cause, when those groups are tangential at most. "Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain!"
Read Marshall's take. It's interesting, but I don't think it's the whole picture.
And speaking of Brexit, we're seeing some buyer's remorse.
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