Dear American and British liberals: Why did Trump and Brexit happen to you of all people?

[Patine]

I merely accepted the premise for argument's sake.



Anyway, let me summarise the input so far.
Generally i feel we have replies that fall into five categories:

1. metatron is an evul boi
Patine voiced a sentiment to such effect.
Of course this may be causally related, seeing how it is obviously plausible that i am in fact Russian troll in Putins basement, i may have personally interfered in 2016 Presidential Election.
That's what evul bois do, after all.
None the less this appears to be an unsatisfactory and incomplete explanation.


2. The premise is bunk.
English Edward voiced such a sentiment. Of course he's an evil Brexiteer so most of you probably wouldn't want to entertain the possibility of agreeing with him.
Cudos to AQ for being, well, an AQ.
@GoodEnoughForMe also appeared to lean in that direction, though.

​

So you disagree with the premise that a universal sexism and racism in what is commonly called the "west" caused the phenomenon of which Trump, Brexit and all the populist movements that fell short are mere facets of?

Earlier you blamed - in part - the electoral system.
Or is it that folks in Sweden and France and Canada and Germany are just as racist and sexist and it's merely the election system restraining them?
How does that work for Canada?


3. Bad electoral system, bad bad electoral system (or two party system)
This idea has been endorsed by @AmazonQueen @Owen Glyndwr @Hrothbern @Phrossack @mitsho (probably more, i apologise if i failed to mention you).

I see some problems with this argument:
For one the UK had a third party in government...quite recently. Canada had a third party in national government... *crickets*

For another... here you appear to say more parties are good. But for the longest time there has been scepticism about multi-party systems and proportional representation for exactly that same reason.
In no small part these arguments were caused by some other politician taking over that other place that had proportional representation and enough parties, sort of s a result of an election despite very much not getting a majority of the vote.
He was not well known for grabbing women's parts or fat shaming beauty pageant contestants. But certain people compare Trump and him anyway.

Anywho, point being: What is it now? Many parties? Few parties? Has somebody talked to the Canadians by now to ask them whether the existence of the NDP has saved them from fascist takeover or whether they are in the middle of one?

Btw: You keep getting back to the minor Ford, beta Ford, ersatz Ford... damnit i'm no good at this.
Anyway, the guy.
Ontario.
I see a tiny problem there too: Because it was clear very early that Premier Wynne would crash and burn in dramatic fashion. And for the longest time the NDP actually having a shot sounded like a far-fetched idea. And for the longest time it was all but a foregone conclusion that the milk-toast, gullible, hypocrit, flip-flopper mainline conservative dude would be the next Premier.
But instead they got Ford.
How did that happen again?
Ford didn't storm the proverbial castle with torches, forks and maga hat bros to dethrone that mainline conservative, did he?

​

4. They both have very dysfunctional press
@MaryKB spoke on that point. @brennan may have implicitly endosed the idea. And some of the the persomns in the former category credited the idea as well.

Oh, right.
For decades there was this tabloid newspaper in the UK; it was the highest selling newspaper in the world outside of Japan (Japan is weird, you heard it here first); and it was a paper so populist, so mean, weilding such awesome power that it would be the template for an institution just called "The Paper" in dystopian - very boring - novels that schoolchildren would be tortured with long after the actual "paper" had shrinked to the size of something as puny as the Sun.
Oh no, that was that other UK, the one where all the refugees went.


5. Something about nostalgia
@Hrothbern and @Derrick CB spoke about that.
I find this idea interesting and potentially convincing. It needs some flesh on the bone though: What is it that the US and UK are nostalgic about? Well, France had an empire. All sorts of points may be made about the history of the Netherlands and Germany. I'm sure you can see how this gets complicated.
What makes US and UK nostalgia so toxic?​

In any event i am thankful for you sharing your thoughts and i hope to hear more from you on this.
I have to state though that your answers don't appear too polished by frequent use; and i have to correspondingly restate my curiosity as to why this rather intuitive question has attracted so little attention and isn't subject to some set of properly overused talking points.

It's such a simple and obvious question:
Why you?

msnbc and channel 4 should have bored my brain out of my skull with a grand unifying theory of an answer by now.

How about this one - and a real poignant one. This thread has lost all real coherent point and message, and probably never had one, but is very likely just incendiary ****-disturbing and unnecessary provocation, likely to sound edgy and capitalize on the worst debunked myths, urban legends, bad stereotypes, and collective mass hysteria in the modern zeitgeist by the thread starter.

 

[AmazonQueen]

I refer you to my list.
Also check the end of this post on Le Pen.

I don't reference my own posts solely for vanity.
Have a look at the map of the second round results.
You could split France into these regions, call them states, do EC and Le Pen gets...
[insert Wonka meme]
Curious.

Oh and never mind their actual highest results in state elections (like we care what easterners do, right?) the moment everybody was really pooping their pants was the BW state election in spring 2016 when everybody was still in that momentary lapse of reeason...
...you know:

You know. Spring '16. *smirk*

Anywho: BW election, feces in all them pants.
Let's fptp that real quick:

Spoiler :

Ouch.
You're looking for that bit of blue there, btw.

(Mannheim I... damnit SPD, you had one job!)



Ok, some of that is fair. Fair-ish.
Like, i'm giving you Brazil... maybe.
But then... fascism in Latin America (more at 11), that's really what you want to go with?
And PiS is new? Like, they were totes sane five or ten years ago?
Not saying they haven't whigged out more, but... really?
And all the other groups mentioned stagnated, lost, gained some pathetic 2.47% or whatever it is in any individual case.
Germany now has cooks too. Ok.
Le Pen got what? 21% in that first round you found so significant and 18% in 2012?
Her father, who was a cook, unsellable and roughly a thousand years old got 14.4 and 15.0 and 16.9 and finally 10.4.
That's '88, '95, '02 and '07.
In '02 those 16.9 got him into the second round, which he lost by the width of an enormous polling error, like his daughter.

Tell me again how this is all part of a recent and swift phenomenon of ethnic nationalism taking over the world!

Oh, come on now.
The mainstream parties in France had no answer to Le Pen so Macron was called in.
Atm he couldn't win election as a dogcatcher in France and the once mainstream parties are nowhere to be seen so wheres the opposition to Le Pen coming from next time?
In the meantime Italy has a coalition that includes neo-Fascists.
In Germany the news is brighter as Merkel has seen off challanges to her leadership but there are plenty in the Christian Democrats who favour indulging the ultra-right rather than seeing them off as she has.

 

[AmazonQueen]

You do recognize the incompatibility of populist and corporatist, correct? The right cannot be both.

J

True but as in von Papen thinking he was using Hitler the corporatists can think they are using the populists.

 

[onejayhawk]

True but as in von Papen thinking he was using Hitler the corporatists can think they are using the populists.

Not in USA. These days the many of the corporatists are also liberal, particularly in tech--Microsoft, Apple, Google, Facebook, etc.

J

 

[AmazonQueen]

Not in USA. These days the many of the corporatists are also liberal, particularly in tech--Microsoft, Apple, Google, Facebook, etc.

J

Less so in energy, and didn't we see energy in the form of Tillerson trying to work with Trump, until they realised hes uncontrollable.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

Or is it that folks in Sweden and France and Canada and Germany are just as racist and sexist and it's merely the election system restraining them?

How does that work for Canada?

This wasn't addressed to me, but I don't suppose @MaryKB makes a habit of reading the CBC website and comments.

Sad to say, there are a lot of racist and sexist people in Canada, and far too many of them crawl out of the woodwork on topics like indigenous issues, Syrian refugees, asylum seekers, and whether or not women deserve a place on the money or being acknowledged as patriotic in the national anthem.

There's an article today that points out that the first wave of Syrian refugees accepted in 2015 will soon be eligible to apply for citizenship. The right-wing commenters are taking the stance that the only reason they were accepted as refugees in 2015 was so Justin Trudeau could count on their votes in the 2019 federal election. These people are trotting this out as one of the reasons we've been so lenient with the migrants and asylum seekers coming here from the U.S., as well. Of course it doesn't occur to them that only citizens can vote, and most of the asylum seekers won't be accepted to stay here, let alone become citizens.

As for elections/the electoral system, there have been quite a number of candidates from all parties booted off the ballots/out of their parties when they're found to have made racist/sexist FB posts or tweets.

I honestly have no idea how the election will turn out next year. In 2015 Justin Trudeau's campaign promises included doing away with FPTP, but when the all-party committee didn't agree to recommend Trudeau's favored method, he did a minor cabinet reshuffle and tasked the new minister in charge of this issue to make a statement saying that nothing would be done because "no consensus was reached."

That's a betrayal of everyone who voted Liberal based on that campaign promise. Those people will not forget, and I suspect that those among them who would normally have voted some other party may well return to their former parties. He will lose votes because of this.

Bad electoral system, bad bad electoral system (or two party system)

Canada had a third party in national government... *crickets*

I'm unsure of the point you're making here. Are you referring to the NDP being the Official Opposition from 2011 to 2015? We've had other parties in that position, such as the Parti Quebecois briefly having the bizarre privilege of being Her Majesty's Loyal Opposition (back when the Progressive Conservatives and the Canadian Alliance were still separate parties before the latter hijacked the former and renamed itself as the Conservative Party of Canada).

Has somebody talked to the Canadians by now to ask them whether the existence of the NDP has saved them from fascist takeover or whether they are in the middle of one?

There hasn't been a day since the last election when someone on CBC.ca hasn't referred to Justin Trudeau as a dictator of some sort. Yes, "fascist" has been thrown around. But the people doing that have mostly been Reformacons and provincial Conservatives (UCP in Alberta; our old Progressive Conservative party no longer exists), whining about women on the money, women not being excluded by the anthem, schools in Alberta are no longer allowed to discriminate against LGBT students (although Catholic schools are still free to discriminate in their hiring practices), faith-based non-profits being required to uphold the Charter when seeking funding to hire students (ie. they can't use federal funding to hire students to promote anything against the Charter), federal Liberal MPs being required to uphold women's reproductive rights when voting on bills that could negatively impact those rights (the Reformacons rant that this means that Justin Trudeau is in favor of forcing women to get abortions, which is nonsense), etc.

Were the women who were against universal suffrage going against their own self-interest? No, it was their wish, their desire, to stay out of the political sphere, to be in a position of subjugation essentially. You can argue that that is stupid, which I would agree with, but it's still their self interest.

If they wanted to stay out of the political sphere, all they needed to do was stay home and mind their own business. I have zero respect for someone who chooses not to vote yet rants that I shouldn't have the right to vote either.

 

[Patine]

There hasn't been a day since the last election when someone on CBC.ca hasn't referred to Justin Trudeau as a dictator of some sort. Yes, "fascist" has been thrown around. But the people doing that have mostly been Reformacons and provincial Conservatives (UCP in Alberta; our old Progressive Conservative party no longer exists), whining about women on the money, women not being excluded by the anthem, schools in Alberta are no longer allowed to discriminate against LGBT students (although Catholic schools are still free to discriminate in their hiring practices), faith-based non-profits being required to uphold the Charter when seeking funding to hire students (ie. they can't use federal funding to hire students to promote anything against the Charter), federal Liberal MPs being required to uphold women's reproductive rights when voting on bills that could negatively impact those rights (the Reformacons rant that this means that Justin Trudeau is in favor of forcing women to get abortions, which is nonsense).

A great quote for everyone, not just @Valka D'Ur whom, I'm directly responding to by means of quoting, by an London Times Columnist on politics back in the '80's.

"If a world leader has never been referred to as tyrant, dictator, despot, self-made-monarch, cult theocrat, Fascist, Nazi, Communist, militarist, Imperialist, or directly compared to an infamous historical example of such, no matter whom has made such a public comparison and how true it actually is, that leader has accomplished and achieved nothing of note, done anything for their nation that pushes changes or needs to be done, nor has inspired strong feelings in anyone."

 

[Gori the Grey]

who

 

[Patine]

who

It was written in the '80's. I read it referred to in the early '90's. While I kept the quote itself, and that it came from the Times, you'd have to give a few days for me to re-dig up the specific columnists name.

 

[Old Hippy]

Oh my, your post just doesn't seem to make a lot of sense to me. You do understand some people work against their own self interests, right? Like, do you feel because some Frenchmen cooperated with the Germans, that made their occupation of France during world war two okay? Or do you feel "Uncle Toms" meant slavery was not oppressive to African Americans? You do know some people will collaborate with oppressors to get some benefit for themselves by selling out others, right? And just because some homosexuals, women, African Americans, or other minorities support legislation that curtails peoples' rights, doesn't mean that's liberty, you know what I mean? Republicans want to make laws that restrict peoples' personal liberties, and there's no way you can say they're the party of personal freedom, they're exactly the opposite, and it doesn't at matter who they get to voice support.

''You do understand some people work against their own self interests'' quick better ban Milo and Candice Owens from talking to young people they are stupid and 'STUPIDITY 'might be contagious
The irony that Antifa is doing exactly what Hitler's brown shirts did in German Universities seems lost on most people... the new US youth activist movement...the alt lefts stormtroopers.for personal freedom...
'feelings' don't matter...I study history and do know some people will collaborate with oppressors to get some benefit for themselves by selling out others, .... especially how the Marxist intellectual socialists had to make Socialism respectable again after the Evil German left wing Socialism and the Evil italian left wing fascist socialism had given it such a bad 'feelings'... they simply said it was right wing and nationalism you know the evil Republicans... because the USSR never care about nationalism they wanted a new world order of no countries just the "party' where personal freedom reigns supreme as long as your not "STUPID'' and agree with their political views
they had their own form of 'banning' people who might work against their own self interest having caught 'stupidity'

How American race law provided a blueprint for Nazi Germany
Nazism triumphed in Germany during the high era of Jim Crow laws in the United States. Did the American regime of racial oppression in any way inspire the Nazis? The unsettling answer is yes. In Hitler's American Model, James Whitman presents a detailed investigation of the American impact on the notorious Nuremberg Laws, the centerpiece anti-Jewish legislation of the Nazi regime. Contrary to those who have insisted that there was no meaningful connection between American and German racial repression, Whitman demonstrates that the Nazis took a real, sustained, significant, and revealing interest in American race policies.

As Whitman shows, the Nuremberg Laws were crafted in an atmosphere of considerable attention to the precedents American race laws had to offer. German praise for American practices, already found in Hitler's Mein Kampf, was continuous throughout the early 1930s, and the most radical Nazi lawyers were eager advocates of the use of American models. But while Jim Crow segregation was one aspect of American law that appealed to Nazi radicals, it was not the most consequential one. Rather, both American citizenship and anti miscegenation laws proved directly relevant to the two principal Nuremberg Laws—the Citizenship Law and the Blood Law. Whitman looks at the ultimate, ugly irony that when Nazis rejected American practices, it was sometimes not because they found them too enlightened, but too harsh.

Indelibly linking American race laws to the shaping of Nazi policies in Germany, Hitler's American Model upends understandings of America's influence on racist practices in the wider world.

https://press.princeton.edu/titles/10925.html

interesting how a liberal blames all 'Americans' not the party of Jim Crow In his title....

you do know that the Jim Crow laws were Southern Democrat laws and what the democratic President was doing while the german lawyers were taking the reward and visiting the US after writing the Nuremberg race laws
''President Franklin Roosevelt expressed admiration for the Italian leader, and sent him cordial letters. In June 1933, Roosevelt praised Mussolini in a letter to an American envoy: “... I am much interested and deeply impressed by what he has accomplished and by his evidenced honest purpose of restoring Italy and seeking to prevent general European trouble.” In another letter a few weeks later, the President wrote: “I don't mind telling you in confidence that I am keeping in fairly close touch with the admirable Italian gentleman.”
http://www.ihr.org/jhr/v15/v15n3p6_weber.html

 

[Gori the Grey]

It was written in the '80's. I read it referred to in the early '90's. While I kept the quote itself, and that it came from the Times, you'd have to give a few days for me to re-dig up the specific columnists name.

No, "who" rather than "whom." Can't be a great quote if you misuse pronouns. Sorry. It's disqualifying.

 

[Ajidica]

'feelings' don't matter...I study history and do know some people will collaborate with oppressors to get some benefit for themselves by selling out others, .... especially how the Marxist intellectual socialists had to make Socialism respectable again after the Evil German left wing Socialism and the Evil italian left wing fascist socialism had given it such a bad 'feelings'...

I'm not sure what is worse, the fact you think Nazism and Italian Fascism were "left wing" or that you think socialism had to be made "respectable" again - nevermind that the UK elected a proudly socialist government while the war was still ongoing and de Gaulle left the French Fourth Republic because he thought there were too many socialists and communists in it. Further, the West Germans had two governments lead by Socialists (Brandt and Schmidt).

because the USSR never care about nationalism they wanted a new world order of no countries just the "party' where personal freedom reigns supreme as long as your not "STUPID'' and agree with their political views

I mean, you are not even wrong if you think the Soviets had no interest in nationalism. They didn't great all those SSRs because they really enjoyed making maps after all.

 

[Patine]

No, "who" rather than "whom." Can't be a great quote if you misuse pronouns. Sorry. It's disqualifying.

Oh, it's a grammar correction?

 

[Patine]

I'm not sure what is worse, the fact you think Nazism and Italian Fascism were "left wing" or that you think socialism had to be made "respectable" again - nevermind that the UK elected a proudly socialist government while the war was still ongoing and de Gaulle left the French Fourth Republic because he thought there were too many socialists and communists in it. Further, the West Germans had two governments lead by Socialists (Brandt and Schmidt).


I mean, you are not even wrong if you think the Soviets had no interest in nationalism. They didn't great all those SSRs because they really enjoyed making maps after all.

Declaring Naziism and Italian Fascism "left-wing Socialism" is a new revisionist tactic in the past several decades of ultra-nationalist, irredentist, racially/gendered/religiously/ethnically/linguistically hyper-conservative, scapegoating, and revanchist (often faux-revanchist) movements in many nations in the world today across numerous nations, who DO identify as far-right-wing, that they can "trick" the consensus into passing them over in popular judgement with association with fascistic movements by arbitrarily and brazenly deceptively declaring they're on opposite ends of the political spectrum.

 

[Lemon Merchant]

Moderator Action: Thread closed for review.

 

[ori]

Moderator Action: After reviewing this thread and the way it developed moderator consensus is to leave the thread closed.