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[Rebel Leader]

Donald J. TrumpVerified account
‏@realDonaldTrump
New Government data by the Center for Immigration Studies shows more than 3M new legal & illegal immigrants settled.

Oh dear.. Oh dear

 

[Emarv]

But we already know how he plans to turn Arizona blue.

 

[sphagnum]

It's time for Sarah Palin's take on Brexit.

Something I never understood, even when I was an evangelical, is why so many evangelicals are opposed to one world government when it's a prerequisite for the Second Coming. If the Antichrist needs to control the UN or whatever so that he can unite the world against Christians so the tribulation can occur before Jesus comes back, shouldn't evangelicals all be accelerationists? It's predestined to happen anyway.

 

[3phemeral]

Obama Names LGBT Landmark As National Monument

The monument covers nearly 8 acres in New York's Greenwich Village including a landmark gay bar, the Stonewall Inn. In June of 1969, patrons at the bar fought back against police persecution — an event that's widely seen as a watershed in the campaign for LGBT rights.

Video

 

[dramatis]

Wouldn't be surprised if Brexit is giving Trump ideas for how he could win in the US

 

[Nazgul_Hunter]

Something I never understood, even when I was an evangelical, is why so many evangelicals are opposed to one world government when it's a prerequisite for the Second Coming. If the Antichrist needs to control the UN or whatever so that he can unite the world against Christians so the tribulation can occur before Jesus comes back, shouldn't evangelicals all be accelerationists? It's predestined to happen anyway.

Add to that, whether they know it or not, one of the biggest reasons for the religious rights' support for Israel is to accelerate the second coming.

 

[titiklabingapat]

How do you guys propose addressing many of these disaffected racists and xenophobic voters? They are clearly afraid of something (usually brown people and immigrants) but the root cause is economic losses. I feel like like being rational is not working and they keep voting against their own interest. Would shaming them and calling them out for being outright racists work?

After all, they are clearly responding with irrational emotions...maybe an irrational response would work too. The far right groups (especially in Europe) have clearly exploited this and they are now winning.

 

[Zornack]

How do you guys propose addressing many of these disaffected racists and xenophobic voters? They are clearly afraid of something (usually brown people and immigrants) but the root cause is economic losses. I feel like like being rational is not working and they keep voting against their own interest. Would shaming them for being outright racists work? After all, they are clearly responding with irrational emotions...maybe an irrational response would work too. The far right groups (especially in Europe) have clearly exploited this and they are now winning.

You could start by not generalizing all their concerns as being racist and xenophobic.

 

[titiklabingapat]

You could start by not generalizing all their concerns as being racist and xenophobic.

It's clearly what drove the Leave vote in the UK, and what is fueling Trump here in the USA.

 

[sphagnum]

Add to that, whether they know it or not, one of the biggest reasons for the religious rights' support for Israel is to accelerate the second coming.

Oh they're totally aware. I remember in my youth group watching a video about how red heifers had been found in Israel and how this was a portent of the Third Temple soon being built because they need to slaughter a particular kind of cow for the sacrifices etc., and our instructor telling us that this was one of the reasons we need to support Israel in its conflict with Palestine. Also because the land belongs to the Jews because God granted it to them even though they're no longer the Chosen People, but we'll convert the survivors during the Tribulation anyway!

 

[Zornack]

It's clearly what drove the Leave vote in the UK, and what is fueling Trump here in the USA.

You can have concerns about immigration policies without being racist or xenophobic.

A similar series of events will happen in America as are happening in Europe if we decide to label people's concerns as racist rather than try to find some common ground.

 

[Rebel Leader]

Wouldn't be surprised if Brexit is giving Trump ideas for how he could win in the US

Oh he's on it

 

[titiklabingapat]

You can have concerns about immigration policies without being racist or xenophobic.

A similar series of events will happen in America as are happening in Europe if we decide to label people's concerns as racist rather than try to find some common ground.

We have been trying to find common ground. Yet as the Brexit vote shows, the common ground way is clearly losing. The only thing preventing the same thing happening in the USA is the minorities (and allies) here organizing and outgrowing the racists votes by sheer demographic weight.

 

[Ignatz Mouse]

One of my more anti-Clinton (although rational) friends posted this:
https://www.theguardian.com/comment...ussels-dc-beltway-political-interests-classes

Seems he views the Brexit as a rejection of oligarchical power, rather than xenophobia. I'm sure there's a little of that, but I'm not hearing/seeing that from anywhere else. Is this a notable thing? Is the EU considered to be "neoliberal" (I hate that term) to the point that splitting from the EU would be preferable?

 

[pigeon]

You can have concerns about immigration policies without being racist or xenophobic.

A similar series of events will happen in America as are happening in Europe if we decide to label people's concerns as racist rather than try to find some common ground.

Please describe a non-racist, non-xenophobic concern about immigration.

"We don't have enough" doesn't count.

 

[kirblar]

One of my more anti-Clinton (although rational) friends posted this:
https://www.theguardian.com/comment...ussels-dc-beltway-political-interests-classes

Seems he views the Brexit as a rejection of oligarchical power, rather than xenophobia. I'm sure there's a little of that, but I'm not hearing/seeing that from anywhere else. Is this a notable thing? Is the EU considered to be "neoliberal" (I hate that term) to the point that splitting from the EU would be preferable?

Neoliberal is a slur the far left tars anyone who doesn't believe in socialism with due to the history w/ Chile's economic reforms. The thing it actually refers to (lassez-faire '80s economic policies) isn't an accurate representation of the beliefs of many of the people they try to pin the label on. They're just mad that capitalism works.

 

[Zornack]

We have been trying to find common ground. Yet as the Brexit vote shows, the common ground way is clearly losing. The only thing preventing the same thing happening in the USA is the minorities (and allies) here organizing and outgrowing the racists votes by sheer demographic weight.

I think calling 38% of the UK racist xenophoes who vote against their own self interest is the exact opposite of looking for common ground.

 

[sphagnum]

How do you guys propose addressing many of these disaffected racists and xenophobic voters? They are clearly afraid of something (usually brown people and immigrants) but the root cause is economic losses. I feel like like being rational is not working and they keep voting against their own interest. Would shaming them and calling them out for being outright racists work?

After all, they are clearly responding with irrational emotions...maybe an irrational response would work too. The far right groups (especially in Europe) have clearly exploited this and they are now winning.

Well, some of them - probably a lot of them, though there's no way to really know the exact percentage since people will lie in polls - are just flat out racist and really not in it because of the perceived economics of it. But yes, I do still think that a lot of the fears stem from the uncertainty that happens in a rapidly automating and liberalizing world. The working class people who voted in favor of Leave would have once been more favorable towards socialism and I don't think it's a coincidence that they are easily drawn to the far right when liberals have not demonstrated that they can produce a stable economic system; in other words, the absence of a socialist counterweight has left a void for the right to fill since they can exploit the fears of low information voters who may have some legitimate grievances but can be redirected towards ridiculous things. That's not to say capitalism is the sole source of this problem; it's also not a coincidence that such people would have been less nationalistic during a time when there were fewer immigrants. So it's both things, in some ways separate but in some ways tied together. But until people feel stable again, they will continue to support more and more radical policies. This would sort of even itself out over time if the UK had similar demographics to the US where a reactionary demographic (white people) who felt like they were losing something couldn't dominate everything, but that's not the case. So since that is the case and it's unlikely that you can just shame people into not being racist, I think the left should try to redirect the anger from immigrants towards neoliberalism (which is what a lot of the "globalist" rhetoric is about anyway).

 

[Cybit]

I still don't know what you're talking about when you reference hamilton. Are you talking about madisonian democracy? Hamilton wrote in support of madison's consititution and . Jefferson had no imput and didn't really care much about it as he was in France.

His debate with hamilton and major disagreement was north vs south, industrial vs agriculture. Not about "democracy."

And bolded is nonsense, unless you're calling for the elites to hate minorities and immigrants more. Look ta the word cloud ITV produced. Immigrants and imagined fear of "others" not economic dispondent. They just voted for a party of Eton grads last year!

And your last paragraph has it backwards. Trump is weird but Europe is behind us on the whole immigrant thing. They're going through what we did in the 1800s and early 1900s when we went from a white only nation to multicultural

Blargh, had been working on a larger response between meetings and GAF ate it. Trying a short version

I guess I'm trying to look at the philosophical underpinnings of the concept of an elected monarchy such as Hamilton indicated support for initially (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Hamilton#Constitution_and_The_Federalist_Papers)

versus Jefferson's initial beliefs about national government = bad, and a distrust of a ruling class (except, well, Jefferson's initial philosophies don't tend to jibe with what he did as President. So there's that).

I'm failing at explaining this correctly it seems (what I get for being half awake) - and I think you're right that this isn't the typical Hamilton / Jefferson bit - probably using the wrong people for that. Basically rule of the elite vs rule of the masses (even if Jefferson ended up going with the former when he actually became President). I had just read the Atlantic cover piece

http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2016/07/how-american-politics-went-insane/485570/

and the section on elites and middlemen stuck out to me. Also, the ending sort of stuck out to me as well

The biggest obstacle, I think, is the general public’s reflexive, unreasoning hostility to politicians and the process of politics. Neurotic hatred of the political class is the country’s last universally acceptable form of bigotry. Because that problem is mental, not mechanical, it really is hard to remedy.

In March, a Trump supporter told The New York Times, “I want to see Trump go up there and do damage to the Republican Party.” Another said, “We know who Donald Trump is, and we’re going to use Donald Trump to either take over the G.O.P. or blow it up.” That kind of anti-establishment nihilism deserves no respect or accommodation in American public life. Populism, individualism, and a skeptical attitude toward politics are all healthy up to a point, but America has passed that point. Political professionals and parties have many shortcomings to answer for—including, primarily on the Republican side, their self-mutilating embrace of anti-establishment rhetoric—but relentlessly bashing them is no solution. You haven’t heard anyone say this, but it’s time someone did: Our most pressing political problem today is that the country abandoned the establishment, not the other way around.

At least in the US; it seems the rise of GWB led to a rise in anti-intellectualism, which led to that abandonment of the establishment?

As for the bolded - I mean, pretty much everyone in power, including the people they had elected into power in 2015, was campaigning hard for staying. I don't get how else they could vote to Leave, and THEN go try and figure out what the heck the EU was after the fact (per WaPo). In one of the more WTF moments of the night, the area where the pro-Stay MP was killed ended up voting to Leave. UKIP has just a couple of seats in British Parliament too, no? From what I can gather, it'd be like if the Dems and non Tea Party GOP members both agreed on staying, and the Tea Party driving the leave contingent, and somehow freaking winning a straight national vote. It's not like turnout was bad, it was 72%.

Normally Europe is ahead of us on social issues (health care, slavery, gay marriage, etc), but you're right in that it seems behind (which is really messed up considering, well, British Empire and all) - so either they've fallen behind on the integration thing, or it's a pendulum and they're on their way back. If the first is true, not as big of an issue, if the second is true, then it means we may have to deal with similar issues down the road. My fear is that we're hitting peak Left politically in this country for sometime, and we may have a pendulum swing back to the right similar to what it seems Europe is undergoing currently?

It's not distrust of elites driving the leave contingent. Unless elites means immigrants.

Pretty much my read on it as well. The whole "distrust of the elites" thing just looks more like a smokescreen for the racism that no one wants to admit exists in Europe.

It's hard for me to use the "they're all just racist / bigots" when it's 50+% of the country. Heck; thought I saw a post pointing out that immigrants were also heavy on the "leave" side because they feared economic competition. That makes me think economics is the overarching concern and that immigration is the scapegoat for now. As things (probably) get worse, they'll find new scapegoats and go after them. I imagine it will be those "damn bankers" or what have you.

Found this article in the wake of reading Brexit articles, and it had what I think is a decent explanation of the confluence of racism and economic worry, and how using the first as a sole explanation will lead to flawed results.

http://www.newyorker.com/news/john-...exit-movement-and-donald-trump-have-in-common

Historically, transforming radical parties of the right (or left) into mass movements has required some sort of disaster, such as a major war or an economic depression. Europe in the early twentieth century witnessed both, with cataclysmic results. After the First World War, the introduction of social democracy, the socioeconomic system that most Western countries settled on, delivered steadily rising living standards, which helped to keep the extremists at bay. If prosperity wasn’t shared equally—and it wasn’t—egalitarian social norms and redistributive tax systems blunted some of the inequities that go along with free-market capitalism.

But in the past few decades Western countries have been subjected to a triad of forces that, while not as visible or dramatic as wars and depressions, have proved equally destabilizing: globalization, technical progress, and a political philosophy that embraces both. In the United States, it is no coincidence that Trump is doing well in the Rust Belt and other deindustrialized areas. A one-two punch of automation and offshoring has battered these regions, leaving many of their residents ill-equipped to prosper in today’s economy. Trump is exploiting the same economic anxieties and resentments that helped Bernie Sanders, another critic of globalization and free trade, carry the Michigan Democratic primary.

“There is no excuse for supporting a racist, sexist, xenophobic buffoon like Donald Trump,” Dean Baker, an economist and blogger at the liberal Center for Economic and Policy Research, in Washington, noted recently. “But we should be clear; the workers who turn to him do have real grievances. The system has been rigged against them.”

Similarly, it is not an accident that UKIP is popular in the former mill towns of northern England, in the engineering belt of the West Midlands, and in working-class exurbs of London. “Children emerging from the primary school next door, almost all from ethnic minorities, are just a visible reminder for anyone seeking easy answers to genuine grievance,” the Guardian’s Polly Toynbee wrote, last week, after a visit to Barking, in Essex, which is close to a big car factory owned by Ford. “As high-status Ford jobs are swapped for low-paid warehouse work, indignation is diverted daily against migrants by the Mail, Sun, Sunday Times and the rest. . . . This is the sound of Britain breaking.”

For the past half century, the major political parties, on both sides of the Atlantic, have promulgated the idea that free trade and globalization are the keys to prosperity. If you pressed the mainstream economists who advise these parties, they might concede that trade creates losers as well as winners, and that the argument for ever more global integration implicitly assumes that the winners will compensate the losers. But the fact that such a sharing of the gains has been sorely lacking was regarded as a relatively minor detail, and certainly not as a justification for calling a halt to the entire process.

If you are reading this post, the likelihood is that you, like me, are one of the winners. Highly educated, professional people tend to work in sectors of the economy that have benefitted from the changes in the international division of labor (e.g., finance, consulting, media, tech) or have been largely spared the rigors of global competition (e.g., law, medicine, academia). From a secure perch on the economic ladder, it is easy to celebrate the gains that technology and globalization have brought, such as a cornucopia of cheap goods in rich countries and rising prosperity in poor ones. It’s also tempting to dismiss the arguments of people who ignore the benefits of this process, or who can’t see that it is irreversible.

But, as Baker points out, “it is a bit hypocritical of those who have benefited” from this economic transformation to be “mocking the poor judgment of its victims”—especially now that the forces of global competition and technological progress are reaching into areas that were previously protected. In a world of self-driving cars and trucks, what is the future for truck drivers, cab and limo drivers, and delivery men? Not a very prosperous one, surely. And the creative destruction that the Austrian economist Joseph Schumpeter celebrated won’t stop there. With software that can transfer money at zero cost, medical robots that can carry out the most delicate of operations, and smart algorithms that can diagnose diseases or dispense legal advice, what is the future for bankers, surgeons, doctors, lawyers, and other professionals?

Food for thought, as it were.

 

[East Lake]

One of my more anti-Clinton (although rational) friends posted this:
https://www.theguardian.com/comment...ussels-dc-beltway-political-interests-classes

Seems he views the Brexit as a rejection of oligarchical power, rather than xenophobia. I'm sure there's a little of that, but I'm not hearing/seeing that from anywhere else. Is this a notable thing? Is the EU considered to be "neoliberal" (I hate that term) to the point that splitting from the EU would be preferable?

There's a fairly long talk between Chomsky and Yanis Varoufakis on youtube that covers this, even if you don't agree with them it'll sum up a lot of the complaints.

Their main takeaway is that europe doesn't act like an integrated union but more like an arraigned marriage of hostile economic powers struggling for control over one another.

 

[User 463088]

I just got caught up on all y'alls posts.

I read that Palin statement in Tina Fey's voice...

 

[Zornack]

Please describe a non-racist, non-xenophobic concern about immigration.

"We don't have enough" doesn't count.

Maybe they simply think that the current state of immigration is hurting the economy. I don't think holding the belief that your country's immigration policy is negatively impacting the job market makes you racist any more than I think that my belief that we should increase taxes on the wealthy makes me classist.

I'm not saying that I agree with their rational but I do not agree with the assessment that such a rational automatically makes someone racist.

 

[Ignatz Mouse]

I just went looking for some left-wing arguments for Brexit-- they were out there. But it still seems like a bad move to bolster the right wing in an attempt at a left-wing outcome. Improving the EU seems better than leaving it.

 

[metalslimer]

Was resentment of immigration this high before the Syrian refugee crisis?

 

[ItWasMeantToBe19]

The majority of Leave voters selected "Multiculturalism is bad" according to polling.

I don't know if we need to go deeper than this?

Trump in particular is ridiculous because he only talks immigration with regards to crime when we have the lowest crime rates in the history of the nation and most Trump voters are in low crime areas. There's not many things other than racial hatred that drives Trump voting.

Unless you're for nuclear war I guess.

 

[User 463088]

Was resentment of immigration this high before the Syrian refugee crisis?

In the UK, I would argue that it was this high for a while. The Refugee Crisis didn't help. It always felt it was more about EU workers coming into the UK and "taking their jobs" from them.

 

[whyamihere]

We need more hot takes about what the Brexit means for Trump, because clearly we haven't had enough.

 

[Y2Kev]

Was resentment of immigration this high before the Syrian refugee crisis?

In the us? Yeah. It's a minor concern here really. Meanwhile the GOP has been fucking up immigration as an issue since bush 2.

 

[B-Dubs]

It's hard for me to use the "they're all just racist / bigots" when it's 50+% of the country. Heck; thought I saw a post pointing out that immigrants were also heavy on the "leave" side because they feared economic competition. That makes me think economics is the overarching concern and that immigration is the scapegoat for now. As things (probably) get worse, they'll find new scapegoats and go after them. I imagine it will be those "damn bankers" or what have you.

Found this article in the wake of reading Brexit articles, and it had what I think is a decent explanation of the confluence of racism and economic worry, and how using the first as a sole explanation will lead to flawed results.

http://www.newyorker.com/news/john-...exit-movement-and-donald-trump-have-in-common

Honestly, I don't think it's all racism either but there's definitely a strong racist undercurrent to the leave movement. I don't think they all went, "We gotta keep the brown people out," but the unease at the immigrants coming into the country played a large role in getting it done.

 

[ItWasMeantToBe19]

"A country whose most famous leader wanted to use mustard gas against Ghandi so they could continue to control the people of India could not have been driven by racial concerns."

I remember when Obama's grandfather was brutally tortured for two years by the British Empire for being black and I thought "this is a country that is racially good."

 

[sphagnum]

In the UK, I would argue that it was this high for a while. The Refugee Crisis didn't help. It always felt it was more about EU workers coming into the UK and "taking their jobs" from them.

Hence the economic angle. The two tie into each other. We need an intersectional response.

Now, it is of course the case that immigration hasn't actually affected the UK negatively (http://www.theguardian.com/politics...ck-are-eu-migrants-really-taking-british-jobs) but if anything it affected it positively. However, I don't think it's a stretch to say that people have been spooked by the recession and the following decade of malaise and lash out at an easy scapegoat. Fixing economic insecurities wouldn't get rid of racism but I do think it might help ameliorate things because people typically don't vote for radical positions when they feel stable, regardless of what the actual empirical reality is.

 

[Bam Bam Baklava]

We need more hot takes about what the Brexit means for Trump, because clearly we haven't had enough.

If Britain is so much like the US all of a sudden where's our gun control and NHS?

 

[ItWasMeantToBe19]

If Britain is so much like the US all of a sudden where's our gun control and NHS?

Lack of NHS was caused by FDR though.

 

[User 463088]

Priorities Action just announced they're putting $10.5 million of ads in Pennsylvania.

Trump referred to Scotland as Florida during his speech today. LOLOLOLOL

 

[ItWasMeantToBe19]

Sounds like conservative mega donors either think Trump did rape two girls or they're trying to push it regardless.

http://jezebel.com/heres-how-that-w...dium=sharefromsite&utm_source=Jezebel_twitter

 

[NYCmetsfan]

Oh they're totally aware. I remember in my youth group watching a video about how red heifers had been found in Israel and how this was a portent of the Third Temple soon being built because they need to slaughter a particular kind of cow for the sacrifices etc., and our instructor telling us that this was one of the reasons we need to support Israel in its conflict with Palestine. Also because the land belongs to the Jews because God granted it to them even though they're no longer the Chosen People, but we'll convert the survivors during the Tribulation anyway!

You sure you weren't just watching south park?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AvLuR0NhwnQ

 

[titiklabingapat]

I feel like the reason Trump is cratering in the polls is that people, especially minority groups and allies have been relentless in letting everyone know how much of a racist asshole he is, and that anyone associated with him is one by default or at least, guilty by association. I feel like Europeans need to do the same thing instead of denying it.

 

[NYCmetsfan]

Hence the economic angle. The two tie into each other. We need an intersectional response.

Now, it is of course the case that immigration hasn't actually affected the UK negatively (http://www.theguardian.com/politics...ck-are-eu-migrants-really-taking-british-jobs) but if anything it affected it positively. However, I don't think it's a stretch to say that people have been spooked by the recession and the following decade of malaise and lash out at an easy scapegoat. Fixing economic insecurities wouldn't get rid of racism but I do think it might help ameliorate things because people typically don't vote for radical positions when they feel stable, regardless of what the actual empirical reality is.

are 50%+ of voters not stable and in good economic standing?

Why are they not "feeling stable"

I feel like the reason Trump is cratering in the polls is that people, especially minority groups and allies have been relentless in letting everyone know how much of a racist asshole he is, and that anyone associated with him is one by default or at least, guilty by association. I feel like Europeans need to do the same thing instead of denying it.

even if today british people are decrying racists and xenophobes wait till there is another cologne new years or terrorist attack.

Euro-gaf goes crazy on Islam is a sickness stuff. This anti-immigrant stuff is popular over there. They don't have the idea that a nation doesn't have to be built on ethnicity and people with different cultures can be british, french, italian, etc.

 

[whyamihere]

https://www.nbc.com/saturday-night-live/video/message-from-hillary-clinton/n12241

Watch this SNL sketch from 2008 and replace Hillary with Bernie.

Also, 2008 election SNL was so fantastic.

 

[sphagnum]

are 50%+ of voters not stable and in good economic standing?

Why are they not "feeling stable"

A multitude of reasons including racism and xenophobia, austerity, globalization, lingering effects of the recession, etc.

That's why I said regardless of what the reality is.

 

[NYCmetsfan]

A multitude of reasons including racism and xenophobia, austerity, globalization, lingering effects of the recession, etc.

That's why I said regardless of what the reality is.

I agree these things are bad and are affecting people but how many people are actually feeling this pain. Its not 50%. There would be the glorious socialist revolution if there was.

 

[Cybit]

I just got caught up on all y'alls posts.

I read that Palin statement in Tina Fey's voice...

Wait - is there a point you aren't supposed to read anything Palin says in Tina Fey's voice??

Hence the economic angle. The two tie into each other. We need an intersectional response.

Now, it is of course the case that immigration hasn't actually affected the UK negatively (http://www.theguardian.com/politics...ck-are-eu-migrants-really-taking-british-jobs) but if anything it affected it positively. However, I don't think it's a stretch to say that people have been spooked by the recession and the following decade of malaise and lash out at an easy scapegoat. Fixing economic insecurities wouldn't get rid of racism but I do think it might help ameliorate things because people typically don't vote for radical positions when they feel stable, regardless of what the actual empirical reality is.

I'd agree with most of this. I think the economic changes caused by globalization are what is driving the nationalist tendencies - while globalization has helped a ton of people (potentially lifting billions out of poverty) - it has hurt specific groups really badly, groups that were lied to about what the effects of globalization were going to be. While probably most of us have benefited from globalization due to our careers; there are a lot of people who were told by everyone, left and right, ostensibly pro-labor politicians, that globalization would help everyone, and then they got screwed.

When the bubble burst in '08; what had been quietly happening to the industrial parts of many western countries was thrust into the open, as even many middle class / upper middle class families were decimated by the '08 recession. But even the recovery hasn't really helped those folks that much (which I think led to a big part of the Bernie / Trump movements in 2016)

Regarding intersectionality

http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2016/06/what-to-expect-when-youre-expecting-brexit.html

The overriding concern for supporters of "Leave" was regaining control of their nation’s borders. Under EU law, the U.K. is required to accept an unlimited number of economic migrants from less wealthy European states. At a time of low growth and fiscal austerity, working-class Britons saw the past years’ influx of Polish, Croatian, and Portuguese migrants as a threat to both their cultural coherence and welfare system.

Which is to say: While xenophobia was a driving impetus of the leave movement, that fear of others is inextricable from economic anxieties. One of the central claims of the "Leave" campaign, featured in a wave of television advertisements, was that the $350 million the U.K. sends to the European Union each week would be redirected to the National Health Service. The pitch: No payments to Brussels + fewer immigrants = secure social benefits for British citizens.

A good chunk of this is on Merkel's head for unilaterally declaring immigration standards for Germany and then expecting the entire EU to follow suit without actually consulting the EU or realizing that the EU isn't quite that homogeneous when it comes to immigration platforms.

 

[AntraxSuicide]

I've always thought of Europe as being an indicator of what may happen in the US years and years down the road. Brexit is very discouraging if I continue on that path. But it does not seem that the EU is analogous to the US, so there is that.

And your last paragraph has it backwards. Trump is weird but Europe is behind us on the whole immigrant thing. They're going through what we did in the 1800s and early 1900s when we went from a white only nation to multicultural

My take on that order as well. Europe is what happens when you build up a large chunk of social programs without first addressing racism. Sure, we don't do a great job of that, but at the very least, even die-hard Republicans in this country are forced to at least specify that they mean "criminals" instead of black people and "illegal immigrants" instead of Latinos. You just can't argue for people to be cut out here based on race and succeed. And again, I think a large large massive humongous chunk of Republicans totally want to cut out minorities, but they know you can't really say that, even in red states.

Basically, our racists figured out dog whistles a few decades ago, and just now is that biting them in the ass. Right wing Europe hasn't even gotten to the dog whistles.

 

[sphagnum]

I agree these things are bad and are affecting people but how many people are actually feeling this pain. Its not 50%. There would be the glorious socialist revolution if there was.

It's not about how many people are actually losing their jobs or whatever, it's about the way people feel. I'm not saying that economics are the primary driver of this, but I am saying that if this were the boom times then I don't think Leave would have won. Do I have any direct evidence of that? No. However, this sort of lurch to the far right wasn't happening before when everyone thought things were more or less going swimmingly. Multiple factors have compounded over time to create an environment in which xenophobia can more openly flourish.

edit: Basically what Cybit said above. GAF is a very pro-globalization board because most of the people on this site have probably gotten along fine with it. But we, that is to say Western society, have failed to cover up the holes that it left, which the Left used to cover. That creates a breeding ground for the right to exploit and magnify what was already there.

 

[DorkLord54]

Honestly, I don't think it's all racism either but there's definitely a strong racist undercurrent to the leave movement. I don't think they all went, "We gotta keep the brown people out," but the unease at the immigrants coming into the country played a large role in getting it done.

I think the most apt comparison would be the Rust Belt. It's a region that's been hard hit by globalization and the recession, and, while it's opposition to the establishment is definitely fostered primarily by racial resentment (especially in a region that has many of the country's most racially-and-economically segregated cities), it's intertwined legitimate resentment at Washington and the coasts for abandoning it and focusing on its financial centres in the Northeast and California, while making it seem as if the Rust Belt is unimportant, despite these regions' infrastructures being built on the back of materials made here. It's the perfect, sickening combination of racism and legitimate economic depression and political disillusionment that has also allowed Republicans to win big here at the state and local level*, while still losing these states at the national level due to statewide demographics, and working-class whites being less loyal to the GOP in this region then others due to unions.

* At least in Michigan, gerrymandering also plays a large part of it.

 

[Cybit]

are 50%+ of voters not stable and in good economic standing?

Why are they not "feeling stable"

even if today british people are decrying racists and xenophobes wait till there is another cologne new years or terrorist attack.

Euro-gaf goes crazy on Islam is a sickness stuff. This anti-immigrant stuff is popular over there. They don't have the idea that a nation doesn't have to be built on ethnicity and people with different cultures can be british, french, italian, etc.

From the Atlantic, in America, May 2016

http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2016/05/my-secret-shame/476415/

But the answer to one question was astonishing. The Fed asked respondents how they would pay for a $400 emergency. The answer: 47 percent of respondents said that either they would cover the expense by borrowing or selling something, or they would not be able to come up with the $400 at all. Four hundred dollars! Who knew?

In the UK

http://www.about.hsbc.co.uk/~/media/uk/en/news-and-media/rbwm/150310-savings-cushion.pdf?la=en-gb

A third (33%) of people in the UK – or 8.5 million households – have £250 or less set aside as a financial safety net, new research from HSBC shows.

The survey of over 2,000 people found that almost a quarter (24%) of all UK households have no savings at all, while 9% have savings of £250 or less. Based on UK households’ average outgoings, this would last just four days if they were to unexpectedly lose their income.

Almost half of UK households (44%) have savings pots of £2,000 or less,

 

[kirblar]

I feel like the reason Trump is cratering in the polls is that people, especially minority groups and allies have been relentless in letting everyone know how much of a racist asshole he is, and that anyone associated with him is one by default or at least, guilty by association. I feel like Europeans need to do the same thing instead of denying it.

He's cratered in the polls because the GOP is mono-white. The electorate is not.

 

[Cybit]

He's cratered in the polls because the GOP is mono-white. The electorate is not.

He also only got even 50% of the GOP vote after pretty much everyone else had dropped out. His poll numbers are basically exactly in line with where he should be, even with many GOP voters falling in line.

 

[Wilsongt]

The Five on Fox saying the UK was too big for the EU.
Also, Texas is ramping up succession talk after Brexit.

 

[plagiarize]

I'm sure this is old news, but I see that Bernie wanted to trigger me today.

http://latino.foxnews.com/latino/po...-global-economy-is-not-working-for-everybody/

The U.S. senator seeking the Democratic Party's presidential nomination, Bernie Sanders, said Friday that the vote in favor of Britain's exit, or "Brexit", from the European Union is an indication that "the global economy is not working for everybody."

WHAT? WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT? HOW DID YOU LOOK AT THE PEOPLE WHO VOTED FOR LEAVE AND COME TO THE CONCLUSION THAT IT WAS BECAUSE THEY WERE SKEPTICAL ABOUT THE GLOBAL ECONOMY?

THEY WERE EITHER RACISTS, UPSET THAT THE EU COULD PASS LAWS THAT EFFECTED BRITAIN, OR DISENFRANCHISE AND SAW THIS AS THE ONLY OPPURTUNITY TO CHANGE SOMETHING OR ANYTHING. THOSE ARE THE THREE MAJOR REASONS.

It wasn't a referendum on a global economy. It just wasn't.

And it's fucking awful. And I am not happy about anyone trying to point to it as proof that their platform is great. Fuck fuck fuck.

Yeah. Hi guys. I'm still holding it together somewhat.