the writing was on the wall
Gobsmacked. Shocked. Distressed. Mortified. Speechless.
Yes, of course we all are, but, in light of our own Brexit decision, should we actually be surprised? Trump is a self-aggrandising, smug, thin-skinned, bullying boor. He is almost everything that almost everyone is saying of him. For the office of President of the US he is inexperienced, unaware, incapable and ill-suited. But we knew that, and deep down, so did most of the people in the US and still they voted him in. The parallels between both outcomes are now lost on no-one: Joe Public voted for change.
Thanks to 2008’s financial crash and the subsequent period of austerity, the less well-off white/blue-collar majorities have faced stagnant wage levels, increasing inequality & insecurity and a perceived belief they were neither represented nor included within the state. Dulwich College educated, ex-commodity broker, Farage convinced us this was due to a Westminster elite cow-towing to an all-pervasive EU bureaucracy. Trump achieved this by blaming it upon a rigged financial system, a crooked political dynasty and inept trade deals. In both scenarios ‘change’ has been key, and in both no clear definition of this has been provided. Just change, that’s all that matters. Aside from the vacuous ‘taking back control of our country’, many are not even overly concerned by what ‘change’ may entail as they’ve already made their minds-up that, in any event, it can’t be any worse.
So, we are where we are: Brexit means Brexit and the next US President is a trigger-happy buffoon. The votes clearly highlight that a great deal of the respective populations feel disillusioned and disenfranchised. Brexit was a vote against both left & right and Trump’s victory is as much a rejection of mainstream republicanism as it is of Hilary Clinton.
Brexit will happen. Yes, the EU is an over-complex, labyrinthine behemoth that needed major reform, but we are no longer going to be involved in its determination. More’s the pity. The majority voted for it, and, within the system we live, this is as it should be. But it should not stop us asking what the alternative is going to be. We must continue to call on our elected representatives for more clarity on what the proposed changes are going to encompass. More jaw-jaw is the order of the day and we all need to be involved. We’ve a right to ask for that and it is only with our active participation that positive and beneficial change can happen for all. I do however remain highly sceptical that anything will be thus and we are indeed living through strange and worrying times.
Over the pond, what if, against all sensible & rational thought, his seemingly ludicrous ideas, actually work? What if Trump’s plan to greenlight massive infrastructure projects changes the dynamic of western economic policy? Behave! This is a president-elect who has mooted banning all Muslims; boasted about molesting women; has genuinely asked why nuclear missiles can’t be used as a first-strike measure; believes all Mexicans are bad men; has called for a trade-war against China; is set to build both literal and metaphorical walls a plenty; dismisses climate-change as a hoax and intends to “bomb the sh*t out of Isis.” Be careful of what you have wished for, America. I know I am.
