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Sunday, June 26, 2016

On What Planet Are They?

This is the planet Earth.  I say that because after reading some of the commentary on Brexit, I started wondering on what planet a few of the commentators were living.  In the last two days, I've read that Brexit is the reemergence of Nazism in Europe, that it is the triumph of homophobia and racism, that it means the end of Western civilization and that it is the harbinger of World War III.  Really, these people need to sit quietly for a few minutes and breathe deeply.  They've lost their minds, or at least it seems that way.

There have been some rather unintentionally funny responses to Brexit.

1.  There's the far left response (which I call the Democrat response).  A group of Labour members of Parliament are pushing for that body to ignore the will of the people expressed in the referendum and to vote to remain in the EU.  I call it the Democrat response because these members of Parliament remind me of the superdelegates who locked in Hillary Clinton's nomination even at a point when she was regularly losing primaries to Bernie Sanders.  The elites were telling the common people, in essence, that they don't give a damn about what those common people think.

2.  There's the activist response (which I call the #NeverTrump response).  These are the people who have immediately started a petition for another vote on the question of Brexit.  It may have taken years to put together the first referendum, but these folks want the government to immediately order a second vote even though there is no reason to believe that the result would be any different.  I call it the #NeverTrump response because it reminds me of the totally futile response of the NeverTrumpers after Donald Trump clinched the nomination.  Maybe these Brits can get David French to come over and lead their movement.

3.  There's the name callers.  These are the folks who after Remain lost decided that all those who voted for Leave were evil and started calling the majority of their countrymen racist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamophobic, and even misogynistic.  It was this group that said Brexit was the resurgence of Nazism in Britain (although I don't think Nazism got a very good reception in the UK in the 30s and the 40s.  This group spends too much time on Twitter and other social media.  They've learned that the best way to respond to anything you don't like is to defame anyone who agrees with that position.  It is perhaps the worst result of social media for our society.

4.  Then there are those who use Brexit to explain too much, way too much.  This includes all those pundits who have now told us that the Brexit vote is a sign of how the US presidential vote will turn out.  What utter nonsense.  I don't think it is an exaggeration to say that at least 80% of likely voters in the US presidential election could not tell you 1) what Brexit is; 2) which side won the Brexit vote; 3) what Trump and Clinton had to say about Brexit prior to the vote; and 4) what impact, if any, that vote will have on the USA.  Brexit may explain certain trends in British society; it means next to nothing about the USA.

Look, the Brexit vote is a major development for Britain and the maintenance of self government in that country.  It is important in Europe, especially if other countries follow suit.  (By the way, my favorite is the movement in the Czech Republic which is being called "Czech Out".)  It will have very minimal effect in the USA.

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