British and American Politics

I met some people from Sheffield in Northern England the other day who explained that British politics bears a striking resemblance to our own here in the U.S.  It’s true that their leader is not a criminal buffoon who tried to overthrow their government, but:

Most of their uneducated people were sold a bill of goods and voted to exit the EU.  Now, as a consequence that was widely predicted, their economy is tanking.  One of them works for a large printing/signage company, that formerly had huge contracts with Adidas, Netflix, Nike, etc.–all of which have been cancelled, as the UK no longer has a trade agreement with the Europeans.  This is causing enormous pain for the working class–the very people who voted for Brexit.  Just like the Trump supporters, they were cajoled into voting against their own interests.

Those who live in the cities distant from London used to be members of the Labor Party, but now that things are going so poorly for them, they’re angry, and tend to vote for the Conservatives, who have been able to make the case that the Labor Party has sold them out.

The situation is much the same here.  As recently as a few decades ago, the working class in the United States was almost exclusively Democrat, as labor unions were strong, and the middle class was thriving. Now these same people want to build a wall across the southern border in the misbelief that immigrants are coming for their jobs, just like the Democrats are coming for their guns.

England also has something that’s akin to our electoral college, where a small village has the same weight in the voting outcome as a much larger town. This creates great unfairness in the democratic process.

Again, all this is remarkably similar to what’s happened in the U.S., where those in the fly-over states are angry that they have not shared in the wave of prosperity that has made the top 1% richer than kings, and no longer feel that the Democrats represent their interests.  This, obviously, is what propelled Trump to victory in 2016.

The British are also experiencing a trend to authoritarianism.  One of the people I met mentioned the rise of people like Hungary’s Oban and Turkey’s Erdogan.  This makes one wonder what a Ron DeSantis administration might look like.  If you thought Trump was a danger, and a huge embarrassment on the world stage, watch out for what might be coming next.

At the end of the conversation, I summed up my thoughts: both our countries are increasingly vulnerable to utter bullshit, as our masses become ever more ignorant and hateful.  If Donald Trump had shown up on our political scene 20 years ago, he would have been dismissed with a laugh.  Similarly, trying to promote Brexit on the basis of xenophobia would have had all the appeal of a return of the Black Plague.