For the past year, as an American graduate student studying in the UK, I have had a front-row seat to not one, but two, political movements which have dominated the global conversation in recent weeks. Back home, a real-estate mogul with little to no previous political experience defied conventional wisdom and is poised to capture the presidential nomination of the Republican Party, after conducting a primary campaign showcasing his penchant for bigotry and narcissism. And across the pond, I have watched Brits critically debate, and narrowly vote, to leave the European Union as of last Friday morning.
It is tempting to draw connections between the Brexit vote and the US presidential election, and many have done so already across three core rationale (here, here, and here). First, the voters of Leave and Trump appear to present an eerily similar demographic profile, as they tend to be older, white, less educated, employed or formerly-employed by industrial sectors of the economy, and living in historically center-left political strongholds hardest hit by the instruments of globalization, such as outsourcing, automation, and increased competition for work by immigrant populations. Second, it is also true that both campaigns have and continue to invoke a misremembered nostalgia to restore former glory to their countries, appealing to sordid nativism in the process. And third, like the Clinton campaign thus far, the Remain camp struggled to present their case to the British people, using negative economic projections for financial markets as a scare tactic, and fixating on the benefits of EU membership – such as reduced roaming rates in Europe and visa-free travel across much of the continent – that came across as tone-deaf to individuals who neither see nor realistically use them often in their daily lives. To the elites and the commentariat, the choice to remain was supposedly an obvious one, and the choice to leave represented nothing more than a primitive, irrational impulse rooted in hatred and stupidity.
But to write off 52% of British voters as morons and xenophobes deliberately ignores what may be the biggest implication of this possible inflection point in human history, as the world looks on to November. Brexit may very well forecast a Trump presidency -- it is simply too early to say. However, regardless of who may become the next American president, it is possible that the result of the EU referendum instead foreshadows what the two major political parties in America may resemble in the coming years. Faced with questions similar to Brexit, their impending political realignment could compel them to stake out opposing poles of an axis for and against globalization.
Consider the strange bedfellows of the Brexit issue, particularly in the US, as political outsiders found themselves pitted against the insiders of both major parties last week. Hours after the outcome was deemed official, Green Party candidate Jill Stein issued a statement asserting that the vote was a “direct result of the effects of neoliberalism” which has gutted the middle class and hurt society’s poorest. Libertarian candidate Gary Johnson hailed the vote as a public “rejection of crony capitalism” endemic to the EU. And Donald Trump likened his own candidacy to the choice made by the British people, who rejected “today’s rule by the global elite.” In contrast, President Obama, Secretary Clinton, and Speaker Ryan echoed similar, cautious sentiments about preserving the special relationship between Britain and America, and respecting the democratic process. Senator Bernie Sanders -- a politician who now treads a fine line between mainstream and outsider politics -- expressed concerns that “the global economy is not working for everybody,” before declining to take a side on the issue.
Both in the US and in the UK, Brexit was not an issue which broke across traditional political lines. Exit polling from voters, taken by Lord Ashcroft last Thursday, seems to agree; although about 25% of Leave supporters voted for the far-right UK Independence Party (UKIP) in the general elections last year, 35% of the them voted for center-left or left-wing parties, such as Labour and the Green Party. These figures tell the story of a neoliberal establishment fending off attacks from both ends of the political spectrum, rather than a battle between a liberal left and a conservative right. Some of these voters undoubtedly were motivated by xenophobia, but as I’ve experienced, others prescribed to arguments criticizing the overwhelming and inefficient bureaucracy of the EU. In the aftermath of Brexit, surprisingly little has been said about how the European Union is governed by an assortment of Kafkaesque institutions led by unaccountable, faceless administrators, or about the undemocratic evolution of the EU from a free-trade zone into an incomplete super-state, unrecognizable from the common market it once was when British voters supported their country’s membership over forty years ago.
The conversations around Brexit, in this regard, echo debates surrounding contentious issues like the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) and North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), rather than Trump. Already, multiple candidates in this presidential election have questioned the current role of NAFTA in the American economy, criticized the secrecy of the negotiations for the TPP, and proposed protectionist and punitive tariffs against countries such as China, Japan, and Mexico. As globalization continues to feature in our national political discourse, and spills into issues as diverse as Middle Eastern foreign policy and primary education, it isn’t difficult to imagine a coalition led by outsider figures similar to Trump, Sanders, Stein, and Johnson directly opposing ingrained establishment politicians found among both Democrats and Republicans today.
Globalization has forever transformed both local and global economic relationships over the past forty years, but in the process, it has painfully created two worlds in which we consume different products, form different habits, and relate to others only through their social labels. Already in the UK, younger people have taken to social media to lash out against Baby Boomers who heavily voted in favor of Leave, and hundreds of hate crimes have already been reported against foreigners across the country. Only merging these worlds back together, and taking a genuine interest in the narratives of globalization experienced by others -- not derision -- can progress a political conversation that is clearly here to stay.