Remember, if you had to boil down Britain's vote to leave, it's actually quite simple: "
#Brexit: A Referendum on Elites and Immigration."
Of course, that elite class includes all the leftist media's foreign policy intelligentsia, that part of the revolutionary cadre that does its agitation for the proletarian liberation from behind a desk.
I mean, seriously. I thought was was a joke when I first saw the headline, but it's not, which makes it even more hilarious.
From James Traub, at the über establishment Foreign Policy, "
It's Time for the Elites to Rise Up Against the Ignorant Masses":
The Brexit has laid bare the political schism of our time. It’s not about the left vs. the right; it’s about the sane vs. the mindlessly angry.
The issue, at bottom, is globalization. Brexit, Trump, the National Front, and so on show that political elites have misjudged the depth of the anger at global forces and thus the demand that someone, somehow, restore the status quo ante. It may seem strange that the reaction has come today rather than immediately after the economic crisis of 2008, but the ebbing of the crisis has led to a new sense of stagnation. With prospects of flat growth in Europe and minimal income growth in the United States, voters are rebelling against their dismal long-term prospects. And globalization means culture as well as economics: Older people whose familiar world is vanishing beneath a welter of foreign tongues and multicultural celebrations are waving their fists at cosmopolitan elites. I was recently in Poland, where a far-right party appealing to nationalism and tradition has gained power despite years of undeniable prosperity under a centrist regime. Supporters use the same words again and again to explain their vote: “values and tradition.” They voted for Polishness against the modernity of Western Europe.
Perhaps politics will realign itself around the axis of globalization, with the fist-shakers on one side and the pragmatists on the other. The nationalists would win the loyalty of working-class and middle-class whites who see themselves as the defenders of sovereignty. The reformed center would include the beneficiaries of globalization and the poor and non-white and marginal citizens who recognize that the celebration of national identity excludes them.
The schism we see opening before us is not just about policies, but about reality. The Brexit forces won because cynical leaders were prepared to cater to voters’ paranoia, lying to them about the dangers of immigration and the costs of membership in the EU. Some of those leaders have already begun to admit that they were lying. Donald Trump has, of course, set a new standard for disingenuousness and catering to voters’ fears, whether over immigration or foreign trade or anything else he can think of. The Republican Party, already rife with science-deniers and economic reality-deniers, has thrown itself into the embrace of a man who fabricates realities that ignorant people like to inhabit.
Did I say “ignorant”? Yes, I did. It is necessary to say that people are deluded and that the task of leadership is to un-delude them. Is that “elitist”? Maybe it is; maybe we have become so inclined to celebrate the authenticity of all personal conviction that it is now elitist to believe in reason, expertise, and the lessons of history. If so, the party of accepting reality must be prepared to take on the party of denying reality, and its enablers among those who know better. If that is the coming realignment, we should embrace it.
Funny, but notice how Traub has reversed the "party of accepting reality" and the "party of denying reality." Clearly, the reality now is that everyday people --- you know, the actually citizens in popular democracies --- have woken up to the lies of the corrupt elites. It's not "pragmatic" to keep telling yourself that all is well when half the EU countries are drowning economically and the other half is hellbent of importing the developing world's wretched of the earth. Regular voters know cultural suicide when they see it, and they're having none of it.
Thank goodness.
Here's the relevant entry to further explain things, "
#Brexit: Life-Orienting Belief System of Progressivism Shattered on the Rocks."
