Immigrants (or “others” of any kind) are time-honored scapegoats for those who would profit from real social problems. If you’re going to talk about populism, it’s important to separate the scapegoating from the problems.
There really are problems for working people, especially those with few skills. Many previously good jobs are either gone or simply not good anymore because of declining bargaining power with management. There are lots of reasons: technology, global competition, decline of unions, increasing inequality overall. Immigrants are not high on the list, but they are sure a convenient way of exploiting the problems and protecting the real culprits.
We’re whitewashing the phenomenon by calling hatred for immigrants a populist phenomenon. Some of what’s going may be spontaneous, but most of it isn’t. In both here and Britain the real story is about lies and demagoguery as a path to power. It's not surprising we're stuck with a mess.
5
This piece uses passive voice to describe what were conscious, active decisions made by bipartisan elites to abandon their own citizens. George H.W. Bush pushed NAFTA and Bill Clinton then signed it into law.
In Clinton's first term, his bipartisan Commission on Immigration Reform, led by African-American, Democratic Congresswoman Barbara Jordan, unanimously recommended immigration reform to respond to predicted labor market changes from NAFTA and automation (as well as regulations that were weakening labor unions). They recommended chain migration reform to focus on admitting nuclear family of legal immigrants but not aunts, uncles, cousins, etc. Eliminating diversity visa lottery. Reducing legal immigration from 1980's & '90's average of 750,000 per year down to 500,000 per year. Strengthening enforcement vs illegal immigration. Barbara Jordan, border state Congresswoman from Texas, knew full well the devastating impact of illegal immigration on her least skilled and most vulnerable US citizen constituents.
Bill Clinton betrayed Barbara Jordan and killed the immigration reform legislation at request of the Chinese, via John Huang (who were providing illegal campaign $ to DNC); and at lobbying of then-extremist lobbies like La Raza (led at that time by Cecilia Munoz, later Obama's adviser).
These were conscious choices by what Democrat & Harvard Prof. Samuel Huntington called "Davos" man (& woman). Loyal to themselves but not their citizens.
5
Or, to paraphrase David Frum of the Atlantic Magazine, if liberals and responsible politicians refuse to enforce borders, voters will elect fascists who will.
3
The piece is correct to focus on first past the post as a major problem and the cause of systems with two major parties. Australia uses both preferential (ranked) ballots and Single transferable votes (a sort of proportional system). NZ uses Mixed Member Proportional.The major reason why the UK has more than two parties in Parliament is that simple two party systems with a small third party exist in all four nations of the UK; it is just that the parties are not the same ones hence DUP, SNP, Plaid Coymru. The Lib dems tried to change the system, I still don't understand why they agreed to a referendum on preferential and not proportional. Canada has five parties for for sectional reasons.
I suspect the electoral college and first past the post are unconstitutional running afoul of the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment.
Dual member Proportional provides a new system which would work in the US unlike list systems - impossible in small states. Preferential for Presidential and Senate elections.
It isn’t surprising that isolationism and nationalism are synchronized in the US and GB. Both countries are driven by the same racist traditions, exaggerated by the threat of losing the advantages of being white and blonde (or orange) by the emergence of black, brown and yellow people from domestic and far-flung regions that previously could be ignored or suppressed. It does not require sophisticated analysis; it is simply racially-based fear.
78
@Peter Limon,
It ought to be said that racism and the apparent loss of priviledge is not the cause. Racism is the rallying cry used by the elite as a means of whipping up discontent amongst the masses whilst they rob them blind. Power, greed and the concentration of wealth in the hands of a minority are the root cause.
33
@Peter Limon
As someone who has lived all over the world I still find the UK to be the least racist place I’ve ever visited. Are there racists, yes of course there are racists everywhere, but it’s also the most race blind country I know.
17
Brexit is the result of many years of austerity policies, foisted upon us by a minority government who cut taxes for the rich and corporations, but piled on regressive taxation to those who are less well off. Does this sound familiar, my American friends?!
I truly believe that Brexit is not an anti-European vote, but an anti-government vote. Whilst the quietly racist and xenophobic, retired boomers turned out in force to evict their Polish plumbers and Pakistani neighbours (they have the time and the conviction to mobilise) the rest of the country was offered a scapegoat, a cause célèbre and the individuals who own most of the media went for it in a big way. They'll benefit.
The USA and the UK seem to be searching for a past that never really existed. A 1950s dream world where people were polite, the economy was booming, everyone who mattered was white and the non-whites were invisible.
It's not the people in their 20s, 30s, 40s and 50s who are voting for this nonsenical and damaging populism on both sides of the Atlantic - it's people who won't be around when the damage comes home to roost. Any demographic breakdown you can find of Brexit backs me up on this.
It's a shame that those people who stayed in bed, assuming Hilary would win, assuming Brexit was a non-starter didn't vote.
The only... only upside of Trump and Brexit is that the monsters have come out of the shadows and exposed themselves and people won't stay in bed the next time.
133
@Zoe
This is the analysis we need to see.
8
@Zoe
"I truly believe that Brexit is not an anti-European vote, but an anti-government vote."
Yes and no. Bearing in mind that the post-Brexit axe will fall heaviest in the most strongly pro-Leave areas, it's hard to see what people would gain from this 'anti-government vote'. What industries will replace those lost after Brexit: Nissan and Toyota, the engineering companies who depend on European just-in-time logistics, the 100,000s of small business which support the financial sector in the City of London?
Because it's false to claim that Brexiters are the 'just about managing' zero-hours, minimum wage workers of the post-industrial North. At least half of them are elderly Baby Boomers, secure with their index-linked final salary pensions and their stock portfolios. For them, this vote WAS about xenophobia; they don't care a fig about those Northern workers.
And behind all this are the real winners of Brexit. The elite. The ones who really benefit from brutal deregulations of employment laws, environmental standards, health&safety legislation, the deregulation that allows City money men to behave exactly as they wish. Control of these has been one of the benefits of EU membership. No wonder the elite hate it.
A hedge fund manager made £220 million ($289 million) on a single bet shorting the GBP on Referendum night. That's the 'elite'.
11
The only winners are the Russians.
2
The U.S. was deliberately created as a democracy, not a monarchy.
Congressional Republicans act like members of Trump's royal court -- not daring to offend the king by voting against him.
They violate their Constitutional job description--to check the Executive--and instead, attend to his bidding. They are also responsible for our borders, and our budget, and immigration law -- not Trump.
There are reasonable bills on the table, presented by the House to the Senate, that would re-open government while the wall is debated. Senate Republicans, their fidelity to the king and not America, refuse to vote on them.
No one can compel them to govern. Trump lacks any Constitutional authority whatsoever on borders, the budget or immigration--but Republicans do his bidding, not that of the majority of Anericans.
We are, in a sense, like the founders of the U.S., taken advantage of by a monarch and his court, with no representation whatsoever.
There is no national emergency at our Southern border--not as Trump describes--making his Executive Power null on this subject. Immigration is at an all-time low, in fact, more people are leaving than entering the U.S.
USA Today commissioned a surveillance video, by air and by car, simultaneously, of the Southern border. You'll see it's beautiful, and geologically impossible to build a wall on. https://youtu.be/RTQDwSVMdNg
3
To NYT, re, Brexit:
“It’s the austerity, stupid!”
Honestly, I’d have thought you’d have gotten it right by now - you’ve had a few years, but the pro-Bannon “globalist elite” nonsense just shows you don’t actually understand Brexit at all. Austerity has impoverished parts of the country, the other parts feel like they’re sadly coming apart. People are miserable and fed up of government abandoning them and asset-stripping the public services that make so many lives that easier. There’s no change, just the daily drudge. No-one makes any money that isn’t swooped on by some predatory business the government bungs subsidies too. Jobs dwindle, shops close, houses become unaffordable. And what, do humans do during such times? Yes - look for The Other to blame. Migrants, the EU, Brussels - because although it is our own government’s that are to blame for this, we all know that our politics is so rigid, and this country is rather self-oppressive (mustn’t grumble, keep calm and...) when it comes to demanding the extraordinary which is not written on a manifesto.
In short people who feel ignored, abandoned, broke, under unimportant and irrelevant finally got the chance to vote on something that for the first time shook the bones of Parliament. They were asked whether they wished to continue with the status quo or depart from it, and most looked around at their worn, shuttered hometowns their poor wages or lack of job and said “No, we need something different.”
But Brexit won’t help.
7
You guys really need to stop saying "populism" when what you mean is "nationalism." Calling it populism erases the racist politics at play here (which this article mentions, but only as an afterthought) and implies that the rising tide of fascism in the West is the fault of the ignorant masses, and that the solution is a politics that favors the interests of the elite, not a politics that protects the real interests of the working class.
4
Brexit .. & .. Trump. They look so similar and the word 'populist' is used to describe both. But 'Brexit' is the name for a political movement emerging after Grexit, which emerged from pressures of immigration coming from countries where Islam has yet to complete its version of The Renaissance and from predominantly Athenian tax avoidance; whereas 'Trump' is the family name of a president of the US who has been widely given the nick name "Con Don" because that's a name that sticks as very apt in many people's minds who know his track record.
What is ignored by all who forget to bring these Brexit/Trump DISsimilarities into mind is that:
. In both the UK and the US, English is easily the predominant language;
. In English the predominant way of expressing one's feelings begins with the words "I am";
. and there's a consequence to that culturally automatic habit.
The consequence is that conversations about challenging social problems are stymied by tribally conflicted "I am whatever (IAW - Eeyore)" statements, which eventually degrade to "I am angry" bullying and "I am hurt" feelings of victimization.
Fortunately, there's a solution that's been proven invariably to work when the parties to a problem-solving conversation make efforts to try it. The solution includes replacing IAWs with "I have 'X emotion' now" (IHXEN) statements and is called 'Eye-Zen English', a term people can look up on the Internet. Hint: try to pronounce the acronym IHXEN!
This is like a news article of days gone by - a balanced supply of information and little fakery, IMO. We should demand higher standards and credibility in our journalists. Our pundits and politcians should be graded on a six-point litmus test based on their beliefs on, 1) WMD/Sadam and the Iraq War, 2) remaining in Afghanistan after Bin Laden, 3) Gadaffi/Libya, 4) popular support for Bernie Sanders, 5) popular support for Donald Trump, 6) popular support for Brexit. If they missed the boat on, really, any of these major events that the establishment was wrong about then they should not presume to lead us now, IMO. We shouldn't accept less; it's a big country and the stakes are high.
3
Dismissing government officials is a very effective method of destabilizing a nation.
If you wonder why a problem exists, look at the money.
In Europe the problem of a unified financial market combined with a series of different tax laws across the various nations leads to some very profitable tax-evasion setups. They are to be shut down by the new european tax directive. Most of these tax-havens are brittish (Cayman Isles, Bermuda Isles,..) By breaking away from te EU those tax havens will remain intact.
In the US, Trumps only major accomplishment is a tax benefit for the very wealthy.
Both Brexit and Trump are backed by the media empire of Rupert Murdoch. Why? Because he's making a ton of money from it. Simple as that.
His modus operandi : support those that give him the best tax-cuts or shelter using his propaganda machine, where opinion is news, commentators are biased and outright lies are spread across headlines.
The reason why this works in the UK and the US is because of the very broad interpretation of freedom of speech, which leads to the freedom to lie to promote your own populistic ideas. No balance, no reality checks, just pure hatred broadcasted and printed 24/7.
35
I’m in Holland. That’s the Netherlands to you, where the Dutch people live. Visiting family. I’ve just finished my weekend NRC Handelsblad. Call it a New York Times equivalent. Reflexively liberal on all social issues but somewhat conservative on everything else. Yet in thirty pages of news and sport, there’s not one single word or mention of Brexit. Not a chirp. Nix. Nul. Nada. That’s how worried Europe is about Brexit.
And yet the NYTimes is providing a near daily blow by blow analysis, with floor-to-ceiling coverage of every twist and minor turn, of this sad British comedy. Now, I’m all for the free press. Absolutely. So please, Mr. European Editor, feel absolutely free to devote a little more space to ‘normal’ or ‘non-crazy’ European countries and for a week or so leave the Brits alone to resolve their unhappy fate. Who knows but maybe in our absence they might finally reach a final, final decision.
p.s. As I’ve just returned from a ''Coffee Shop'', I hope you'll excuse any errors of syntax, missed commas, etc. The ‘coffee’ in Holland is quite strong, and I'm afraid that I had more than one.
16
Yes, two governments in paralysis caused by the International Mafia 0.01% Robber Baron/Radical religion Good Old Boys cabal.
They are trying to destroy governments around the world and take them over. They would love to take us back to the times of the roman/catholic empire.
NO. Not now. Not ever.
Good People of the UK must demand a new vote on leaving the EU just as WE THE PEOPLE of OUR United States of America are rising up against The Con Don and his Robber Baron brethren.
4
A war is being waged against Cold War allies by a resurrected Russia … guess who’s winning?
2
The U.S. and U.K. governments in paralysis and citizens at each others’ throats.
Mission accomplished as far as Vladimir Putin is concerned.
4
Here’s a general rule: if you find yourself in any political party where the Big Thinks are coming from guys like Steve Bannon and Boris Johnson, run screaming.
12
Why a Greek prophecy about the Roman Tiber River?
Sad. I had hoped they would take us back as a colony but they are incapable of self governing themselves.
4
The plague of nationalism has covered the whole world, China, the U.S., Britain, Hungary, Austria, Germany, Russia, and all the rest. One would think we had learned from the last century of horrific conflict. We've learned nothing, and that's depressing. And so we must return to the wisdom of T. H. White in The Once and Future King: “The Destiny of Man is to unite, not to divide. If you keep on dividing you end up as a collection of monkeys throwing nuts at each other out of separate trees.”
2
You are right @Wiltontraveler. Nothing wrong with patriotism but nationalism is a beast of an entirely different kind, usually leading to disaster.
Totally agree with your analysis for the US and UK.
It goes even further:
If you look elsewhere:
France: Yellow Vests are asking Macron's resignation and the instauration of popular referendums. This at the expense of the traditional liberal democracy system.
Italy: Far right and (more or less) far left movement are at power. Both those parties (and italian ministers) officially back the French Yellow Vests!!!
Scotland voted for independence from the UK in 2014. It was "No" by 55/45. But following the Brexit, another vote can be called.
Spain: Catalonia asked to vote for independence.
etc, etc...
At that point, Yuval Noah Harari has a very interesting thinking.
He says that man needs a guideline.
In 1938, you had to choose between 3 systems: fascist, communist or liberal.
Years later, the world was split in 2: communism or liberalism.
After the fall of the Berlin wall, only one option remained.
And with the aftermath of the 2008 crisis, there is no more guideline...
As seen before, it began with a stock market crisis at Wall Street. Then the crisis spread into the real world, the economy. As companies shut down or found other ways to cut expenses (laying off and/or outsourcing), the crisis became social. When impoverished people asked solutions to their governments, the crisis became a political one. And if the political side has no answer, well... it may turn to a military crisis.
Could we have some statistical support for the assertion that immigrants are taking jobs from US citizens and otherwise taling a piece of an inelastic "pie"? Because, as far as I know, this is only the perception Trump, Bannon, and Miller fed to justify their existances.
4
@ben220
So true.
Once saw an episode of Vice News where some workers were complaining about an auto
company bringing over people from eastern
Europe and providing them with housing, to work in their plants for something like near minimum wage.
This guy was grousing saying they were taking jobs from Americans who could be getting $40 an hour from those very jobs.
My thought at the time, they were pricing themselves out of a job.
With Brexit, it has been written that many of the people voting, didn't even know what they were voting for.
Bias and greed will do it every time.
2
Both the wall and Brexit are based on lies and racist fear mongering!
Using government employees, or anyone, as hostages must be illegal, and not according to the "spirit of" the Presidential oath?
5
The flow of refugees that will result from global climate change will dwarf the current flow of refugees to Europe and America.
A large proportion of conservatives in America claim to be devout Christians.
Is it “the Christian thing to do” to erect a wall at our southern border and otherwise implement policies to brutally exclude refugees while we drive around in our carbon-spewing Chevy Suburbans, promote coal-fired power generation, and otherwise wantonly contribute to climate change?
3
Another similarity is the mendacious, conspiracy-laden, xenophobic character of the chief architects of Brexit and Trump: Farange-Johnson and Bannon-Miller.
Given these roots, nothing good will emerge.
3
do you hear that? do you hear that? it's laughter coming directly from Moscow. the plan is working...
3
Divide and conquer, Putin high fives with MBS.
Things are going better for them than ever.
Bannon, who has Irish ancestry, is as unwelcome in Ireland as Trump. It's astonishing now that support for the EU in Ireland consequent to Brexit has risen to 92%. Ireland, by referendum, twice rejected EU dictates but each time the EU responded in a democratic fashion. Wow! Bannon, others cited, might I say politely, their comments are caudal to the oral cavity.
Now, the central issue on Brexit, actually the only issue, is the matter of the border Ireland/Northern Ireland. All EU countries are in total solidarity with Ireland even though this solidarity involves very major economic consequences. Especially Germany, maybe, 100,000 jobs, which totally rubbishes the notion that Germany is only self-interest.
The Irish missionary. Columbanus. 1400 years ago, spoke about a notion of Europe and founded schools, monasteries in places that are now 5 nations of the EU. The EU facilitated the emergence from dictatorship of Spain, Portugal, subsequently, the accession of states once under the tutelage of the Soviet Union. Immense economic success due to the EU even if Czech, Poland, Hungary are becoming disturbingly lawless, totalitarian, racist. But the immense, creative experiment that is the EU will endure, will thrive.
3
Anybody who thought we could have just trade globalization without cultural, labour, and immigration globalization was dreaming.
2
I really wish the NYT and WP and other respectable media outlets would stop referring to Trump, the Trump GOP, and his Orc Army as "populists". They are in fact just a slice of the American population, splintered into the expected interest groups, with only a faith in an undisciplined, willfully ignorant, and out-and-out malicious philosophy of "I'd rather be right", than anything resembling improvement or progress in the country. Trump is the perfect embodiment of this movement, whatever it is. But "populist" is hardly the word for it. How about "nihilist" ? That works better.
The situation has very little to do with legitimate populist objectives. What you have in both cases is self-serving lies versus reality.
2
Unfortunately, there are quite a few inaccuracies in the article. The US drama could be resolved easily by the normal constitutional way, if only McConnell would allow it to be taken to the Senate floor. That is the "establishment" taking sides for the populist, the complete opposite of what Bannon says.
And why in the world would anyone even quote Bannon in the first place? The man is nothing but a dangerous, paranoid demagogue.
3
I am not convinced that the divide is as great within the population as we imagine. In both Britain and the US highly effective disinformation campaigns were undertaken by elements of the Right with both backed, amplified, and energized by Russia. Particularly in the US right-wing media predominates and is a flood of toxic disinformation. Think Rupert Murdoch controlling media in both countries. Think Mitch McConnell’s scorched earth tactics with Obama. These were about corporate interests controlling wealth and about stoking rage in fundamental Christians for conservative judges. Racism no doubt plays a role—as it is a core principle of the Republican Party. You ain’t a Republican unless you are a racist. But many voted for Trump because he is Republican. And they swallow the anti immigration as the price to pay for the other goodies they want. The Republican and Fox News leaders have been stoking rage by throwing matches into the garage for political gain for so long that eventually they burned down the house. Unintended consequences. Little did Republicans know that by believing in the George Bush lies (and the Reagan lies) they would murder and dislocate millions of people and destroy western liberal democracy.
1
@BillC, although it has been unfortunately a bipartisan exercise. For example, Hillary Clinton voted to authorize the Iraq War, providing prominent Democratic support for the Bush-Cheney lies, something more wizened (or less cynical) politicians like Ted Kennedy, Paul Wellstone, Bernie Sanders, etc. refused to do. Even Republican Jim Jeffords voted against it.
Obama was elected to stop the neo-con, intervention-first, regime-change nonsense. He did not. Instead, he continued the war in Afghanistan his entire 8 years, ending his presidency with shameful distinction of longest wartime president in US history. At Hillary's urging, he supported US interventions in Syria and Libya, helping further dislocate many more, and ending Libya's "gatekeeper" role to Europe, unleashing many more refugees to Europe, thereby strengthening the far right across Europe. No surprise so many of the neo-cons behind the Iraq War lined up to endorse Hillary during the 2016 election.
Bush and Cheney deserve heaps of condemnation for opening Pandora's box but I have to doubt Trump would ever have been elected if Obama had simply delivered on his anti-war rhetoric from 2008 instead of continuing to enable abuses and excesses from the military-industrialists and national security state. Or if the Democrats had been smart enough to nominate someone like Jim Webb or Bernie Sanders instead of Hillary.
2
If the US/UK project to withdraw from infusing the world with democratic values succeeds, the world will be infused with the dictatorial values of Russia and China. And that newly aligned world will be a grievous place for the US/UK to live in.
1
Putin’s investments in Brexit and Trump are a sort of inverse Marshall Plan—a modest amount of strategic funding to confuse and misinform (via social media and right-wing groups) ends up leveraging angry, ignorant, and easily misled segments of the population. where the marshall plan invested in building the eurpran economy and liberal democracy, the putin inverse marshall plan aims at dismantling it. add into the mix the syrian disaster and the consequent flood of refugees, something putin could have prevented by pressuring assad.
putin doesn’t really need to do more than let liberal democracies tear themselve apart. similarly, by helping Trump gain the presidency, Putin has a lunatic who can disrupt, on his own (with help from Fox, of course), our alliances, trade agreements, economy, internal and external security. and now he subverts our government. a normal person might say he is unfit to govern.....
1
Comparing Brexit to USA war for independence is beyond a stretch.
Britain was ruled by a mad sovereign and the residents of the colonies had no representation in parliament.
GB had a leading role in shaping the EU and had appropriate representation in operating it.
Not the same at all except to the ignorant and the ideologues.
Wake up, everyone! Russia interfered in the UK also, which is how they got to Brexit! And two years later, both countries are trying to deny and deflect it, with almost no consequences to Russia. It's insane!
They used social media to prey on the uninformed, easily frightened to destabilize both countries, and it worked!
1
@Celeste Why do you think the population is asleep while you are awake?
Putins plan for destabilization of the West is going swimmingly. He owns Trump,the puppet, and has completely undermined Britain while his toadies there have run for cover.This will not end well.
If Russia was really looking to sabotage the West by dividing its people, it certainly seems to have succeeded even beyond its wildest imaginations..
It is amazing how often people confuse democracy as a way to choose leaders with democracy as a solution to problems and issues.
Look at any organization that needs to get things done, be it a business, a military outfit (see how the US army is able to set up a tent city quickly), or even a government bureaucracy. They are run like dictatorships. Not democracy. Otherwise, they will all be paralyzed!
Now look at Brexit. Sure, there are many opinions but the sign of a good leader is being able to convince skeptics what is good for the country and LEAD. But what happens when a leader is weak and go running for a vote, in the name of democracy, hoping that it will solve his problems? You get the biased, the stubborn, people with hidden agenda, the mentally less able (look, this may be politically incorrect, but face it, just as we have various body types, we also have the smarter and the stupid) and so on. And people are surprised with ending up with a mess? Just because journalists and opinion writers simply call for a "vote" each time there is a problem doesn't mean it is the right way to do things. With the blind worship of democracy, you just don't see that "voting" is not the answer to deal with problems.
2
there is so much wrong and so much slanting in this article its frightening. you can call them "populist" movements and give to it that negative connotation but the people in the UK voted for Brexit and the people in the US voted for trump (according to the electoral college election rules) and both were voted for because the people wanted what they were voting for. and a democracy is supposed to do and represent what its population wants. so just because the author disagrees politically with these decisions of the people, he invokes the term "populist" to imply to readers that it's evil. its Orwellian the brainwashing that's going on. group think, group think. think as we do or you are an outcast. there are no differences of opinion any more, there is only right and wrong. and if you disagree with the group think you are wrong.
1
Interesting compare and contrast piece, but why turn to and quote Bannon as if he were some kind of muse when, in fact, he clearly is NOT!
1
I would imagine that if Britain could avail itself of the economic benefits of EU membership, without getting stuck with EU strictures as to immigrants and border control, that they'd enthusiastically go along with that.
I don't blame a country for wanting to exercise border and immigration control so as to preserve its national identity and not have to deal with incompatible immigrants who would dilute the prevailing culture.
Britain is for the British and those certain select foreigners whom they choose, in their sole discretion, to offer residency and eventually citizenship. This is not something that should be forced down their throats by Germany and Merkel.
3
I predict Donald Trump will be ruined with the release of the Special Prosecutor's Report, which is why shutting the wheels of government aligns with his interests.
The Special Prosecutor evidence will reveal:
-a lifetime of money laundering through real estate transactions (particularly with Russian mobsters for several decades);
-fraudulent conveyance through multiple bankruptcies;
-organized crime in the construction and gambling industries;
-nation-state political payoffs;
-all culminating in Trump's forced decision to run for US President, compelled by Putin;
-placing a Russian agent as President using Russian statecraft propaganda and resources to engineer a narrow Electoral College victory of less than 80k votes despite a 3 million loss in popular votes;
Since becoming President, consider the private meetings with Russia's proxy state North Korea, where Trump announces an agreement, while Intelligence sees an escalation of nuclear activity.
Consider Trump's private meetings with Russian agents in the Oval Office, no Americans allowed.
Trump's meeting with Putin in Helsinki, when he walked out of the private meeting defeated and Putin says the ball is in his court.
Trump knows when the investigation is done, all the assets of his criminal organization will be stripped from him and family, along with freedom, so he will take refuge in Russia to retain wealth, fame and adulation.
This is his exit plan when it all goes wrong, authorities be alerted.
3
1) Social Democracy/New Deal was the only solution to the ravages of un-regulated capitalism that produces fascism and Stalinism as the only other world-historical alternatives.
2) The Bretton Woods fixed-exchange rate system, and capital controls, were key to maintaining New-Deal-types of societies.
3) America shattered Bretton Woods by LBJ and Nixon spending for the Vietnam War but refusing to pay for it.
4) The rise of Reagan and un-regulated globalization (and all of the inequality and hardship) followed from the end of Bretton Woods and the replacement of "Main Street" manufacturing capitalists by "Wall Street" money managers as the economic elite in our system.
5) The rise of the "Euro" further exacerbated problems because different regions could better adjust their currencies under Bretton Woods, or, later, under floating exchange rates. Under the "Euro" regions with less productive people'conditions face falling prices (deflation) as the only way to restore competitiveness. The "Euro project" is a separate means by which fascism is being produced in Europe.
6) In short, the end of Bretton Woods continues to be under-appreciated as the source of our current woes.
2
Three governments in paralysis, if you count France. Four, if you count Italy. Five, if you count Germany.
So extensive a confluence of political disarray doesn’t come very often; and the chance to destroy all one’s enemies seldom comes twice. So, will Putin take advantage of this confluence to attack NATO in the East, his strategic direction to reestablish the old Soviet border-zone that Stalin created between 1939 and 1945?
That would be Putin’s crowning achievement, the cherry on top of his stealing a half-trillion dollars from the Russian people and investing it in the corrupt, decadent, beleaguered, politically paralyzed West.
Were Putin to attack Ukraine, Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia Trump, his intelligence asset in the White House, might play the crucial role of silent partner and co-conspirator in his adventure. Abuse his discretionary power by reneging on longstanding European defense obligations by repudiating our NATO Article 5 commitments encouraged by Isolationists like Sen. Paul and craven opportunists like Sen. Graham, among others. He also might use the chaos to officially declare yet another national state of emergency, use it as a pretext to lock up his political opponents, stop Mueller’s and SDNY’s investigations into his extensive criminal past and suspend, or even cancel, the 2020 elections, cementing his hold on the presidency indefinitely.
Putin’s and Trump’s equivalent of the Coup of 18 Brumaire in 1799 that brought Napoleon Bonapart to power.
It is an apt comparison. The UK is as stuck in a self destruction mode as Trump's America. And it is the same group of voters who got them where they are. The ones who have one major idea and who do not read. As to the politicians, even Theresa May does not want immigrants. The English in general do not like or countenance foreigners...which Meghan has already discovered. They are used to being as they were, and they are not comfortable with other ideas or people who rattle their safe island. It is very easy to get on their wrong side (the individual Brit) and once you do it is unlikely you will make progress as they will be convinced they had nothing at all to do with the misunderstanding. This is the part of America which Trump has picked up as supporters and they are unable to grasp another way. So we are both mired in conflict from within with nowhere to turn, and with leaders who are not able to compromise, certainly in the case of the US, the Trump side. I find it hard to see how we will extricate ourselves and England is heading for its own self-inflicted disaster. The auto industry is now crumbling bit by bit.
We are mired in the day to day, pointing our fingers at misguided pols; but, in both the US and UK, the current chaos are the result of voting by an uninformed, detached, downtrodden, angry electorate. (For context, read Arlie Hochschild's "Strangers In Their Own Land")
Putting serious matters to a referendum by such citizenry results in predictably "inexplicable" outcomes. Brexit and Trump are both shocks to national sensibility with profound negative impact, the worst yet to come...unless that same electorate gets informed, involved, energized, and motivated. The hopeful aspect of democracy is that the allowance is there to right itself.
Let's be clear about the "immigration problem" in Europe and the Americas; it's a result of deliberate policy choices by the colonial powers who now whine the most about immigration. Why does Syria exist? Why don't the Kurds have a nation? How did drug cartels gain so much control in Central America? The colonial powers carved and rearranged the borders and governments around the world using terms like "manifest destiny" and "Pax Britannica" to gloss over the greed and murderous intent of colonialism.
Now, after centuries of assassinating democratically-elected, leaders, stealing natural resources, and supporting dictators, there is an "immigration problem."
If you broke into your neighbor's house, doused it with gasoline, and set it on fire, what responsibility would you have when they showed up on your doorstep asking for help? It's their house fire, right?
This is too apocalyptic. May's proposal is a compromise of sorts, and a new vote may reverse the first. Here bannon couldn't even keep his job in the white house, and the pope has repudiated him. Rather then consolidating power, trump lost the midterms, and an executive order will go into effect only if the courts approve.
1
Once again, America and the UK face concurrent crises. Once again both nations eventually found accommodation with and in each other.
However.......
The United States is facing how to manage an
unstable and incompetent president coupled with a dead
Republican Party. Compromise government is impossible here.
The United Kingdom would not be facing the depth of crisis
without the uncompromising incababilities of Theresa May.
If anything ,the British Parliamentary system is to blame. It divides the current party in power with the elected Parliament.
Both Trump and May hold their own countries as hostages to their wills alone.
If ever there were a time to grab a giant broom and clean house it is now.
1
"...who yearn for a homogenous society that no longer exists.."? This makes it sound like the wall is about some weird kind of racist nostalgia or just traditional head-up-our-bums isolationism. It's not. It is about race, here and now, and plain and simple. And your article is woefully silent on this. 2045. That's when the US is projected to become majority non-white. That's the fight (included as explicitly framed by conserative commentators, including Laura Ingraham and co.) we're in and it's only going to intensfy. When people say immigration is ruining this country,that's what they mean. He-who-would-be-impeached framed it himself, when he asked why we weren't getting more immigration from Norway. In one way or another, just about everything in the Great Republic is about Race.
These both movements have in common a fear based negative response, perhaps this is a natural evolution of our limbic system trying again to overpower our neocortex...how could we possibly accept racial diversity and people that look different from us perhaps speaking other languages being as successful as us using our own laws, schools, and universities and tools that we allowed (liberal democracies)...if our fear and hatred goes unchecked it is perhaps there are just too many of us (7 billion plus)...many form societies are are failing ....how are we all to live in 3,000sq foot plus mansions , drive 3 SUVs, and have enough funds to keep up with the Jones and be superior by controlling more of GDP? Perhaps this will be our species failing left unchecked. Witness the wars, ideological conflicts, religious conflicts abound. Brexit and Trump are but our own symptoms of a innocence lost. A memory of a utopia never to be again.
Here in the UK, the hope is that Trump shuts down the UK government, too.
1
Battle stations: this is not a drill!
I remember that brief period when Putin had just come to power, when the US and Russia still believed in the possibility of actually being friendly. Mr Putin shared what the then defunct USSR’s strategy against the US would’ve been had war erupted between the two sides; destabilize the US through internal strife including race relations and political party divisions.
Fast forward to a couple of years back. Police shootings of American Blacks, Citizens ambushing police, television commentators arguing which “Lives Matter” was the legitimate one, Black, Blue, or White. Each commentator professed theirs was the important one, at the exclusion of the other.
Fast forward to today. The near totality of the US law enforcement community is either working without pay or furloughed, the EU is in the midst of what some think was a Russian operation to destabilize Europe and the western alliances. The US president, known for his vitriolic tirades against Mexico and its people’s and the US’ long held political alliances meets with the Russian President without any American records being kept even after so many of his campaign senior leaders are convicted of or admit to crimes.
I am not quite sure why reporters have not dug that old Putin news story back up for our leaders to consider! It seems to me that the REAL story of our current seeming inability to get along, was that it was foretold by the current President of Russia...as a tool of war!
Just an aside: I don’t think it was a Greek philosopher who prophesied about the Tiber foaming with blood. Since the Tiber flows in Italy and through Rome it’s unlikelythat a Greek philosopher would prophesize about a Roman river. Instead it was Virgil a Roman poet who wrote this line in his Aeneid.
1
No, no, no. Simplistic rubbish.
The article seeks to present a nice, cosy, 'easily packaged for the reader', symmetry. But shows complete lack of understanding about Brexit.
Fact is immigration is not the key aspect of Brexit, its' a revolt against a lack of control and the democratic vacuum at the heart of Brussels, which is increasingly taking over decision making in EU countries.
The US has always had a much stronger vein of Isolationism than the UK. Indeed the essence of the UK has always been it's Globalism (as the make up of the modern world shows).
Brexiteers look to turn the UK back from within Brussels narrow, inward looking European embrace, towards an outward looking non aligned Internationalist approach.
1
I think there are some interesting similarities, and none of them speak well of white people. Without a doubt, both countries are in a tale spin as a result of the wave of immigration that has occurred, real and unreal, which has threatened the white, landed, aristocracy of both nations, and elsewhere, as well, to be accurate. The US and England are not alone in this melee by any stretch of the imagination, but they stand out as being incapable of doing the full monte. It seems more like a generational racial clash than anything else, with the demographics in both countries to prove it. Stalemate, not checkmate.
Some people are afraid and some are not. Some see the good and some see only the bad. It is an endless quandary, one that is not open to the "talking cure," since the aisle are divided by beliefs and facts. On the one hand, whites seem paranoid and exaggerate the threat on almost every account, and seem willing, as a result, to entertain and cause enormous to protect themselves. It seems more suicidal than well thought out. On the other hand, there is a lot of head scratching on the part of the opposition, who, and not so coincidentally, are not the ones holding the reigns of power, since there seems to be no possibility of a rational discussion about the facts, when the facts seem so obvious, which exclude the wisdom of building a wall to keep "them" out, or cutting off ties to prevent them from leaping over the English Channel.
It all seems so crazy.
1
Immigration from war torn countries is something that U.K. immigration always has full
control over and had nothing to do with the EU. Access to the U.K. is controlled at the border by controls for all foreign nationals. What being in the E.U. allowed is that E.U. nationals presenting their national passports had free access to the UK and it’s employment market. The ‘rivers of blood’ type analogy is to non-European immigration. Leaving the EU will give the U.K. exactly the same rights to control or allow entry as before to non-EU nationals. Much of the U.K. electorate was ill informed about Brexit and the current impasse is evidence of this complexity ie sacrificing export markets and much of the U.K. economy to limit immigration from the U.K. is stupid. In fact to further highlight how self defeating this is, recall that it was Lord King the Governor of the Bank of England who strongly promoted access to the U.K. by new E.U. member states as a means to make the U.K. economy more competitive. For a counter example to the U.K., look at Ireland which sees its future as a within the E.U. and is an open economy that is trading around the world. Irish voters would never have been sold such a pup as Brexit because it would be so obvious that there is no future in cutting oneself off from geographical neighbors.
The irony about immigration in the UK is that its problems are almost entirely self-inflicted.
- It was Britain that pushed the EU to expand too fast by accepting Eastern European countries and granting full freedom of movement to the new members. (See 'Accession 8' in 2004.)
- It was Britain that joined and encourage GWB's catastrophic strategies in Iraq and Afghanistan that created millions of refugees, and leaving Europe to deal with them.
- It is Britain that refuses to have national ID cards and to thereby be able to enforce legal limitations to European FoM (basically, you have 3 months to find a job or you are out). As things stand now, once you are in the UK, you are untraceable.
- It is Britain that is swamped by non-EU immigration (e.g. from India and Pakistan), which by definition has got nothing to do with the EU.
I'm not saying that Britain is solely responsible (there is a population explosion in Africa to deal with, as well as climate change-induced droughts), but it does bear a heavy burden. Brexit is just a vandalistic way of shirking its responsibilities.
2
A thought provoking article with a significant flaw.
I find it both highly inaccurate and indeed objectionable that those described as "globalists" (i.e. those opposing the nationalist and populist bent of Trumpism and Brexit) are almost always described in the same breath as "elites".
How can this be? In the USA, Donald Trump is supported and funded by some of the wealthiest people on the planet.
In U.K. The Conservative party that largely supports Theresa May is almost entirely made up of privately educated scions of the wealthiest members of British Society.
So, it can easily be argued that the "elites" are in fact on the side of the nationalist/populists in each country.
I wonder if the author really understands the mentality and economic standing of those he refers to as "globalists" (and "elites").
According the Cambridge English dictionary, "elite" is described as "the richest, most powerful, best educated, or best trained group in society". This definition does not apply to the majority of the people I know that might fit the term "globalist" when referenced as opposing the policies of Trumpism and Brexit.
2
Does it all come down to a take it or leave it situation, on both sides of the ocean, where any dialogue is fruitless and it doesn't matter who wins, if anybody wins, or take our chances and see what comes out of this mess on either side of the ocean. Reflection, deep thinking and consultation maybe the answer to all ills, there is no need to hurt the system as we know it, just keep the negotiation/needlepoint working, for the good of all..
@Zoe There is and has been a concerted effort within the United States to dissolve the post Civil War Union of States by the likes of confederates who believe individual states have the right unto themselves. Confederates who see themselves as rebels and missionaries. John Mica, Darryl Issa for privatization of public transportation and real estate holdings, Scott Walker and Paul Ryan the destruction of a federally recognized organization of labor and Jeff Sessions who's stacked courts in order to suppress immigration undercutting any legal benefit to those who've entered the U.S. where generations were granted.
It is interesting to note the Bush Jr. Administration's assertion before the housing crash that the pie would never be limited and before 9/11 when a group of terrorists with funding through Saudi Arabia commandeered aircraft turned the United States policy of immigration into something that has no resemblance to what it was or any reflection to what The Constitution ascribes.
Who benefits from both.
Who did his best to promote conditions that enabled both.
It is wrong to pitch this as a battle between "pro-globalization elites against a left-behind hinterland", when in fact it's a battle between two classes of elites- the one that has some empathy for "others" and the other that likes to use those "others" as red meat for their own political and economic ambitions. They couldn't care less for hinterland. All they want is to be not asked to share their good fortunes with anyone else. Not even to contribute to keep the system that they benefit from to keep going. The classic oligarchical system- pay tributes to the rulers for protection or even living in their protectorate- is their motto.
1
About three years back Klaus Schwab Founder and Executive Chairman, World Economic Forum said that world stand on the brink of a technological revolution that will fundamentally alter the way we live, work, and relate to one another.
Both Trump America and the Brexiteers proves that responsible and comprehensive response to the do or die situation is a mirage.
Despite repeated warning that cooperation is the only thing that will redeem mankind. “If we have the courage to take collective responsibility for the changes underway, and the ability to work together to raise awareness and shape new narratives, we can embark on restructuring our economic, social and political systems to take full advantage of emerging technologies”.
The goal of this reflection is naturally to ensure that emerging technologies and the Fourth Industrial Revolution improve lives in as broad-based and meaningful a way possible. However, even greater possibilities could emerge from bringing stakeholders together in new ways to discuss the future of technology and society.
As Schwab writes: “The new technology age we can use the Fourth Industrial Revolution to lift humanity into a new collective and moral consciousness based on a shared sense of destiny.”
Right now, I quite unable to share this optimistic vision.
A few thoughts: in the case of Brexit, everyone will lose in Britain; there are no winners. The Leave people have been fed a fantasy and live in the parts of the country that benefit the most from membership in the EU. They will -fittingly, perhaps - feel the worst of it and it is highly unlikely they will ever recover. A major oversight of this article is that it fails to mention the critical role of neoliberalism in all of this. Globalization, including economic globalization, is basically a "good thing." However, its benefits need to be spread equitably. It was and is the full embrace of a market-driven society and economy that enabled some segments of society to become obscenely wealthy while others were left behind. This was never necessary or inevitable; many states, especially the US, had the ability to mitigate the worst effects of neoliberalism. That they did not speaks to ideology, especially (but not limited to) that of right wing political parties. Even now, a perfectly sensible idea like taxing the wealthiest in the US at 70% is met with hysterical pushback. This is a sign of how difficult it will be to properly redistribute the economic gains of globalization and start the process of addressing the destabilizing forces described in this article.
The systematic of US and British governments are a direct result of asymmetrical political warfare by former KGB officer Vladimir Putin and the GRU. This is the New Cold War.
The fact that Republicans and Conservatives have refused to respond goes to prove that they are more beholden to monied interests than democratic principles.
Both the election of Trump in the US and the Brexit vote in the UK were referendums largely against globalism and against uncontrolled borders / uncontrolled immigration.
It is funny, colonialism is now loudly condemned, but colonialism of the UK by the EU is just fine by the globalists? And colonialism in reverse in the US by the developing world is also fine?
Nations are pushing back against elite globalist forces. The fact that 2 governments are becoming even more dysfunctional than they already were shows that they are fighting an uphill battle, the globalists and elites have that much power.
It is clear that Americans and the British are very divided on this issue. Immigration and identity politics does not unite us but has clearly divided us. Is it worth such the division, for 1 side to prioritize foreign nationals over citizens with division and disunity as the result?
2
What is populism? If it's defined as "what the people want" shouldn't that be a majority of the people? In Trump's case he lacked the support of a majority of the that from the outset and is approved of now by a shrinking minority. His party lost the mid-term by a historic landslide of popular vote and near historic in terms of seats.
In the case of Brexit, the theoretical idea falsely sold by the Leave side won a narrow popular vote majority, but it is highly likely that the actual Brexit, as it is being made manifest, would be rejected if the politicians had the courage to submit it to the people.
So perhaps, the correct term is Minoritarianism, rather than populism...
For all their good intentions, globalists in both the US and the UK have not sufficiently thought through the impact of their policies on constituent populations in factory-dependent communities. One has to know those people personally and well to appreciate their sense of abandonment and the resulting distrust of the ruling elite. Some of us had the where-with-all to adjust and find substituting opportunity elsewhere. Others did not, and they feel quite resentful. They are easy prey for demagogues.
2
The two leading powers of the democratic Western liberal civilization are in deep crisis because the majority of their people are not collecting the marginal profit of the globalization so wanted and implemented by their government immediately after the Cold War end in 1990. The new World Trade Organization was born few years afterwards.
There is no isolationism in action neither in the USA, which is not closing down any of its military bases all over the world nor in the UK, whose government has just sent a frigate to Odessa, Ukraine, just to revive the Imperial nostalgic of 1856.
What is going on is a conservative/authoritarian reply to the confusing demands coming from people disappointed by the traditional left parties and unhappy with the runninig economic situation.
The future of both countries does not look brilliant unless their ruling class finds democratic, urgent and effective ways to satisfy those popular demands.
2
Brexit has little to do with Americas disasterous president.
It does not weaken Nato,the EU or show weakness to Putin.
It was May who called out Putin over the Salisbury poisonings and so much more while trump held out his hand to take Putins bribes.
trump only joined in the complaints so much later and unwillingly.
As he sits driving the lifting of sanctions against them.
Classic conflation.
If you want to compare the gullibility of the brexiteers to trumps base please go ahead.
They were ill informed of the benefits of Europe and did not realise the damage that would be caused.
Whatever way the comedians in parliament vote we are not magically disappearing.
People will still be able to move beyond our borders to live, work and study.
Might require a little more effort but only their own lack of imagination will hold them back.
We dealt with massive immigration in the sixties and seventies and the still ongoing effects of that.
Blair stoked the fire dangerously by not stopping, as he could have done, the influx of East Europeans.
We were, are and will be fine thank you.
Brexit is not tanking the world economy like trump.
Brexit is not destroying any security alliances or strategy like trump.
Thats all down to a Putin whipped trump and his gop henchmen.
1
The idea that Britain and the USA are a) winner take all democracies, and b) that this creates gridlock, doesn't stand up to factual analysis. Is the writer aware of the Yellow Vest problems in France (based on a Parliamentary model), or of the Right-wing thrust of Hungary (also a Parliamentary model, and decidedly NOT gridlocked)? Secondly, in the USA, the "winner take all model" allows the rural states and rural populations to have a voice in our democracy (as the founders intended), thus protecting the rights and voice of a minority (rural voters). You may not like how rural voters think or vote, but our "winner take all model" certainly empowers them. Ironically, the Left only seems to care about "certain" minorities and when that minority is rural and largely white, well, oops time to recast history and redo our entire democracy and pretend like they aren't a minority vis-a-vis the wealthy urban centers.
1
In June, 2016 United Kingdom European Union membership referendum, the gap between the “Leaves” and “Remains” was at the level of statistical error (52% vs 48%).
When an extensive referendum to the entire population can be won by only 4% of difference, they are playing Russian roulette and effectively split the society.
1
Brits I thought you were really smart, reasonable thinkers and analytical. I was trained as a physician in Britain in the seventies and always felt that they took great pride in their democratic process. How did they get blind sided by few people like Nigel Farage that the Brexit was orchestrated by few for their personal gains? Some of these people made over hundred million dollars by manipulating the British currency on the name of Brexit. They hired the pollsters to lie and misguide the British people on the day of the voting and spread falls numbers. A new referendum would be reasonable.
I find your proposition "pro-globalisation elites battle populists" overly dramatising and polarising as if these are only two sides in this situation. The fact is that this situation is a result of liberal democracy being threatened by autocratic manipulation being enabled mainly by computational propaganda in both of these countrys and the people defending them are not pro-globalisation elitist millionaires as you seem to insinuate but mainly anti protectionist isolationalist centrists, the main bulk of our citizens be they left or right wing.
This is an excellent obituary about the USA and GB. But it is not the end of democracy. The EU, Canada, Japan, Australia, NZ, South Korea, Mexico, South Africa and many other nations are still functioning along democratic lines.
1
"Both countries have seen the rise of populist entrepreneurs.”
The falsity of this statement shows the misleading nature of this entire article. Entrepreneurs are not populists.
Brexit may look essentially like an attempt to wall oneself off, but its real energy comes from British workers protesting a system in which their live are becoming harder. The EU was ostensibly formed to keep the peace in Europe, but from the beginning it has been used mainly to maximize the profits of the very wealthy. As an American I should go slowly in commenting on what ails the UK, but I think that the people of Britain would do best if they threw May (i.e the modern day Thatcher) out of office and put in an authentic and admirable leader, Jeremy Corbyn, a real populist. Then more of the wealth would go to those who produced it and that is why the Integrity Initiative launched its smear campaign against Corbyn.
3
The apparent synchrony in the politics of the two nations is all the more reason to entertain the possibility that underlying it is a single giant fraternity stunt. This hypothesis yields a prediction: the Washington Monument will reappear in the news after being closed for two years. It's supposed to reopen this year. Perhaps the announcement of its status will come on Jan 21, a significant Brexit deadline and, for that matter, the start of Trump's third year as president. That might be too cute...but you get the idea.
@Charles Packer FYI, January 21 is a holiday this year in the USA, MLK Jr., Day. Wouldn't be cute at all IMO, but Trump just might do something like that for his MAWA supporters.
This is what Russian wants, right?
So thanks to Boris Johnson and Nigel Farage in the U.K and Trump, the Republicans and the so-called libertarians like the Koches, Putin is laughing bare chested!
28
@Bos
Blaming Russia for Trump and Brexit, may be what the Establishment and its Media, the NYT et al want.
It is a useful distraction that also furthers the foreign policy goals of the Establishment and tries to redirect the anger of the growing number of citizens whose lives have worsened while the elite prosper fantastically.
This blaming does nothing to solve the very real life conditions that resulted in Trump and Brexit.
Do you have a clue about the huge and growing wealth/income inequality gap in the US and Britain?
3
@Bos
The common factors in both the US presidential election and the Brexit referendum were Facebook and social media manipulation by using social profiles to target fake news to voters.
1
@Bos
Trump may, to some extent, use immigrants as a scapegoat and engage in fear-mongering. But isn't this also the peddling of fear and other insecurities, present and past? Why are we acting now like Russia is the threat that it was pretended to be 40 years ago? It's threat to us was exaggerated back then and is fantastically exagerrated today for political purposes - both times. Life expectency and quality of life in middle America is declining. There is no Soviet Union. Russia has the GDP of Spain. In such highly politically-motivated times, is it wise for the average American to worry whether Putin is now 'pounding his bare chest'?
2
With Brexit madness in the UK and the border wall obsession of Trump the history seems to have come full circle turning Pax Britanica and the Pax Americana things of the past.
6
Just a point on terminology. You state, "Mr. Bannon likened what he said was the growing possibility that Mr. Trump will declare a state of national emergency to build his wall over the objections of Congress to the once inconceivable but now real possibility that Britain will withdraw from the European Union in March without reaching a deal with Brussels — a so-called hard Brexit." In usual Brexit parlance the state of affairs of leaving without agreeing a deal is called a no-deal Brexit, not a hard Brexit. A hard Brexit would be leaving with an agreement that allows the UK maximum independence from the EU single market and customs union (and thus minimal cushion from economic blowback). Hard Brexit is merely very bad in the opinion of many, but no deal is a national emergency!
10
There is at least one glaring difference between Britain and the U.S. Both governments are incompetent, but in the U.S. Congress is supine (except the new Democratic House, I hope) and is nearly split on pure party lines, while in Britain Parliament is trying to seize power back from the government, with both major parties widely divided and intensely arguing within themselves, not to mention the importance of smaller parties (non-existent in our Congress). In Parliament many of both major parties are opposed to Brexit, and many support the P.M.'s Brexit deal (and some Conservatives still demand a no-deal Brexit, which makes me wonder who butters their bread).
The second difference is about obviousness. Our Republican party is "whipped" (the technical Parliamentary term for forced into united voting; the way it is done here is different). Our Democrats are not "whipped" but our issues are so obvious that only Republicans can support the government (Trump et al.). This is our advantage. By contrast, the answer about Brexit is not completely obvious (though personally I see only bad to come of it).
8
@Thomas Zaslavsky This is such an insightful comment.
The saddest thing, especially for people in struggling democracies like myself, is how it exalts spin at the expense of objectivity, and idiocy and mendacity as the new normal for politicians.
The European Union started to come apart years ago, as the EU elite lost touch with their own nationals. It had a chance to realize the transnational project wasn't working when it had to be bailed out by the U.S. during the Balkan Wars. Instead it remained complacent, assuming that newer generations shared the perspective of those who, after World War II, nobly envisioned a transnational effort to stop European carnage.
Brussels and Strasbourg have been unable to deal with immigration, terrorism, and the disconnect between monetary and fiscal policy. And, being out of touch, they were surprised when these issues resonated strongly with many Europeans, especially those in the East, which had essentially no history of democracy and little with liberal values.
British leadership failed to grasp the alienation of its own people, leading to their shock at the vote for Brexit.
Meanwhile in America, the absence of unifying elements such as the Cold War and the Apollo Program, coupled with the centrifugal forces of increasing identity politics, created a population more and more adrift as to its own national identity and values.
Brexit should have been a clear warning to Democrats that elite understandings and calculations were terribly wrong. Unfortunately, they chose to ignore it. The result is the tragi-comedy of our current politics, our non-political Entertainer-In-Chief being the effect, not the cause (though definitely an exacerbator) of our present hostile dysfunction.
34
I see you are well informed and understand all the intricacies of Europe and between Europe and the US. Strangely this is not how the vast majority of Europeans think or see the world. The described current state is appaling in its simplicity and simple rethoric on both sides of the atlantic. That will only lead to near lethal self inflicted wounds. I can only hope that looking back from the future, this will turn out to have been only a very bad dream.
@Steve Fankuchen. Your analysis is incomplete. The EU as a trading Bloc is amazingly successful and has promoted years of peace without wars amongst countries as members. I am sure we can all think of other countries in the world that would benefit from the destabilization of the EU. You have also left out the criminal manipulation of the brexit referendum which is still being exposed - the National Crime Agency in Britain is investigating dark money anonymous donations used to fund the vote leave campaign -alongside the manipulation of over 3M people (who traditionally did not vote) via targeted lies on facebook. Ads (not seen by those who were likely to vote) referred to issues of interest that individuals had, which facebook had compiled via their advertising preferences. The ads were wildly anti-EU, factually inaccurate and, in many cases, out and out lies. This is the tip of an increasingly right-wing iceberg which has been attacking Europe and US stability. Key players appear on both sides of the pond.
2
@Steve Fankuchen
"It had a chance to realize the transnational project wasn't working when it had to be bailed out by the U.S. during the Balkan Wars."
Er, this peculiar trope, again...
The Yugoslav Wars (not the 'Balkan' wars which refer to something different) was nothing to do with the European Union. The EU isn't a military alliance and no EU country was a belligerent in the wars back then.
External intervention in the Bosnia/Kosovo theatre was initially by the United Nations and subsequently by NATO - neither of which is 'the US'.
The US is however 'credited' with insisting on the first ever use of NATO forces for military offence not defence and for failing to let European members of NATO take the lead in military operations. Usual Washington meddling and then complaining over the outcome.
Like many, you are completely flummoxed by the relationship between 'Europe' and the EU. The fact that a number of European countries - the UK for example - spent a great deal of time in Washington in no way translates to the EU asking to be 'baled out'.
At no time did the EU request help from the US in the Yugoslav wars.
2
A lot of "what is happening" but where is "why"? Pointing fingers at globalization and migration is just scratching the surface. For starters, old and well-established political and economic models which worked well for the large portion of society now work only for a tiny percentage of the population of developed countries. But no one wants to have that discussion.
61
A very relevant question.... the simple answer is, at leading in UK and I suspect to some degree in US, the years of austerity and pay stagnation eroding living standards, but more importantly eroding dreams in both societies. The UK hatred of others and racist xenophobia has its roots not in immigration as we’re led by the Right to believe, very few polled can give a reason that is supposed by facts, but the bogeyman syndrome of fear. Worldwide after the Great Depression those very conditions resulted in WW2.
2
@Valentin Voroshilov Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. And the group in America who LEAST wishes to have THAT "discussion" is the Democratic Establishment, as it would shine a light on their systematic abandonment of the middle and working classes in favor of the interests of Wall Street, Corporate America and the Democratic Donor base. Hence, the need to draw away our attention by constantly demonizing Trump and endless chants of Russia, Russia, Russia. What the dimwitted Democratic Establishment MOST fails to understand is that their steadfast failure/refusal to have the discussion you speak of absolutely INSURES the re-election of Trump in 2020. Truly, America deserves better.
2
Lately both Britain and America have managed to do the wrong thing after trying everything else, contra Winston Churchill.
8
"In Washington, Mr. Trump may break the impasse by declaring his emergency — a risky assertion of executive power that would be challenged in the courts but would enable the government to reopen. Either way, the fate of the United States will not hang in the balance."
That's a very optimistic view. Once the precedent is set that emergency declarations can be issued in situations that are clearly not emergencies (Trump's decision to wait before deciding whether to issue a declaration is proof that no emergency exists), we've opened the floodgates to presidents of either party using near-dictatorial powers to get around decisions by Congress.
17
@Barry Short -- The US has lived under a continuous declaration of emergency since before the Korean War.
A few years ago, this became a political issue. The law was changed requiring the President to re-certify those states of emergency every year or two. Like clockwork, all Presidents have ever since.
Our current laws only function by use of the emergency status rules built in. We've entirely lost track of that.
An older article explains: "The United States is in a state of emergency: 28 national ones and many more local. This might come as a surprise, but it isn’t new—this month marks the start of our 39th year in a continuous emergency state."
https://www.lawfareblog.com/emergencies-without-end-primer-federal-states-emergency
11
@Barry Short DJT will use his so-called 'emergency' as the foot-in-the-door for an ultimate declaration of supreme and permanent dictatorial authority. The 'emergency' will not be lifted - regardless of the courts - and will be expanded to supress the 1st Amendment, etc. With Mitch McConnell's blessing.
1
This is not a coincidence. The European Union started to come apart years ago, as the EU elite lost touch with their own nationals. The boys and girls in Brussels and Strasbourg, unable to deal with immigration, terrorism, and the disconnect between monetary and fiscal policy, were surprised when these issues resonated strongly with many Europeans, especially those in the East, which had essentially no history of democracy and little with liberal values.
Europe had a chance to realize the transnational project wasn't working when it had to be bailed out by the U.S. during the Balkan Wars. Instead it remained complacent, assuming that newer generations shared the perspective of those, who after World War II, nobly envisioned a transnational effort to stop European carnage. To its peril, British leadership failed to grasp the alienation of its own people, such leading to their shock at the vote for Brexit.
Meanwhile in America, the absence of unifying elements such as the Cold War and the Apollo Program coupled with the centrifugal forces of increasing identity politics created a population more and more adrift as to its values.
Brexit was a clear warning the Democrats and Clinton ignored that something in their understandings and calculations was terribly wrong. The result is the tragi-comedy of our current politics, our non-political Entertainer-In-Chief an effect, not the cause (though definitely an exacerbator) of our present hostile dysfunction.
8
@Steve Fankuchen -- "a clear warning the Democrats and Clinton ignored that something in their understandings and calculations was terribly wrong"
That warning for the US was not Brexit. It was when She lost.
And they don't get it, not at all. It isn't about Trump, it is about their failure to get it.
They could keep doing it. Don't do it again.
9
@Steve Fankuchen
I think that it looks more like both the US and the UK are under attack - the cold war didn't end, it was just replaced by an app. Social media has enabled Russia to undermine democracy while we're all on the phone.
The Balkan War though was mediated was it not by NATO, rather than EU? To that end the International Community has copious volumes of egg on its face.... if they had not rushed to recognise States which resulted from the breakdown of former Yugoslavia, much more politically was on the table. The EU has kept pretty much ... Peace on a Continent where two global conflicts originated, they helped broker the Belfast Agreement (1998). The US as a member of NATO filled its commitments wrt Balkan Tragedy, not bailing EU out as you suggest.
Trump has a plan. Hopefully it's not the same one he had for Trump Casinos (in all fairness, casinos are a notoriously difficult business to make money in, with 99.9% of casinos metaphorically printing money and definitely not going bankrupt, no matter how badly they are managed).
3
Trump is not competent enough to have a plan. At this point in his dementia, it is a day-to-day reaction to whatever comes his way.
Putin couldn't be happier. The E. U. is disintegrating piece by piece. Merkel will be off the stage soon. France and Italy are foundering. We are under the non-leadership of Putin's puppet who sows chaos at every turn. Despots and dictators are having no trouble doing the dirty deeds that they do because we no longer check their actions. Now he just needs to get rid of NATO.
49
Sadly I agree with everything you have written... “All that is required for Evil to triumph is for Good men to do nothing”.
1
The US and the UK have been synchronized since the days of Thatcher and Reagan, promoting unregulated capitalism and neoliberalism along with an aggressive militarism abroad.
These policies have led to bloated financial sectors, a decline of the real economies, unprecedented inequality and a reduction of social services and the infrastructure. It’s therefore not just a coincidence that Anglo-Saxon capitalism has also eroded democracy in both countries, but this is rather a logical consequence of these failed policies.
43
@heinrich zwahlen, why is capitalism Anglo-Saxon? I don't get it. Are you saying that only Anglo-Saxon countries believe in market fundamentalism? This is a meme I've seen before, but it doesn't make any sense, given the diversity of governments in countries populated by Anglo-Saxons.
1
@SandraH. Anglo-Saxon capitalism generally refers to unfettered market economies with a minimum of regulation, the kind of market-driven decision making practiced in the US and, to a lesser extent, the UK. It differs from the continental European model which takes into account social factors. In practice, this means, for instance, that in Germany, by law unions sit on boards of companies and in France, by law it's very difficult to lay off workers. Macron's efforts to import the Anglo-Saxon model is what has led to huge protests in France.
2
@SandraH. I‘m just talking about a specific brand of capitalism, I should have called it Anglo American actuaally.
1
Putin's dirty tricks come to fruition.
11
The parallel not mentioned is the revolt of poorer white anglo Saxon Protestants (WASPS), but their revolt ultimately is rewarding authority like Putin, and seriously eroding democracy.
While Ronnie and Maggie swooned them back in the 1980s, the conservatives then were paving the primrose path to 2008, and the uber concentration of western wealth among the top 1% (Richer wasps like the Koch brothers), the lower class WASPs in the US and UK fell further and further behind. Now to keep the lower class WASPS under the conservative clutch, a new demon has been perpetuated upon these lost souls: the immigrant, including any cultural weakening of white heteronormative Christian patriarchy.
None of this will end well, but I am certain that Putin of Russia and Xi of China are two happy dictators right now.
15
In the absence of good faith negotiations and compromise parliamentary democracy in the United Kingdom and divided limited power constitutional republic in the United States of America prefers peaceful governing gridlock and paralysis preserving the status quo ante as the best option. With the exception of violent civil wars in both nations their systems have worked.
2
@Blackmamba
That is exactly the opposite of what is happening in the UK now.
Theresa May has failed to engage in any good faith negotiations or compromise with the other parties in Parliament or the devolved governments. It has been her way or the highway from the get -go.
The Parliamentary status quo is in meltdown. The latest news is that a cross-party group of backbenchers is attempting to wrest control of the government (May) by changing the rules in the Commons so MPs could step in and avoid a no-deal brexit if her deal falls, which it is expected to do.
This is to avoid the catastrophe which will result from continued gridlock and paralysis.
You could add France were Macron is facing a popular revolt, that after a Xmas lull is gaining strength again
But let me get to the heart of the matter
" the changes wrought by globalization. Manufacturing jobs moved overseas, where labor was cheaper, while immigrants took both unskilled and high-tech jobs previously held by Americans."
That is immigrants willing to work for less.
As Paul Volcker RECALLED 'He wondered how many lectures and presentations he had sat through with economists “telling us open markets are wonderful, everybody benefits from open markets.”
Eventually, Mr. Volcker said, someone in those lectures would always ask, “What about that poor manufacturer in my town?” But that concern was dismissed too easily, with talk of worker retraining or some other solution far easier said than done."
And yet, Led Paul Krugman, these economist still refuse to acknowledge that their free trade theories (no job loss) were wrong,
Free trade lifts the salary in low wage countries and lowers it in high wage countries.
It has to , as in a world of free trade the wage of those exposed to it MUST fall to the global average
The global elite profited
The left behind, in France, the UK and the US had enough
When will the global elite understand this and hold the free trade economists responsible ?
13
@Woof, you say "Free trade lifts the salary in low wage countries and lowers it in high wage countries." That's true for low-skilled jobs (as acknowledged by Krugman), but what happens in most developed countries is that the population shifts to highly skilled jobs, and this part of the employment pool grows.
It's also true that Western European countries like Sweden and Germany have strong trade unions and strong labor laws that protect their workers. A major reason for the growing income gap in this country is the all-out assault against unions in the past few decades. In Germany union representatives are part of any decision to expand production into other countries, and they can veto a move.
18
Who wrote this piece?
"The Tea Party movement emerged, with core issues similar to those of Mr. Farage’s pro-Brexit U.K. Independence Party."
What? The Tea Party's issues were; a) black President, universal health care bad (ironic, given that most were on Medicare), deficits (under a Democrat - perfectly fine under a Republican).
If you want to say that Brexit/Tea Party aligned around xenophobia and racism, then OK - but just say that.
25
> Brexiteers love to compare their cause to America’s war for independence.<
Yeah, we had Lafayette, they have Putin.
14
The picture shot on a cold grey day of a shuttered Southend-on-Sea used, presumably, to link severe economic decline with a "strongly pro-Leave" vote is somewhat misleading. Southend-on-Sea is linked by high speed rail, and is in commuting distance, to the heart of London's financial district. It has a busy regional airport (also linked by rail) with direct flights to Copenhagen, Geneva, Milan and many other centers of commerce in Europe, and has an average house price of approx. $400,000 USD according to Zoopla. I make the point not on behalf of Southend's tourism industry, it already receives 6.4M visitors per year, but to illustrate the fact that the issue surrounding Brexit are probably not as simplistic as the article might portray them to be.
24
@Nigel
A very eloquent post. The declining seaside resorts of the UK are generally being revitalised, if they haven't been re-energised already, and the general perception of crumbling Victorian hotel facades, kiss-me-quick hats, lidos, gently decaying fairground rides and shuttered shops is outdated.
I think Brexit is fairly simple myself - a motivated and time-rich, racist and xenophobic boomer generation got out of their beds and voted for a UK that exists only in their minds. The younger generations stayed at home, much like in the USA, and then complained when the result was not what they wanted. Many people who did vote thought they were sticking one to the Tories, their austerity and their scary 'globalisation.' Thank you, Murdoch.
I would like my daughters to have the opportunity to study in Berlin or Slovenia, should they choose to do so. I would like them to be able to work and retire in France, Bulgaria, Spain or Finland.
Post-Brexit Britain may well see the return of those rusted old piers, the sad amusement arcades advertising themselves with only half the bulbs working in their signs, the shuttered cafes. The tanning salons, the bookmakers and the tatoo parlours moving into what used to be bookshops and family owned businesses.
Allegorical, of course, but we might be about to turn the UK into 1990s Southend.
17
@Zoe
Scotland's a bit far from English seaside resorts like Southend, Zoe. Ditto, Great Yarmouth, Margate, Skegness and many many others. Have you visited any recently?
Places like those are in decline because nobody wants them any more. Young people go on cheaper holidays to the Med or Africa. The 1950/60s model of Brits at leisure - beer, chilly beaches, rain, Bingo, dancing doesn't interest them.
Southend et al. used to employ a lot of people and they had alternative employers - farming, engineering, mining; types of work which have left the UK over the last 30 years. Maybe that's why they have such high levels of local unemployment now.
You didn't mention another thing. Costs are low in those areas. Which is why so many local authorities house large numbers of newly arrived non-EU migrants, successful asylum seekers and so on in places like Margate.
You can see why old folk dream of returning those coastal resorts to they 'heyday'.
5
Win for Russia: divide, discredit, degrade, disrupt, destroy.
18
All countries are economic competitors of the US, including the UK (consider the financial sectors of NY and London). That doesn't mean that they're not allies.
Americans love to complain about what they see as America's oversized responsibilities in the world. Well, if that is to be changed, then we need an institution like the EU that will eventually be able to take on a bigger role in the world. The individual countries of Europe are not capable of doing that on their own because, by themselves, they just don't have the resources.
14
@Purity of, what a strange response. The EU isn't an ally? The Western Alliance is an illusion? The Germans under Merkel are really fascists trying to dominate Britain? And there was no Russian interference in the Brexit vote? We know that Russia interfered with Brexit, just as they did with our election.
These sound like the kind of talking points that might originate in St. Petersburg.
16
@Barry Short
"The individual countries of Europe are not capable of doing that on their own because, by themselves, they just don't have the resources."
Absolutely right. Which is what makes the Brexit decision so silly.
Unless, you're Gavin Williamson, our Secretary of Defence, who's poking away at China in the S. China Sea and claiming that it's 'time that the UK re-took its rightful place on the world stage'.
Only about six months ago, the UK's Joint Chiefs informed the government that the armed forces had become so depleted that it was unlikely that our borders could be defended in the event of attack. Our borders - not operating around the world. Our borders... Facepalm.
1
This article completely omits the documented role the exact same Russian bots and troll factories played in electing Trump and the successful Brexit vote. And quoting Steve Bannon without noting that he was an executive with Cambridge Analytica, which used Facebook data given to Prof Kogan, a professor st BOTH Cambridge University and St Petersburg University to funnel disinformation to voters in both countries. Russia and CA were using the same data for the same purpose at the same time. You make it sound like it’s a quaint accident that the two countries are devolving in the same way at the same time, but it is part of a brilliantly executed plan.
33
@Lynn Blair-Indeed.
Don't over look Putin's role: "Russian bid to influence Brexit vote detailed in new US Senate report" - UK political system vulnerable to anti-democratic meddling via social media and ‘possibly illicit’ campaign funding, report says.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/jan/10/russian-influence-brexit-vote-detailed-us-senate-report
To improve on its Trump Campaign strategy, Cambridge Analytica teamed up with Leave.EU, the UK's largest group advocating for Brexit to help them better understand and communicate with UK voters. CA claimed, "We have already helped supercharge Leave.EU's social media campaign by ensuring the RIGHT messages are getting to the RIGHT voters online...." CA goes on to boast "whether you are trying to reach out to a voter, change hearts and minds about Britain's EU membership, or move product, the more you know about your target audience, the better you will be able to engage, persuade, and motivate them to act."
https://www.campaignlive.co.uk/article/big-data-better-donald-trump/1383025
11
NYT: Please do a story on what we as average citizens can do to help people affected by shutdown.
Obviously donate to food banks. But can we give Walmart, gas station or food gift cards to federal employees working without pay--like TSA workers? Or is it against the law for them to take gifts from public?
5
If the government workers put on yellow vests...this shutdown would end.
12
D'ya think this has anything to do with Putin? Nah, he wouldn't do that.
8
Thanks US and Britain!
Signed,
China, Russia, Turkey, Iran, Saudi Arabia, North Korea and all other thug nations happy to have two less controlling powers investigating us. Putin’s ploy worked so well! LOL!
25
The wall started out as a genuine concern for Trump, then evolved into an obsession, and now has morphed into something far more sinister: an excuse to destroy American government and its economy.
For that’s exactly what will happen if Trump refuges to budge, and the federal government remains shuttered for months on end. The institutions of government will dissolve, its employees will scatter to the winds, businesses large and small will go bankrupt, and the states will rush to form regional entities to fill the vacuum, entities that in time could evolve into European-sized nation states.
I’m neither paranoid nor conspiratorial by nature, but I do believe that sabotaging American government was part of Trump’s deal with Putin, in exchange for Putin’s help with the election. It was motivated by nothing more or less than their mutual hatred of liberal democracy, and their determination to replace it with dictatorship.
50
@Ron Cohen. The fact as reported first in the Post that Trump seized the interpreters notes and the FBI started an investigation that Trump might be a Russian agent (think about this!) supports your impression. I would add that the GOP has turned into a fascist party with extreme gerrymandering, voter suppression and voter fraud as exemplified in NC. And if they despite all of this lose they take power away from the incoming administration. The leader of the senate does not even consider bringing up a vote for a supreme court nomination by a duly elected president.
1
Missing from this article is Russia's role in tipping the scales.
26
The government is not merely shut down. The long held conservative goal of getting rid of the entire federal government has been achieved. He has NO intention of bringing it back to life. The wall is smoke and mirrors. We now get to rely on Trump's gut.
15
The problem with keeping "essential" employees on the job is that it has minimized the pain of the shutdown for the average citizen, allowing conservatives to proclaim that the shutdown is proof that a large part of the government isn't needed. What we need is a rule that ALL employees are sent home. Let's see how long conservatives would be happy with a world with air traffic controllers, food inspectors, Coast Guard protection, federal courts, etc...
6
@Barry Short and presumably Trump’s personal protection/drivers/pilots etc
1
As Nancy MacLean points out, neoliberalism slash libertarianism unleashed the rot in the US and UK, which has been duly exploited by the infectious diseases Murdoch and Putin. In other words, greed and racism are at the heart of this dysfunction, and must be remedied if these democracies are going to survive.
27
And the common element: They both began with a hate vote.
29
@Bradleydean
And the common element - the hate vote was facilitated by a few decades of government policies that favored the upper classes, at the expense of the middle classes.
10
In the case of the US, a sufficient number of people voted for the party that instituted those very policies that disadvantaged them in the first place that we got Trump. Explain that logic?
3
How soon we forget. Because of the fixation with Trump and his populist and economic nationalism rhetoric, most people fall into the mistaken belief that his is a philosophy of the fringe Right. It is not, and recent history shows this. When the World Trade Organization met in Seattle in 1999 riots - from the LEFT - broke out leading to an orgy of anti-globalism violence. The scene was repeated in Western Europe and in developed countries on numerous occasions. The Left saw globalism and the free flow of goods and services as a plot of the multinational corporations which exploited the masses for profit. And have we forgotten Bernie Sanders? A prime tenet of his campaign was the opposition to the TPP and NAFTA which he regarded as the cause of the evisceration of the manufacturing base of large parts of this country (sound familiar?) - his arguments resonated so well, Hillary had to back off and do a 180 on the TPP issue.
Populism and economic nationalism go hand in hand, and they find a home in both fringe right wing ideology and in labor unions and the fringe Left. The only question to be decided is which group will gain control of it.
2
No they’re not. Brexit is existential. The shutdown is politics.
6
Missing from this piece is the primary role of oligarch-driven economic and tax policies that are the real source of our economic angst and disparities. Conservatives on both sides of the Atlantic, enabled by their willingness to fabricate unsubstantiated claims, served their wealthy patrons at the expense of the middle class.
20
Re Bannon's "nullification" comment--has he forgotten that GOP had control of executive and also legislative branches for two years, confirmed many judges (with bare Senate majority, not 60) yet somehow did not make "the Wall" a priority? The priority was tax cuts for the very wealthy and judges to protect extreme wealth inequalities--populist themes were nullified by Republicans including Trump, truth be told.
56
@K Swain-Bannon may be hinting at something more sinister. The wall impasse and current U.S. government shutdown is likely a pretext to demonstrate that the country can manage with less government. The Trump-Republicans' tax reform/money giveaway favoring corporations and the wealthy--has shorted the government of much needed essential revenue; resulting in a $1trillion rise in the federal debt--per year. Because they can't openly cut SS and Medicare earned benefits to fund existing government and reduce the shortfall--Trump and his Republican enablers are cutting programs, services, and people--by underfunding government (IRS) and privatizing assets (VA, HuD, ACA, etc.). This is their cynical end-game and one reason to let the shutdown continue. The wall is a useful distraction to gin up fear and division, and keep people from realizing what's being done to their government.
14
@K Swain Yep, they were too busy killing Obamacare to scratch their heads and pat their stomachs at the same time.
1
It's really not surprising. Massive wealth disparity and 50% of the population barely scraping by makes a fertile recruiting ground for the far right, who will blame the problems on immigrants and foreigners so as to deflect the blame from woeful domestic governance.
If the UK and US seem to have similar problems at the moment it's because both have been following the right wing trickle-down, low tax laissez faire playbook and this inevitably ends in crisis.
43
If this is the case, why is France in turmoil ever excessive taxation? The UK and US are not the only countries in crisis.
1
Let's see, we got Donald. England got Brexit.
What's in common?
Both were targets of Russian interference, largely through social media manipulation of the public.
The Russian's Internet Resource Agency used Facebook data analyzed by Cambridge Analytics for attacks on both nations. The IRA also got polling data from Trump. Was British polling data shared with Russians by someone?
I ask, because we don't get foreign news like we used to.
21
@Carl Lee
The NYT is as good as it gets. The BBC news website looks more and more like one of those Gawker media clickbait blogs every day, but at the least the information is accurate. Al Jazeera is pretty good for foreign news and doesn't tend to outright lie like Fox, but it does put a spin on certain topics.
I get my news and analysis here now and, whilst I don't agree with some of the opinion pieces, they are clearly labelled as such. Can't ask fairer than that.
I'm English, living in Scotland, relying on an American newspaper for accurate reporting at home and abroad!
15
In your summary of the article you write that “pro-globalization elites battle populists.” Good to know that, as someone who abhors and opposes populism I am de facto a card-carrying member of the “elite”. I understand that in that paragraph you had to concisely summarize the article, but perhaps you could have done so without accepting the very logic (and language) of populists whereby if you’re not one of them and do not share their disregard for common decency and their disdain for what falls outside their immediate sphere of experience, you’re a snowy-flaky, pie-in-the-sky elitist out of touch with everyday reality.
17
Brexit, to weaken the EU, and installing Trump as US President, to weaken the US, were the objectives of Putin.
The UK Parliament and voters still have the opportunity to prevent this Kremlin directed move.
With the US Special Prosecutor's evidence, the US Congress can remove Putin's US President in 2019 before the voters do it in 2020.
Both Brexit and Trump's election despite of deficit of 3 million votes were achieved through concerted propaganda campaigns of lies and useful idiots in both countries.
Putin is using Trump like a chess piece (a Pawn) to diminish growing Chinese power, befitting a nation representing 1/6th of the planet's population and increasing economic prosperity.
When the UK and the US successfully repel Putin's invasion, the US, EU, Canada, China, Japan, Australia and India must band together to end Putin's global malevolance for good - once and for all.
33
@David Parsons-Yep. Not only did Russia use social media to covertly promote Brexit, but Russian officials also met secretly multiple times with Arron Banks. The billionaire British businessman funded the Brexit campaign with the largest political donation in British history!! Leaked documents revealed that the Russians discussed letting Banks in on a gold-mining deal that could have produced several billion dollars in easy profit AND Banks money came sources outside of Britain.
Sources:
https://www.npr.org/2018/07/19/630443485/reporter-shows-the-links-between-the-men-behind-brexit-and-the-trump-campaign
http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2018/07/trump-putin-russia-collusion.html
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/jan/10/russian-influence-brexit-vote-detailed-us-senate-report
8
The issue in the UK isn't just "globalism". Nearly 10 years of "austerity" and the ongoing dismantlement of the welfare state by David Cameron and George Osborne laid the groundwork for brexit.
22
@Joan, true, a lot of Brexit voters were misled into believing that there was a connection between EU membership and the austerity they were experiencing. And they believed--wrongly--that they were sticking it to the economic elites. Some have begun to realize that neither of these things are true. The only democratic thing for Theresa May to do is call another vote so that citizens can make a more informed decision.
6
@SandraH.
Could't agree more!
After the Brexit referendum and then Trump being voted in, I realised there is a new 'stupid' making its voice heard. But maybe what I consider 'stupid' are actually people crying out to be recognised. Whether they are right or wrong in their views remains to be seen. Possibly.
5
@Jon You were right the first time.
3
Very shallow and disappointing analysis.
The problems go well beyond the US and Britain. We just happen to be at the forefront of charting a desperately needed new course for the 21st century, but it is painful indeed to watch it unfold.
The fact is that "The West" is imploding as a consequence of the spectacular failure of globalization, which nobody--except everybody in the real world who lived it--seemed to notice. For decades.
Hence the political turmoil all across Europe, from the utter humiliation of corporate media darlings Macron and Merkel, to Italy, Poland, Hungary, and let's not forget about the catastrophe in places like Greece, even though it's not polite to bring it up.
The root causes here and in Britain were Reagan, Thatcher, Clinton, and Blair, who collectively methodically dismantled their middle classes and gave rise to the raw anger we are witnessing.
The reckoning has only just begun. The next demagogue to come after Trump may actually be competent, and we may very well find ourselves nostalgic for his sheer incompetence.
And Bannon is on fire, and is light-years ahead of this newspaper and its readers in grasping this moment in history. He took Zanny Minton-Beddoes apart in an "interview", and same with David Frum, and the Really Smart People at Oxford.
It's remarkable just how quickly the "establishment" is collapsing, and how easy it is to expose them when you don't have people like Charlie Rose or Fareed Zakaria lobbying softballs at them.
26
@TB
Completely wrong analysis. It isn’t the poor in the rest of the world that’s to blame but the very rich in the West who have duped the poor in their own countries to vote against their own self interest by demonising foreigners. The US has never been richer but all the gains of the last 40 years have gone to the already wealthy. That’s what’s driving the unrest but with analysis like yours lifted straight from Fox News those now disadvantaged will never blame those actually responsible for their plight.
11
@David
Where exactly did I blame the poor in the rest of the world?
And I wouldn't watch Fox News if you paid me, but I have a feeling they still worship Reagan, and aren't calling him a root cause of the collapse of the American middle class.
You're quite right that the winners of globalization were the wealthy. That's why it failed, and why the developed world is in turmoil. But the middle and working classes-black, white, Hispanic, and Asian-American-had no choice but to vote against their self-interests for decades, because they were betrayed by Republicans and Democrats alike.
And did you miss the part about Trump's "sheer incompetence"? Is that Fox's editorial position now? Laughable.
4
@TB, you think that Trump is charting a "desperately needed new course?" Could you please let the rest of us know where he's going? Does he know?
Interesting that you think Bannon is "light years ahead" of the New York Times and its readers. My impression is that Bannon is a figure straight out of the 1930s. We've seen Steve Bannon's act before, but it used to be dressed in a brown shirt.
1
Most Americans don't want the wall, but but these two reporters have decided it's a "populist project", for the sake of this article?
And since when is objecting to government policy which puts you into direct wage competition with Chinese and Mexican workers deemed to be "anti-globalization"? Our professionals have insulated themselves from these global market pressures, so wage competition would appear to be a class, not a "free trade", issue.
8
It’s hardly paralysis. Most Americans are not affected at all.
2
@Jackson
Ok so if it's not hurting you or your family members then all is well. Heaven forbid the Air Controllers walk out so most of the plans no longer fly (the military A/C's are no longer an option like to Ronni's time). Midwestern farmers may go bankrupt, National Guard members will have to return home to their jobs if they have one - bye bye Southern border control, The garbage pile up in DC will make that city uninhabitable, so Congress & pretzel Donald will meet on an Aircraft Carrier... you want more predictions ...? Mr. Jackson will not run out of impractical solution however, thanks man!
1
They're not affected because so many employees are forced by law to work even though they're not getting paid. Let's send home the air traffic controllers and see what happens, shall we?
@Jackson Stop the slavery of making people work without pay and see if you aren't affected.
Britannia and its eldest daughter often make mistakes together: Thatcher and Reagan, Blair and Bush, Brexit and Trump. There’s something almost fateful about this relationship.
One cannot underemphasize the outsize importance of immigration and cultural change (and the abandonment of anything even remotely approaching consensual politics on these issues by both the right and left) in both countries’ radical swerves to the right. But it is interesting to note that the two countries that went furthest in dismantling the post-war welfare States and consensus (unfinished as the American one might have been) are also the same ones most polarized and making painful lashes out at the world and themselves.
Thatcher begot Blair and Brexit. Reagan begot Bush and Trump.
Sometimes, even mistakes done 40 years ago will still come back and bite you.
Hopefully, the UK&US might learn something from this, but I’m not holding my breath.
129
@Un Laïcard
Excellent perspective. Enjoy having the big picture from those over the pond. Thanks.
14
@Un Laïcard
Have you heard the news about the Yellow Vest protests?
Or the implosion of the post-WW II traditional political party establishment in France that enabled Macron's election over Le Pen and the National Front's "radical swerve to the right", even though he had the support of less than a third of the French people?
Sounds like things are pretty "polarized" in France to me.
And it's laughable to suggest that France of all places doesn't have any problems with "immigration and cultural change".
And you're aware I'm sure that Macron will be systematically dismantling the welfare state in France over the course of the next 12-24 months, starting with pension reform.
And he's going to make France a Startup Nation!!! Hint: the welfare state is officially over.
America is struggling right now. But we'll figure this out.
But you seem oblivious to the fact that France is in for extraordinarily difficult times.
The "French way of life" is over. Forever.
Hopefully France, too, will find a way forward in the 21st century.
But, sadly, I'm not holding my breath.
4
The French political climate has never been set in stone. The right-wing party hasn’t been consistently the same for more than a decade since... the Third Republic.
I also never claimed that France wasn’t experiencing significant changes either, we clearly are (though not from the gilets jaunes, who are politically irrelevant as a faction of their own), as are Germany, Italy, Spain, Sweden, and everyone else.
But I did say that we aren’t the ones who veered to the most extremist options, and that we aren’t the most polarized. Categorically, that is true.
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Both great examples of regular people voting for things to be done and political leaders, politicians and those used to manipulating the refusing to carry out with requested and voted on policies.
The press repeatedly seems to want to take the side of politicians and established government entities that have not been successfully managing budgets or responsibilities for 30 years (both US and UK). Debt, abdicating to communist China, trade and environmental policies that destroy US industry, failed policy, removal of fundamental rights of citizens, loss of morale Christian values that built their countries and lack of growth for real working people. All things modern democracies should have as a priority. Same reason France is currently has weekend Riots as a regular routine.
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@Confussed, we had an election in 2018, and the vote was decidedly against Trump's phony wall. Democrats are doing exactly what we elected them to do--stop the vanity spending. Obviously Trump can't successfully manage a budget--he can't even keep the government open. He adds $1.9 trillion to the national debt with a tax cut for himself and his friends, then submits annual budgets over $1 trillion. The only thing he's trying to do for (?) you is gut Medicaid by executive order. Hopefully, he won't succeed.
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There's a huge difference between BREXIT here in the UK and Trump in the US. BREXIT isn't new, it's the result of more than 40 years lies and deception by British politicians and our gutter press, combined with a lacking education system which doesn't teach pupils the how the EU really works and how it really impacts our lives, and that the EU is a democratic construct and that people can vote for their representative. But then we don't teach pupils the horrors Britain did when it was still conquering and plundering other countries. So now when people are dissatisfied by actions that are completely down to the national government they let themselves get distracted by the "blame the EU" bozos, and here we are. Instead of punishing our failing government, we're punishing ourselves.
Britain is not a democracy. We don't even have a written constitution, and are ruled by a group of unelected rich guys (House of Lords).
America took the wrong turn, but it will quickly correct course again. For Britain, this will be a lot more difficult, and will take decades.
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@Wurzelsepp The current Trump platform is the fruit of 40+ years of lieing and deception about economics by the GOP and their various think tanks. There has been a multi-decade effort on both sides of the Atlantic to dismantle the middle class and enrich the plutocrats. Putin just tapped into this.
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@Wurzelsepp - Britain is not ruled by the House of Lords, and hasn't been since 1911.
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@Wurzelsepp, The Uk has been on a steady decline for close to 100 years now.
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Is it possible that Russia is behind both Brexit and the choas happening in America? As I see it, the greatest benefactor in all this is Russia via disruption of the Western alliance. The Western Alliance can easily stand up to Russia, China, the Middle East, etc., but individually, Western countries are extremely vulnerable to enemies within and without. The Western Alliance needs to be vigilant, stay together, and strengthen its unity.
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@WV Russia gains much from Brexit and Trump. Both Trump's US and Brexit Britain are turning their backs on the EU and a weak Europe is just what Putin and Russia want. Also, bonus points for the distraction of the US and UK from other world events such as the Syria and Saudi Arabia whilst Russia fills the void!
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Since the Leave campaign has already been found guilty of inappropriate use of funds in a U.K. Court and has been given the maximum financial penalty possible, they accepted around £8M approximately $10M, from sources outside UK, I would think that this indeed fits with Putin’s destabilisation techniques.
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@WV
Russia is merely exploiting and exacerbating cracks in the alliance and weaknesses within western democracies. Unity of purpose and unity of action is the only effective response. The same applies to China. I fear Britain cannot afford to withdraw in "splendid isolation" from European affairs, lest it becomes relegated to some antechamber. Let her sail, she will eventually return to harbour.
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